Twitter’s real time stream limits it’s value, the lack of archiving means information is lost for future users and your content is only seen by people who already follow you….whats the deal?
I spent part of this morning listening to Mitch Joel of Six Pixels of Separation, and a few of his colleagues go back and forth over the value of twitter. I was left surprised by the stance that Mitch took on the subject. (Listen to the MediaHacks Marketing Pod Cast here.)
At one point, he shared his frustrations with twitter, bringing up the following reasons why he thinks Twitter isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
His Three Points Against Twitter
1) Real time Loses Value – Mitch talks about the challenges of finding relevant information when the communication is real time, allowing users to focus on the last 50 or 100 tweets, while ignoring the vast amount of communications that have happened since your last sign in.
2) Not Archived for the Future – Without an archive that can be indexed and readily called upon, he questioned the value that those updates represent to future users
3) “Only Speaking to People Who Know Me” – The benefit of relying on Google for traffic generation over twitter (or Facebook) is that people are actually searching for information on a topic, giving a website or blogger the ability to be discovered based on what they have to offer to the searcher.
Why Those Points are Wrong
1) Twitter Offers Human Powered Search
The banter between his guests led to some great counter points to Mitch’s comments. One guest (I couldn’t tell you who, it was a rapid round table discussion), made the best point. Responding to the real time information stream concern, he said,
“That’s how conversations happen in real life..it’s like a billboard, you don’t sit and eat at the billboard, you eat at the restaurant. The billboard is the thing that let you know that the restaurant was there.”
He went on to make the point that information and tweets shared on twitter are stored by twitter users, just like real world conversations are. If someone asks a question, users are able to use their human cognitive abilities to recall relevant pieces of information, links or add their opinion to the matter. Human processing power is far more valuable than anything Google could provide.
Pair that with the conversation discovery power that search.twitter.com provides, and we have the first relevant human powered search engine.
2) Speaking to the Converted is Valuable
I wrote a recent post called, Advertising and Attention: Some Companies Don’t Know How Good They’ve Got It , my point was that having the opportunity to leverage a committed and interested user base is one of the most valuable things on the web.
While the value may be lost on companies or bloggers that have been able to attract a large attention base already, the ability to put content, product or ideas in front of thousands of people who in turn may comment, share or Re-tweet it, is an honor and a valuable one at that.
3) Friend To Friend Discovery is More Valuable
Through leveraging the converted, you have the opportunity to spread your name through a trusted channel, friend to friend. Tools like Facebook and Twitter make it easy for shared content to spread through networks other than your own, putting your name in front of new people.
End Note
Now, I know Mitch sees the value in twitter and Facebook , he uses them all the time and noted that they are the biggest driver of traffic back to his blog. I do, however, find his point of view on twitter interesting.
Twitter and Facebook are valuable tools for business, and I’m confident that we’ll see more and more relevant uses of them in the future. I’m willing to bet, however, that the biggest successes will come from organizations using these tools to build their attention, not the ones that already have it.
Want an example, check out Booooooom.com and Jeff’s phenomenal use of Facebook Pages to grow a vibrant tribe
Photo Cred: Mallix
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