USA Today has a good piece that neatly summarises how instead of ignoring it, some people not on Twitter still make a point of blasting out at people who use it
Often, they adopt the well rehearsed line of, "do we really need to know that you just put your pants on, just brushed your teeth, just ordered a hamburger, just finished dinner, just walked out of the bathroom."
The USA Today article also mentions a Brightkite (a location based mobile network) and Gfk technology survey showing that 87% of people want to deal with people face to face, rather than via technology.
'Face time tops screen time!' screams the report - one of those headlines that sounds good, but simply states the obvious.
I've covered this before, using the anecdote of a new business prospect who started yelling about how Twitter was for sad people, as a way of illustrating that unfortunately a lot of people don't really know what it is good for - perhaps its biggest problem.
So in light of all this, I wanted to put together five quick proof points to show what purpose Twitter (and social media in general) really does serve.
1 - Twitter and other social networks don't loosen real world relationships. They often strengthens existing ones and helps you to make new ones.
Check out this study from Northwestern University that looked at virtual worlds (the very places where geography doesn't matter as your identity is masked by an avatar) and found that people based 10km away from each other were 5x more likely to be playing together than people 100km away from each other.
I see it on my friends' Twitter feeds. Tech PR people in the UK tend to talk to other tech PR people in the UK and so on - i.e the very people who they might otherwise see at industry events at conferences. This way they just talk a bit more often.
2 - Twitter shapes news events as links can be shared quickly and info broadcast in more or less real time.
No, Twitter didn't cause the Iran protests, but it certainly outflanked the mainstream news media's reporting of it. Similarly, in the commercial world there are discussions about whether Twitter chatter can make or break film releases.
3 - A high proportion of Twitter chat involves the sharing of links and genuine conversation - as much as 50% of the total.
Yes, according to the survey I mention, 40% involves 'babble', but isn't that much like everyday conversation? Again, anyone who uses Twitter will have the same experience - ask a question (say on where to find something online) and 9/10 someone will give you a helpful and sensible answer.
4 - Twitter has an influence completely out of proportion to its numbers.
It's not the new Second Life as 750k regular Second Life residents are self contained in their own virtual world. The 1.5 million "power" users by and large use Twitter as one of only several channels of communication. Something starts off on Twitter and invariably spreads to blogs and then to the media at large.
5 - Twitter can help you personally. Case in point in, in a recent hiring phase, I interviewed three Twitter friends for various jobs and ended up hiring one - no doubt about it, knowing that person beforehand on Twitter made a difference.
In fact, look at this post by journalist Mark Luckie who got busy on Twitter after being made redundant.
According to Mark, "Over the course of my unemployment, my Twitter account grew from roughly 2000 followers to 5000 and it was undoubtedly these impressive numbers and a demonstrated knowledge of the power of social media that played a role in my hiring and differentiated me from others with similar skills."
"It took being unemployed to really understand how Twitter could be used to foster community and relationships...for me, Twitter will always be both a guardian angel and one kick-ass job placement board."
- Blame Twitter: JetBlue's All You Can Jet Pass Sells Out Early (mashable.com)
- Bloggers hitch wagons to the traditional media (thestar.com)
- Iran: Twitter's defining moment? (thisisherd.com)
- A round up of Twitter stats - 3/4 joined Jan to May 2009, 60%+ in US (socialmediatoday.com)
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