The Tweeting of GenX

I was born in 1963....some historians say that is the ending year of the Baby Boom, others narrow that to 1960...They can't make up their mind.  So...I am GenX/Boomer... A Tweener that doesn't Twit. 

I try and learn as much about technology as possible.  But the reason why I don't TWIT is because.... I don't really know?....One thought is perhaps I'll get caught up using all my time Twittering.  Or wasting time twittering to people about actual garbage I don't really care about.  It's bad enough I have to hit the delete button with all the recycled jokes that come around from friends of a friend. 

 So...to Twit or Not to Twit...that is the question. Do I start..and never want to go back ....  hmmmm

For someone like me who doesn't talk to his best friends on the regular, prefers to communicate via e-mail with his most cherished people outside of immediate family(only because my mother doesn't do e-mail) and only have 41 friends in Facebook, yet was a social butterfly eons ago, Twitter just may be the jughandle back to life?  Who do you twitter?  Is it almost self perpetuated like Facebook(all of my 39 real friends and 2 fake friends or new friends)?  I've mentioned Twitter to a dozen of highly "educated" folks and all of them asked me, "what is twitter?" Of course they were not the most tech saavy folk, although one was an ops manager at Best Buy, others were attorneys, with one boasting having worked on Obama's campaign...(obviously not in the twittering loop of the campaign...argh, thanks Todd "Turbo", your twitter for veep blog assisted my 'selective' yet erroneous memory...they didn't tweet I see). 

Someone asked earlier how Twitter will make money(ah, it was Hounhosp).  I get a strong feeling that the drivers and key components of social networkers will generate revenue from corporate sponsors..b2c entities 'sponsoring' tweeting for their benefit and social commercials - "twitter your great experience with us for cheese"..then again, that infringes on self important and non-self important aspects of social web. 

Why do I want to get a tweet about how moderately priced and great your experience  was at a local sushi bar called "Little Tokyo" owned and operated by Korean folks that look Japanese[ ;-) ] versus Nobu.  Well, I'd much rather get a tweet (not that I've gotten 1 yet or have I tweeted) about that than an e-mail on that topic from 10 different directions...so guess it is safe to assume that tweets allow for much more "self important" content than e-mails do. OR IS PRECISELY FOR SELF IMPORTANT...tweets, tweet your own horn?

I find social advertising via microblogging to be beneficial WHEN there is an incentive for the recipient.  "I had a great experience at Nobu", this tweet  entitles you to a set menu price and a guranteed reservation on Friday nights..(okay the guaranteed rsvp is a bit much..unless you gain access to their a/b list?).  A win-win(infisimal exponents) for social web!  Commerce as we know it is about to change - a true separation from web 1.x to 2 and beyond? RFID and the supply chain fused with social web...I don't mean to bash the traditional directory advertising, but how much longer will the Yellowpages/Yellowbook be able to charge their current rates?  Will they harness a new business model shaped to best leverage the new(again) economy?

People have forgotten that among all the Internet businesses that started without business plans or any revenue, a few of them really did go on to financial success, . Yahoo, for one. Google, for another! So I'd give Twitter a bit more time before worrying too much about how to monetize it. That said, here are some W.A.G.s: 

1. Get the mobile carriers to pay a share of the minutes.

2. Allow sponsors messages of oh, say, 40 characters (or whatever one screenwidth is).

3. Do a version of what the Democrats did at the convention: give people a reason to twitter, then you've captured their addresses and can send them commercial messages, ideally with a link.

 

 

If tweeting has become so used even in the business sphere I wonder why the company has problem monetising the application. My question is what is to be done so that the company could be viable and not disappear some time in the future?

 Michael Singer, as an advocate of Twitter do you have a good or better business plan?

Thanks for the info, Michael, much appreciated.

As an advocate of Twitter and its related microblogging sites, I can tell you that we have a new form of mass communication that just needs that one or two case-study example to prompt more adoption.

Here's one: Evacuations in the 2007 fires in San Diego were improved because officials and a PBS station with guts started tweeting about the fire lines: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/10/staying_informe.html

Here's the other: The Phoenix Mars Lander is sending Tweets to Mission Control and other scientists. http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/06/mars_probe_uses.html

Of course CEO Jack Dorsey is going to wax poetic: http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/06/twitter_ceo_jac_2.html

Bot as a true test, I recently sent out a query about microblogging - "How is your company is adopting micro-blogging as part of your Web 2.0 strategy?"

Simple enough question. I got a dozen replies from people who may not have gotten it at first, but they now see Twitter and its ilk in the same way that companies, individuals, groups use Instant Messaging and Gmail.

Here are some sample replies:

"The advocacy of microblogging is pretty much all from the Digital Marketing dept, and pretty much all me. I'm a heavy Twitter user, to the extent that I even set up a dedicated group blog about microblogging...."

"Every time someone has to leave for an appt or is out of the office, it gets tossed in an email. One of the goals is to shift this over to 'updates' on some platform or other. Get it out of the in box, make it available to people who are interested."

"Micro-Blogging is a great way to get your message out to like minded individuals. My company has embraced micro-blogging tools like Pownce, ReJaw, Twitter, Plurk and Identi.ca for a few months now.
The key is to be active across the platforms you feel work best for your industry and to only connect to like minded individuals.
Following 1000 people wont work. Spamming wont work. Lieing wont work.
Social media is about real relationships and real business coming from those relationships."

"We're in an experimental phase with the use of Twitter. We're slowly building a global band of Twitterers around one of our B2B process automation system brands, DeltaV. I've set up a "how to" page in Google Sites-
We've had some questions about the product, but it's mainly a place where Emerson people, DeltaV customers, and some members of the trade press connect together.  Internally, our IT folks don't block access to sites like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, YouTube, etc. but I've heard from some of the process manufacturers we serve, that these "Web 2.0"-type sites are being blocked by their IT departments."

I hope this gives you some incentive.

Follow my Twitter at http://twitter.com/MichaelSinger 

I signed up for a twitter account, have never posted anything, and three people have started "following" me. I have no idea who they are. I think it's just a convenient way for spammers and scammers to get information, and disturbed people to find stalking victims. I really don't see the point of it yet, will someone please enlighten me?