If you’re looking to establish a web presence these days it’s real easy with all the options available and I’ll continue to bring up the different ways over time. There is the traditional method of blogging, which requires hours of a day if it’s an active or popular site. The entries can go deep into detail about a specific topic, or could be a stream of thoughts, ideas, stories.. or, alternately you’ll find posts filled with interesting quotes mixed with the writers comments like this one is. Then, there is micro-blogging like Twitter in which users broadcast “tweets” of 140 characters or less to, your choice - just your followers, or the public. Tweets viewable by the public will then be searchable based on keywords, allowing people to connect, in a community that appears to have infinite possibilities.
“When people hear about Twitter, their immediate reaction is that it’s the simplest and stupidest idea in the world,” says cofounder Biz Stone.
“They do not want to know that their brother is eating a hot dog right now,” he says. “But then they discover that their friends are on it. And so are the L.A. Fire Department, NASA and JetBlue. Then they get it.”
Twitter is a constant flow of “passive conversation” with paths crossing through nonchalant messages that over time creates a bigger story, in some cases evolving into friendships with those of like interests. These relationships are being formed in the corporate world as well, allowing folks a quick and easy method to connect with customer service, and a chance for companies to hear and feel the true pulse of their customers in real time.
“In the past, companies would hire a market research firm to understand their audience,” says Mike Hudack, CEO of Blip.tv, a New York-based video Web site. “Now we use Twitter to get the fastest, most honest research any company ever heard — the good, bad and ugly — and it doesn’t cost a cent,” he says.
“One of the most interesting Twitter accounts is that of the Scottsdale, AZ police department (at twitter.com/scottsdalepd). Sporting a tag line of “Excellence. Initiative. Integrity,” the Arizona PD is living on the cutting edge of social media by using Twitter to post about city issues, road closures, construction, and even crime. Since anyone can sign up for Twitter to receive updates on the web, instantly via SMS, or on their own time with a wide variety of desktop and mobile clients, the Scottsdale PD uses the service as a simple medium for spreading ubiquitous, near-instant updates of town news.”
“One of the most well-known of these accounts is twitter.com/comcastcares, run by Frank Eliason out of Philadelphia, PA. Utilizing Twitter keyword and conversation tools like search.twitter.com and Quotably, Eliason watches for mentions of “Comcast” and other words and is proactive about replying to complaints and even resolving customer service issues. Comcast certainly claims a lot of the “Twitter is your new bicycle” buzz about businesses using social media to reach out, but everyone from Dell to Carnival Cruise Lines to BabiesOnline.com is using Twitter in interesting and helpful ways. The Citizens Bank of Canada is soliciting feedback about blogging guidelines for the company, Amazon offers book price-finding services, and Cirque du Soleil, Las Vegas interacts with fans while also providing event and celebrity sighting announcements.”
“And then there’s the literary experiment by New York Times writer Matt Richtel, in which he and a couple of co-writers are penning what they call a “Twiller.” As a thriller novel written 140 characters at a time under twitter.com/mrichtel, Richtel tells the first-person story of an amnesia-afflicted killer who wakes up in the Colorado mountains with nothing but a mobile phone to Twitter about his quest for self-discovery. “Think ‘Memento’ on a mobile phone, with the occasional emoticon,” says the tag line.”
Stone says the secret of Twitters success is realizing that folks don’t want to use the web for private conversations but public ones. Nearly 90% of Twitter users make their updates public so everyone can read them.
I dove right in, used my real name and my posts are public. I’m taking this one for a ride.. let’s see where Twitter takes us, as it and the rest of the social networking community continues to reach critical mass. I’ll get more into that, data portability so you can move your info from one social application to another, and then the long term ideas behind my now having another login… and how much longer people will bear connecting to separate networks.. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Tumblr, Flickr… as many feel there will one day be a lone application — some believe that single application is already here, the Internet itself. Not sure if I’m talking about web 2.0 or 3.5 with that one, but we shall see….
..and hit up my Twitter @marcfrydman anytime.