Much has been said about 2009 being the year for twitter. After receiving mainstream coverage very early in the year through the Daily Mail and an appearance on the Jonathon “@wossy” Ross show this week many are predicting massive growth for the micro blogging platform in 2009. In order to look at both sides of the story I thought I would put some thoughts into the arguments for and against twitter becoming the next big social media phenomenon.
Why twitter might be the next big thing?
• It helps like-minded people connect – Connecting with people who share the same interests of you can be fun, but finding these people is not always easy. Twitter helps bring together people from all over the world who have shared interests and lets them engage with one another.
• It is easy to get involved – Pick a username, populate your profile, choose some people to follow, and you’re away. The simplicity of twitter is part of its beauty.
• It’s easily accessible on the move – Despite major advances in mobile internet, complex sites still struggle from a usability perspective. Twitter is as easy on a mobile handset as it is on a computer screen.
• It becomes addictive – Updating your twitter can become addictive, as can following others. This could keep people coming back for more and take it past the “fad” stage.
• You can customise twitter – Many MySpacer’s prefer MySpace to Facebook as it allows personalisation of your page to give it character. The same can be done with twitter skins.
• It allows people to share – People like to share information both about their own life and about the world in general. Twitter allows the same photo sharing opportunities as Facebook (through twitpic) as well as the ability to post links to external sources of information for your followers to see.
• People like to be nosy – Being able to take a peak into other people’s lives brings out the voyeur in us all. Some people spend hours looking through other peoples photographs on Facebook and enjoying reading their status updates, twitter has the same appeal.
• It is not as time consuming as blogging – Maintaining a blog is time consuming but twitter allows you to post industry or personal news without any maintenance at all.
• It provides instant access to news and articles – We have seen recently the success of twitter in bringing breaking news to the masses in the case of the Mumbai attacks and the Hudson River plane crash. By following a broad spectrum of tweeters it is possible to get the news, as it happens, rather than after the event.
Why twitter might not succeed
• People won’t get it – many people I speak to who are aware of twitter don’t get the attraction, and a lot of these people are already involved in digital marketing. So what are the chances of the average Joe picking it up as part of his everyday life?
• Who wants to connect with people they don’t know? – people away from business and the world of “networking” prefer to connect with people they know, and have met on more than one occasion.
• Safety/privacy worries? – Whilst it might be a pessimistic and cynical view on the world, is there safety/privacy worry about allowing people you don’t know to follow your daily life? I’m sure there is many a parent out there who wouldn’t be too pleased if their child had people keeping an eye on their life, potentially with sinister motives.
• Twitter’s creaking infrastructure! – in recent weeks twitter has experienced regular periods of downtime as its user numbers increase and put mounting pressure on their infrastructure. If their growth is going to continue, some investment is needed in their infrastructure, which may mean external funding to raise the cash. Without this, people will become frustrated and potential give up on twitter.
• It needs monetising – As we have seen with Facebook and YouTube, large user numbers are great, but if you can’t effectively monetise this traffic it isn’t worth much. Initially CPM advertising will probably suffice, but twitter will need to move past that if they are going to effectively monetise their user base.
• Businesses will struggle to find ways to utilise it – although it is easy to see how twitter can be used by news sources for additional distribution and traffic generation, other businesses may struggle to see a use for it. If twitter can find a way of accommodating businesses away from standard accounts this could be key for its success, as it is these businesses that will be willing to pay to reach twitter’s user base.
So what do you think? Will twitter be the big success story of 2009? Have I missed anything from this list? Let me know what you think.
“Twitter’s creaking infrastructure! – in recent weeks twitter has experienced regular periods of downtime as its user numbers increase and put mounting pressure on their infrastructure. If their growth is going to continue, some investment is needed in their infrastructure, which may mean external funding to raise the cash. Without this, people will become frustrated and potential give up on twitter.”
Twitter already has $20 million plus in funding, way more than enough to have enough servers to pass small text messages. The question is, what are they doing with al. that funding? I think they are waiting for the big buy out.