Twitter Hype of the Day: Nightline Explains “Tweeting”
by Peter Kafka
Posted on February 26, 2009 at 6:57 AM PT
Hey! Have you heard of Twitter?
OK. But remember that most of the world actually hasn’t heard of, let alone used, the service. So exposure like this “Nightline” episode, which aired last night and reached millions of people, means… something.
My favorite bit comes right at the beginning, when host Martin Bashir asks, “What is it? Well, I don’t really know, because I don’t do it.” (By the way, a note to ABC News: You guys gotta make your video embeddable).
And while we’re on the topic of Twitter hype, here’s my question for proponents of the “Twitter is the next Google/YouTube/whatever” meme. I certainly think that the service could be a big deal (maybe). But can you explain how it reaches the critical mass of a Google (GOOG) or YouTube?
Because everyone looks for something. And just about everyone wants to watch a video of something. But people who want to broadcast their thoughts or actions to the rest of the world–that’s always going to be a subset of the general population, right?
Comments
I commend your tireless analyses. Twitter is not about “broadcast[ing] [one's] thoughts or actions to the rest of the world.” It’s about sharing information. Sometimes this information verges on the inane, such as, “I’m off to lunch with @peterojas” (in my dreams) but often it’s helping make a headline, video or other piece of info go viral. Twitter is the conduit to those other behemoths – the YouTubes and Googles of the world. Dare I say Twitter will help make more such stars.
Posted by Liz Colville at February 26th, 2009 at 7:20 am“…people who want to broadcast their thoughts or actions to the rest of the world — that’s always going to be a subset of the general population…”
Yeah, sort of like people who wanted overnight package delivery, or travel to another city by jet, or heck- personal computers. Probably about 150000 years ago Mug-ug said to Tig-Zig, “Fire only for people who want to hot sabre-tooth tiger meat.”
Posted by William Klingner at February 26th, 2009 at 7:54 amPeter, I came here to flame you for not believing that Twitter is the next big step forward for mankind, but I see I’ve been beaten to it. *sigh*
Now I’ll have to write another post suggesting that Twitter is great for web developers, journalists, politicians and “social media gurus” but not necessarily everyone else, and you’ll have to come tell me how I’m stupid for thinking that. Oh well.
Posted by Eric Eldon at February 26th, 2009 at 9:54 amPeter, the mistake you are making is that not everyone needs to be a publisher (twitterer) to get benefit from Twitter. Searching the real-time web holds benefits google cannot deliver. As the twitterstream contains more and more data about what is happening now (as opposed to what has been crawled over the last few weeks and years), the search becomes more and more powerful to a wide swath of the population.
Posted by David Pakman at February 26th, 2009 at 10:56 am@Liz, @William, @David: Again, I’m a big Twitter fan. Use it all the time. I just don’t think that everyone will get the same use out of it, because not everyone needs or wants to communicate as much as Twitterers do. Doesn’t mean it can’t be big, just means I don’t see it as being nearly as universal as Google, YouTube, (or travel, or fire, William). And I think real-time search is great, too. But right now that really means “real-time search of Twitterers and other social-media makers”, which is useful but limited.
@Eldon, I’ll deal with you in private. Be warned!
Posted by Peter Kafka at February 26th, 2009 at 4:22 pmpeter, i think the social media end game is this:
every single human being posting their thoughts and experiences in any number of ways to the Internet
i wrote that a few months ago and i believe it as strongly as i believe anything
http://bit.ly/n0Rn1
Posted by fred wilson at February 26th, 2009 at 6:41 pmHey Fred. If you mean “Internet” as a communications system that includes one-to-one (ie email or im) then we agree. Not sure about the desire to broadcast, though.
Posted by Peter Kafka at February 27th, 2009 at 6:22 am