A Hundred Twitters- A Thousand

I totally agree, which is why I recently wrote: http://www.140char.com/2009/04/why-i-wish-id-in... - whether or not Twitter makes money etc, it's already had a huge influence amongst a significant group of people in changing the way they expect to communicate, and be able to interact with an application.

And we're only 10-20% of the way towards the potential of social media, if that. There are huge implications for the move to VRM rather than CRM for example, as more companies respond to what I'm asking of them, rather than guessing that because I'm searching for something or viewing certain content, that I'm actually ready to buy.

You have it right Chris. I believe Twitter and other micro interactions in social Media are changing the way we communicate and interact with one another.

A big stumbling block to these targeted information channels is definitely creating the right filters, customization - lining up the tracks as you say. Right now it takes even the savviest among us a little work and research to tame the beast. The beast being the vast amounts of information out there to be consumed, valued.

We are definitely getting close though. So many of today's online innovations deal directly with new ways to sort, organize, and filter the information and people with which we want to connect. Smarter "bridges" are popping up every day. Truly exciting stuff.

Chris, interesting topic. Essentially it's no different than opening a dialog about "too many social networks?" You've got Virb, Facebook, MySpace, etc. And in many ways what you're suggesting is that micro-blogging will go the way of Forums or Blogs. Everyone has one, and they are standalone, independent installations. But with your added suggestion of a centralized identity system (going the direction of OAuth / OpenID / etc).

Is there really something wrong with too many Micro-blogging applications? I suppose not, although with a single source, finding the answer to a question related to any of the topics above becomes increasingly difficult, unless of course there's a WebMD twitter, and a CNET twitter, etc

I think it's entirely reasonable. And perhaps one doesn't even need a central identity system to work (though it would make things more efficient).

Perhaps this is bound to happen?

Thanks for the mention Chris!

I am still asking a lot of these same questions, but I think simple things like hashtaging allow this conversations to turn into networks, or at best a movement in the commons of Twitter. Twitter is the social network where anyone can search and find the affiniity or need specific individuals and content to them go and meet. This is versus Facebook or others that have a ton of user profile information they use to serve up ads and build their platform, but that only they have access to.

But through the "mundane" updates you can help isolate the "needs you meet" and then proactively start developing a community around it. This is what we are looking to strategically do in trying to start a movement of Prayer across Twitter. Simply using the hastag #prayer as our "central identity" and the activity of users as the bridges into new social groups and networks.

At least it sounds good right? Haha, we still have as many questions about it as anyone but are very excited at the new opportunities in social interaction that technology is presenting!

@Jason

There's an interesting slice in your post that catches my attention. Sorting.

Right now, Twitter makes it nearly impossible to effectively keep track and organize your incoming feed of tweets. Something that both Facebook & Pownce (RIP) attempted to deal with by implementing user-created groups within their account. Simply brilliant.

This way I could organize my incoming information by "Internet Geeks", "Designers", "Friends", "Family"... and so on. And this would hopefully minimize any missed messages I would have like to see. And it naturally allows me to prioritize what I would want to see in what order by providing me a mechanism to break down the massive stream of noise that typically runs past me daily, most of which is just that. Noise.

A more integrated sorting mechanism for Twitter is definitely going to be needed in the future. The current searches and directories are adequate but I definitely see room for improvement. How many people have found you through a directory? I can usually count them on one hand.

I think that Twitter is going to need to invent some sort of either a recommendation engine or another solution.

Great post Chris, and wonderful comments.
Right now, in order to centralize information you have to be pretty savvy about hash tags, demystifying TweetDeck, using Twitter search, etc. And if social media is truly going to make a global impact beyond the geeks and power users, then the info needs to be accessible by people who don't spend all day learning the latest Twitter apps to sort and find info.

I think hash tags are what we have for now, but something more elegant needs to come along. There is simply too much noise to sort through. I don't know about a central identity system, sounds a bit big brotherish, but would love to see how we can easily and powerfully connect and add value to each others lives through our social networking.

thanks for the insights.
:-)
Nancy

I agree Nancy - hastag isn't elegant at all - pretty noisy.

One thing which may stymie prayer-request type Twitter things: HIPAA.

I heard a case study on corporate-sponsored online communities last year in Austin which discussed a Christian publishing house (I think it was Thomas-Nelson or Zondervan) which invited prayer requests in their community web site. They ran afoul with HIPAA because many of the prayer requests were of a medical nature. Even though the publisher wasn't a medical concern, they still fell under HIPAA for medical privacy reasons because they allowed public access to medical information. In order to avoid problems they had to drop the prayer requests - even though it was a very popular feature.

Your are spot on.
I have found Twitter to be a great resource at times. And the fact that I am connected to more people than I ever thought I would be in many lifetimes. With people that in any other way that I would have never met. But the information that is out there t be received, does need a better filter for efficiency. I am sure it will be coming.

Great post Chris,

as a health care professional, Twitter could be a great way to communicate about general topics and answer simple questions, and to be available, but then there are the privacy issues, which a private Twitter for healthcare professionals could fix. Many things I diagnose and treat I need to do an actual exam, so Twitter wouldn't be much help there. The future is exciting because we really don't know where this technology will go.

Interesting post Chris. You bring an important issue to the minds of your readers and fellow twitter users. Sorting through the posts can be daunting task and it is easy to miss things because of the clutter. I am surprised you mentioned Blellow didn't think too many people used it successfully yet. Any we do do need a way to manage the stream of comments and harness the real value of twitter.

It is all about intention and purpose to me.

I believe the use of Twitter to share mundane stories of ones life is a fad. Could be wrong (have been many times before). And the limit of 140 characters seems to be destined for the museum. But I love the micro blogging concept for the purposes of engaging with ideas but why can't it be the summary of the first 140 characters of the story.

The reasons I like Twitter so much are the potential tools Chris cites in this blog.

The future to me a about engagement of ideas and the fulfillment of needs.

If I was exposed to a message that served an instinct or behavior that would trigger a desire to learn or fulfill a need then I would not consider this an advertisement or an intrusion.

If this could be figured out how do we think the educational system could evolve?

These tools can make us better if we begin to use them better. But human nature has let us down so many times in the past.

But maybe the crowdsourcing model is a bridge to new tools which may over time change behaviors which would lead to better tools which would lead to a better way to discover and share.

Twitter is one of many tools contributing to this evolution. As we begin to stabilize, we hope to be a part of the evolution as well.

J. Paul Duplantis I don't think the mundane is a fad, because I think mundane conversation is the relational glue that leads towards the engaging conversations we remember and that change us. If you think of some of the best conversations you've had, they didn't just start there with that person. You need to get to know them first and then when the trigger came you connected and were able to engage at a new level.

The social engagement around mundane conversation seems like an oxymoron, but its reality is what sites like Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed are finding add value in their data driven decisions and feature releases.

I do agree we aren't "there" but honestly at the pace we are at we won't ever be, this is an evolving relational economy where both the mundane and significant co-exist the same way they do every where else, but with a global audience.

Great post as usual, Chris. I twittered recently about Blellow, asking what people thought. The response I got from many is that they were not interested in signing up for yet another social media site. It's as if most people have certain limits to what they will sign up for. What is that average limit? Three, four, I don't know. But the consensus was that if they had to sign up for one for x, other for y, and so on, they would likely not be as active in all sites. So based on this perhaps ideally centralizing, bridging networks and exposure to them should stay within Twitter.

Regarding Prayers, I'm sort of surprised at the number of Christians on Twitter, but then I realized they are the original congregation. So after reading this post, I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a prayer network.

Very cool. Twitter is no longer a web site, it is indeed a "communications method".

Maybe this is the progression of Web 2.0 to Web 2.5 (ish). I'm beginning to feel that many of the social sites do not offer enough tools to segment, organize and delineate the networks that I've brought under one roof.

I wish Facebook had separate streams and settings for friends, acquaintances, relatives and co workers. I wish Twitter had channels for, in my case, cycling, social media, Chattanooga and job hunting.

All of our physical relationships fall in different networks and we relate differently to each of those networks. I need multiple Twitters, I need multiple Facebook profiles. Social network sites, now we've jumped on board with the premise need to evolve to more closely model how we relate in the physical world.

Thanks Chris, provoking as always.

I find myself hoping that alongside branded laconi.ca sites like todaysmama.com/connect, and support sites (healthcare support would be amazing), I really hope we start seeing regionalized sites. It is fantastic that I can connect with people all over the world, but I would really like to be able to dip into a public stream which is just people who live in my area, or select an area from a map, and filter just those people. And this could be very beneficial in the context of disaster/outbreak management as well... twitter has power as a transfer medium because if I *need* to receive a message, I *will* receive it, as long as my network is sufficiently large

I think you're right that Twitter can definitely help connect people, but I feel that it might actually become a hindrance. The idea that people may become so involved in Twitter that they may actually miss out on the event they're tweeting about. They'll remember it, but they won't have really experienced it. As a user that's the line I think we're going to have to straddle.

I think if Twitter keeps catching on the way it has been, the sheer magnitude of users and information will force the spring up of other networks, or, as Charles Adler mentions above, sorting. Twitter may very well be the base model a lot of other networks adopt, but I believe we will see other platforms evolve and customize themselves to fulfill different roles... much like the Yammers of the world have taken the idea and customized it for a specific set of circumstances.

This is so interesting to me - I am pretty much a novice, but being located in the Caribbean where we are physically divided from each other by seas and from any kind of mass market, I can't help but be convinced that developing our ability to use social media is going to be key to our development and our really being able to become part of and benefit from the Global Village.

I'll be watching discussions on this more closely from now on.

I completely agree, Chris. Twitter is definitely becoming almost a directory of information and communication. The platform has changed directions so many times, I'm always curious what the next use people will find in it. Using it for resources, tools, and help is one of the many great ways I use Twitter and I'd like to see further development towards the ideas you discussed above.

Thanks for mentioning Blellow in the mix, we're trying to make the connections you are discussing as well. Since our beta launched our highest priority has been getting an API and RSS in place so people can share outside of just our network, and keep that open communication between multiple platforms going.

The colleagues at my company (http://www.kleinbuendel.com/) are fascinated by Twitter as a new mode of communication. Which, by the way, we are brewing a research project I want to talk to you about sometime.

@ Sean Loyless, thanks for sharing and nice to see you're listening to your prospective users. Setting up tools for sharing across multiple platforms is definitely key. I'll be keeping an eye on Blellow.

I can always rely on hopping over here to make me think just a little more about the interconnectivity of it all.

Maybe this is the reason why things like Facebook Connect are becoming popular. I'm creating a new localized social network in Birmingham and decided early on that a universal login would be helpful. You don't want to reinvent the wheel - you want to provide folks a place to pit stop in the midst of the journey.

Twitter, Facebook and the like do become the Commons, Chris. One important thing for folks to remember is the fact that it's not about attracting the masses, but serving the needs of those that want to be served.

Some filters already exist; we've just got to figure out how to share those tools more with ourselves and each other, avoiding the echo chamber as some would say.

Hey Chris!
It's Stef Michaels- Adventure Girl. Thanks for this great post. I totally agree with this, and in my own page, am trying to give travel information about deals before they hit the public. I get to do this, since being a travel journalist, I am pitched this kind of info to write about. I am finding that my tweets are really appreciative of the insider scoop and actually utilize the links I provide to book their travel.
I also am able to direct people to my site at adventuregirl.com- so they can utilize the e-mail there to communicate longer e-mails, and thus I can respond to them with more detailed info as where to go, stay, play- etc.

Regarding too many networks to manage social media properly, I feel that it will ultimately end up where the website for the business or the individual will serve as the hub for their social network. As far as branding is concerned, why would the community not be built around the main site.

Followers of the website will receive a different view of content than the owner and the tools for filtering content would be built into the site. They would then create badges from their own site to proliferate onto other networks but all of their info, content, media, articles would originate from their website.

It would be the brand's or the individual's community of followers. As a follower you would manage feeds from your enabled site which would let you change your views based on your location, behavior, mood, etc.

If it is the experience we are looking for, why wouldn't we want it to be our experience and our community. The discovery of content may be where facebook and twitter may be in the future but will it be the management of content and the branding?

Maybe they evolve into channels and brands/individuals are their own producer, distributor, publisher.

If I want to check on the latest update for my hotel reservations why wouldn't I want to login to my own site and check in on the status. When I am finished with the hotel stay, I just turn off the feed. (Maybe my calendar would do this for me)

Imagine what my feed view would look like during my vacation. My website would turn into a virtual resource and could include advertisements based on what I am interested in.

This is where Quired is going (maybe I could use the prayer tweets for this)

As I wrote on my blog a few weeks ago, Twitter does take over where google leaves off:

http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/do-n...

Today, every user's view of Twitter is different as their experiences will vary based upon the people they choose to follow, the people that follow them, and the web of interactions that flow from those relationships.

Once Twitter evolves to the point where any of us could establish meaningful groups (private or public) you would then have the ability to create the various communities you are discussing. If you further take that ability, tying it together with geographical information about where your other network members reside you have some powerful possibilities.

I am not sure that I agree with the need for a single central identify, however. You would be best served with either multiple identifies or a single identify with multiple personas. John, the VP of Engineering would want to be able to communicate differently than John the father of two girls (especially when communicating with their boyfriends :-) ).

John
http://johnfmoore.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/JohnFMoore

I am at a lost on Elmo's comment about prayer request on Twitter violating HIPAA. Thomas Nelson does not come close to meeting the definition of a covered entity. If you are a defined as a covered entity you CANNOT Tweet about patients or conditions. You can Tweet about general medical issues as a rule. There are a bunch of clinical folks that Tweet and Tweet correctly.

There are Tweets about everything. Airport delays, Earthquake alerts, prayer requests and many more. The thing is you have to know who is Tweeting. It is only as good as the person behind the information.

Great post, Chris.

I have definitely tweeted prayer requests, especially when both of my grandparents were in the hospital at the same time(separate hospitals!) and I have genuinely prayed for others who tweeted their need for prayer.

We're pretty certain the premise of your article is akin to what we just created last week called @BoomerAuthority. It places marketers of products and providers of services, who target the 50+ active aging marketplace in two-way conversation with the demographic they are trying to reach - the baby boomer generation. At its core it is an 'ask and answers' intitiative. We roll out nationally after the intitial round of populating the channel with experts.

I'd add book reviews to your list of wants. Most major newspapers have killed their book review sections. Where are the critics who will feed me a constant stream of 140-character reviews of the latest sci fi, horror fiction, business titles, etc.? Pick a genre and start streaming it. Build a following. There are lots of niches to go around.

Have you looked into http://www.tweetizen.com - they may have an interim solution to some of your ideas above

Chris, i have to say this is an interesting story. Twitter is taking over the online world right now!

I don't know. In a world where medical care is already rushed, I don't think I'd want my prenatal advice in 140 character increments. There are somethings that should be going the other direction: toward more in depth, individualized communication.

I love Twitter and especially love all the geniuses out there who are figuring out how to harness it. Twitter is a great way to pay attention to what is important to you without having to listen to those you don't care about listening to.

I think some of these things can work (perhaps in the area of prayer, sporting events) but frankly, I would be pretty hesitant to get medical advice from a social network or even travel information for that matter. The accuracy of the information could not possibly be reliable via this method and could hinder more than it helps.

There are times when crowdsourcing works great. There are other times when it's just noise.

Tweetspace.com (service, soon) -- "What's interesting?" and TweetPress (software, later on, to be open source also) are working towards the same direction.. Btw cf. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009... re similar thoughts, exciting world, cheers!

In regards to health care, and receiving healthcare advice via twitter, I agree that twitter or a social network is the last place to find advice for serious medical issues, but right now, if you look on the net or social networks and much of the medical information doesn't come from health care professionals, it comes from people that have decided to tell the story of their disease/problem and their account gains some sort of traction and is believed by others.. it may be good info and it maybe suspect.. I think it's time for the healthcare community to embrace these social networks and start being the experts in the social networks too... It will be interesting to see how the the Health care industry embraces these new technologies....

Chris,
Thanks for using a church example above. I knew Twitter was going mainstream when I had a cup of coffee with one of the pastors at my congregation and we brainstormed ways to use Twitter. The result - a spontaneous and continual prayer network: http://www.summitwestclub.com/?p=397
It's happening.
- Andy

Chris--

I listened to the podcast you and Dave Winer did. I read his blog post. And I read your stuff all the time.

I think Dave is missing the point: having a service where geeks and celebrities and everyone in between is what we want, right? What I hear Dave saying loud and clear (and even you, though less so) is that these newbies to Twitter didn't earn their numbers; that somehow, when Solange Knowles (who happens to be a talented performer in her own right--and Beyonce's sister) gets on Twitter and brings her offline followers (her followers IRL) with her to Twitter, that somehow, she cheated. After all, how can someone on Twitter for 3 months have more followers than someone else who's been on Twitter for 2 years? Personally, I don't that matters much.

For me, the fact that I can follow people I respect and admire in all kinds of fields--entertainers, web geeks, Mac geeks, my neighbors, businesses I like and care about--makes Twitter a much richer experience for me. I don't want to go to different services to follow and interact with different people.

Dave was clear when he said in the podcast how he wants to be a bigger fish in small pond and that's part of the reason why he wants his own Twitter. Some of us want a pond where we can interact with who we want to.

And because of the asymmetrical way Twitter is constructed, who cares if lots of celebrities get on the service as long as you get value from the people you follow? The serendipity and discovery on Twitter is amazing; we wouldn't necessarily get that if there hundreds of Twitters or if Twitter was architected in a different way.

As a techie from back in the day, I get all of the arguments about why having one service in this space is a bad idea. And not having interoperable standards for Twitter-style messaging (I hate the terms 'micro-messaging' and 'micro-blogging) is a problem which need to get worked out in ways that make sense. It would be great if Twitter took the lead on this effort when it makes sense. I'm not sure we're there yet; we're still learning what this is.

What makes Twitter different than GEnie, Compuserve, Prodigy, etc. (I had a GEnie account back in the day; I was a beta tester of the service that became AOL) is Twitter is built on an open platform (HTTP, HTML, TCP/IP, etc.) which is the web and it has an huge ecosystem of applications and services around it.

Lets not have premature standardization before we truly understand what we have.

Thanks for the podcast w/ Dave W. You helped me think about how I really want to apply Twitter and like tools to in higher ed.

There is another way this is a communication method, that is life changing for some. Not just Twitter, but all methods of online communication. My daughter has a chromosome disorder which manifests largely in that her speech is not understandable. These forms of communication have opened the world to her & others like her. Sure, they can use sign language & computerized communication devices, but many do not have the time or patience to wait around for them to get out what they want to say. This is truly a wonderful & beautiful way the world is moving for children & adults like my daughter. She is 7 and we email each other, she uses Skype, she blogs & we have a page on Facebook for our business (Twitter is next on our list!). So, yes, I whole heartedly agree with your post!!!

I love Twitter. But they lost 3 months of my tweets since January today!.

Wonder when they can get it to be reliable enough for us to use it as mission critical tool.

I would love to see more businesses adopt twitter. The ones that I have seen do it are so cool. For example telling people when there's fresh bread/cookies at the bakery. Or short and long lines at places.

So many practical uses but it takes mass adoption of it in order for this to work.

Chris,

Thanks for the interesting article. There are some great concepts and comments here. I agree that finding ways to centralize identity with the ability to contextually understand the identity's attributes and relationships is key. Ultimately, I think that multiple networks are the future. I think that while there will be some unification; we'll find that the networks as a whole will represent different types of relationships between users. As an example, I have a much different relationship with my friends on Facebook than I have with my contacts on LinkedIn.

I recently wrote a series of blog article on how you can use today’s technologies like a virtual directory to build an abstraction layer for applications to integrate identities across social networks:

http://www.chatterboxhq.com/blog/?p=67

I would love to hear if you think this type of a model addresses some of the points raised in this post.

Thanks for the time.

Todd

Hey Chris, Great discussion. This may be a bit off topic, but your commend about healthcare help is exactly what I've been thinking about for sometime - just was never sure how to get started. I especially interested in how we can use social networking, especially blogs and twitter, in the realm of health care. I'm a physician who thinks there's a better, healthier way to live than what the drug and insurance companies are pushing on us. I'm new to social networking, but am excited about the possibilities.

Imagine a group of people who are dedicated to supporting each other and, most importantly, themselves. Healthcare these days seems to be all about how can other people make the most money by you suffering.

My goals for healthcare have to do with experiencing the joy and happiness of life. As people start to remember how awesome life really is, then health happens. Our natural state is health. We often forget this thanks to the media and the aforementioned corporations. Health - the state of original purity that is our birthright, our natural state. Health is not something we get from a pill or an operation. There are definitely times when these thing are helpful and possibly even necessary, but these times are rare.

I think the social networking movement has a lot in common with where I'd like to see our healthcare system going. People are taking responsibility for themselves. They see opportunities to experience the fullness of life, take a chance with a new opportunity, reach out and support another.

If we could generate the same enthusiasm for living a healthy life, we could recapture control over our own health and revitalize a seriously dis-eased healthcare system.

My website has more info about my feelings on health and I plan on having my blog up and running over the next few days. I'm on twitter at originsofhealth

Thanks everyone. Be Well!
Tom

Perusing through the comments, J. Paul Duplantis, Tony Steward, Andrew Natta, and Camilla Downs are the only folks who appear to argue for the basis of what you're asking about, Chris: emphasizing social networking sites beyond communication and marketing channels into free-for-all public spaces, aka the Town Common.

The crucial issue for me is this can't be a conversation about Twitter. That's just one tool, and a private enterprise at that. The answer will arrive in an open source tool, something that nobody but everybody owns, where we we architect its creation and construct its evolution. A place with zero rules but as many rules as one wants. That's the Common. Twitter is merely the metal used to craft the key.