Absolutely ???
I am trying to figure out Twitter, and am giving it the old college try. If you don’t know what Twitter is, then
read this explanation before reading the rest of this column.
When I signed up for Twitter few months ago, I immediately encountered a problem. I only had one person in my address book using Twitter. So much for the old college try. Still, I pressed on and found
an easy way to sync my Facebook status with Twitter. In addition, with
this Firefox Add-On, updating Twitter was a cinch. Thus, I kept tweeting, but only did so to broadcast to my Facebook friends what I was up to. I decided to follow a couple people that wrote blogs or developed applications that I had used. I also began following
WordPress. I didn’t realize what this meant, but after several weeks I found out about an urgent WordPress upgrade through Twitter before I did through any other medium. So, I posted “upgrading all my wordpress sites to 2.3.2” on Twitter. I received my first response from
JimDuncan, who introduced me to
Automatic, a WordPress plugin that automates the upgrade process. Score one for Twitter.
Eventually, all of the resident writers of The Butter Room had an account, but only
Brian uses it.
Dylan and
Dave have barely touched it, and
Kevin thinks Twitter is good for absolutely nothing. Score one for Edwin Starr.
The diverse reaction to Twitter within The Butter Room seems to be rather normal. Like
crocs, Twitter is not for everyone. Many people
complain it’s a bunch of noise, thus a time suck. I can see that, but can’t you make the same argument for email?
I do have to agree with Kevin up to a certain point. If very little of your friends are using Twitter, then you won’t stick around and give it a try like I have. In addition, why should one use Twitter on the web with their network of friends if the existing online mediums of communications are just as good? It’s easy to shut the doors on Twitter if you only think of it as a means to communicate when you are sitting at the computer. The real power behind Twitter is how it extends beyond the web to your mobile phone. I for one want and need to spend less time at the computer. This does not mean that I want to be less connected, but the more I can stay connected away from my computer is a good thing. Especially since I work from home, I need to be get out, but at the same time I want to know the latest from the
Barack Obama campaign trail and the latest news about my beloved
Red Sox. Twitter is great for this. It’s 140 character restriction was built for text messaging. While I am on the go, I can find out immediately with very little time spent what Barack, the Sox, and my friends are up to.
I recently interviewed
Dr. David Parry, an assistant professor of Emergent Media and Communications at the University of Texas at Dallas, about the use of Twitter in an academic setting. Dr. Perry believes that “people often do not get the full benefit [of Twitter] because they are using it in a narrow way. The first thing to do is follow people you “know,” i.e. that you see, meet with, talk to, on a regular occasion, this builds in that
social sixth sense [Clive] Thompson talks about. The second is the ability to “push” Twitter to your phone. For me this is what separates Twitter from other
micro-blogging formats. Carrying a network of friends in your pocket, receiving messages while your are out doing your daily routine, this is where the value of twitter lies.”
Dr. Parry, as do I, realizes that the amount of text messaging might be too much for some people. Dr. Parry commented, “The one significant barrier to Twitter adoption it seems to me is the issue of the cellphone. Many of the power users of Twitter are people who sit at computers most of their day and have a Twitter client running (an application which updates your Twitter feeds constantly). But as I mentioned above the “killer” feature of Twitter is when you push it to your cellphone. Those not use to texting, or using their phones in this way are probably going to take longer to adopt the technology. There is also of course the issue of paying for texting, for many people their cellphone plans might handle some light Twitter use, but for me I need unlimited texting, so this is an extra fee. There are ways around this, like using a mobile browser on your cellphone instead, but this will already limit your population size.” While this might be a barrier to entry for those of us over 30, it won’t be the case for the
Millennials. In addition, you always have the power to ignore or unfollow someone or something that is making too much noise on Twitter. The act of unfollowing on Twitter is a lot less personal than the act of removing a friend on Facebook.
Dr. Parry’s point about this social sixth sense is an interesting one. I have yet to experience it, only because of my newbie status and the fact that I am just starting to get some friends to use it. But, I can see where Clive Thompson is coming from. Over time, I should be able to learn and know much more about my friends using Twitter. It is a window into their thoughts, actions, dislikes, and likes, which I don’t get in any other medium except the phone or in face to face communication. I don’t gab on the phone all day long, and face to face encounters with out of town friends continue to decrease as we all start to have families.
Dr. Parry shared with me how he observed this social sixth sense within his “Computer Mediated Communication” class last semester. As an official assignment, Parry asked his students to sign up for Twitter and follow their fellow students in the class. “One of the things I noticed early on when my entire class was using Twitter was how it altered the in classroom dynamics. Students had a much clearer picture of what their peers were doing when they were not in my class, and were thus able to think about the others in the class as people beyond that simple hour and a half of the classroom. Discussion was more productive, lively, and respectful than it had been before.” Dr. Parry went on to share, “For me, I work with a lot of students, both graduate and undergraduate whom I do not always see regularly. Following them on Twitter, and having them follow me I think gives each of us a reciprocal sense of what is going on. This is especially true with my graduate students, many of whom work and I would otherwise only see once a week. In the classes where not everyone uses Twitter I notice a significant difference between the students who use it and those who don’t. Not only in my ability to contextualize who they are, and how pursuing this education fits in their overall life, but also with respect to each other.”
Dr. Parry goes into more detail about how Twitter can be used in an academic setting on his website at
academhack.com.
Dr. Parry’s feedback really got me thinking about using Twitter in the work environment. So, I launched the
Twitter Experiment within
Business Bullpen. The four of us that make up Business Bullpen all work in different locations up and down the east coast. My first thought was that Twitter could be a less intrusive form of IM. While it’s too early to tell how the experiment will play out, I already know that this was a naive way of looking at it. If you can’t tell already from this article, let me put it bluntly: Twitter should not replace IM. It is used for a completely different purpose.
So, I went on a search for individuals that use it successfully in the workplace. This would give me some good insight on how Twitter could benefit Business Bullpen.
Brian Wynne Williams is the CEO of
Viget Labs, a web consulting firm based in Falls Church, Virginia. Viget has a staff of 30 with offices in Falls Church and Durham, North Carolina. The majority of his staff uses Twitter, but Williams indicated that it’s used “very informally”. He expanded, “I’d compare it to the casual conversations that happen in the hallways — it’s nice to know what people are up to, and to share what I’m up to. This is especially valuable considering we’re now spread across two offices (VA and NC).”
However, Williams cautioned me “against using Twitter as a formal communications method”. He went on to say, “First, I think it functions better in a fairly public setting (like a blog). Open accounts will let you benefit from the larger community by meeting new people, hearing about new things, and sharing your ideas with a broader audience. With that approach, though, you have to be more careful about what you tweet. There are plenty of “internal” things I’d never put out on twitter, just like there are topics I post only to our internal blog (vs. our external one). So, I think of Twitter as more of an informal communications tool where tweets aren’t too sensitive or important (i.e., you can miss a bunch occasionally). There are other tools for more private / formal discussion (we use
37Signals’ Campfire heavily).”
Ashley Edwards manages the Twitter account for
IZEA, a social marketing network that manages the world’s largest consumer generated advertising network.
IZEA uses Twitter as a marketing tool on a daily basis. Edwards explained that “it’s an opportunity for us to engage with our customers on a more personal level. We already have a fairly active audience in terms of our company blog(s) and message boards, but by using Twitter we’re able to connect with our audience on a more “conversational” level, via responses and direct messages.” The majority of IZEA’s customers adopted Twitter without issue because they are bloggers. Therefore, Edwards adds that Twitter “allows us to promote specific programs we want our customers to know about quickly. Things such as contests, promotions, regular features, new blog posts, etc. Information moves extremely quickly throughout the blogosphere, so as soon as it’s available bloggers want to know.”
Another use of Twitter
that is receiving a lot of press lately is by the press itself. Twitter has introduced a new format of political coverage in the race for the White House. Dr. Parry has been “following the debates and election results via Twitter rather than listening to the talking heads of network television.”
John Dickerson of
Slate Magazine,
Anna Marie Cox of
Time.com, and
Marc Ambinder of
The Atlantic are all twittering about the campaign. I contacted Mrs. Cox for this column, but I guess she was too busy twittering.
As I reviewed all of the feedback from Dr. Parry, Mr. Williams, and Mr. Edwards, I
got it. I agreed with all of their points and understood the value. I can see how it can be used as a marketing tool for
The Butter Room. Thanks to
Twitter Tools, a sweet WordPress plugin from Alex King, anyone who follows The Butter Room on Twitter will be informed immediately when a new column is published.
However, I am still finding my way on Twitter. Last month, I wrote that I did not see value in Twitter because
Tumblr was a more robust, but just as easy to use, micro-blogging tool. Then, I
interviewed the lead developer of Tumblr, Marco Arment. He outlined the difference between the two as, “Twitter isn’t for publishing, and Tumblr isn’t for sending all of your friends SMS alerts whenever you eat breakfast. Both services excel at completely different things. There isn’t much overlap.” I understand his point, which did include a slight jab at Twitter, and now see how both can be used for different purposes. But, I still get so much more out of Tumblr than I do Twitter. I’ll save that for another column.
In the end, I’ve yet to be impressed with the people who I follow that I do not know, such as Mrs. Cox. Maybe I am following the wrong people. Add to that, neither Mr. Williams or Mr. Edwards recommended any one individual to follow when asked. Instead they provided more general advice. As Mr. Williams puts it, “find people you care about and follow them, whether that’s industry leaders or just your old friends that moved away”. That’s exactly what I found thus far. The people and entities that I care about: my friends, co-workers, WordPress, Obama, and the Red Sox are all what’s keeping me on Twitter. So, Twitter … What is it good for?
Absolutely Something.
—-
If you so desire,
follow me on Twitter. Don’t forget to
Follow The Butter Room!
I’d like to thank my interviewees for their time and insight.
Dr. David Parry
David Parry is an assistant professor of Emergent Media and Communications at the University of Texas at Dallas. He studies how the transformation from an analog to a digital archive changes knowledge production and dissemination. By focusing on technology and language as a technology, he theorizes negotiations of the act of reading from print culture to the internet. After receiving a Ph.D. in English from the University at Albany in 2007, he joined the UTD faculty. He has taught classes in philosophy, literature, and new media. Currently he teaches courses on writing in the digital era, and the digital archive. His published works include writing on digital games and web technologies. His online material can be viewed at
www.outsidethetext.com and
www.academhack.org.
Brian Wynne Williams
Co-Founder and CEO of Viget Labs
Brian is co-founder and CEO of Viget Labs, a web consulting firm based in Falls Church, VA. Originally founded in 1999 to provide full-service teams to web startups, Viget’s services reflect the spectrum of needs of any online venture: strategic planning, user experience and interface design, custom application development, and online marketing.
The company now supports a staff of more than 30 with a remote office in Durham, NC. Brian maintains an active role in all major client engagements, where he leverages his background in software development, interactive design, and online marketing, as well as his more than ten years of experience in web consulting, to advise clients and develop innovative web strategies.
Ashley Edwards
IZEA, Inc.
IZEA, Inc. is a social marketing network that includes various properties. One of those properties is PayPerPost, the world’s largest Consumer Generated Advertising Network. The PayPerPost platform connects advertisers and Consumer Content Creators to deliver compelling marketing messages. The marketplace is fueled by the self-expression of bloggers, videographers, photographers, podcasters and participants in social networks. PayPerPost is easier to use than paid-search or display advertising and provides more powerful features.
I believe twhirl is so popular because the design is very similar to the AIM client and other 1.0 instant messaging apps. This creates an instant level of comfortability. Every time an activity occurs, you can receive a pop-up alert in the bottom right of your monitor. You can also set how long that alert should be visible. You can set the opacity, text font, notification method, refresh rate, and how the app should behave when minimized. You can also directly comment on other friend’s posts right within twhirl (very cool). One of the best features of twhirl is you can manage multiple friendfeed and twitter accounts. I realize this is probably only useful for the “super user”, but it should become more of a benefit now that twhirl has expanded with friendfeed.
