Twitter:Strangling the Bird,Or Not?

There are applications that come along and automatically generate buzz and applications that come and go very quickly.

            And this brings me to the social media phenomena Twitter. This 145-word cap limited application is quite the rage among A list bloggers. Contrarian that I am, I have a quite different view of it.  I’m not really very interested in whether or not some one is going to get a cup of coffee at Pete’s in Menlo Park, and I’m even less interested in the fact that they found a parking space right across the street from Pete’s on Santa Cruz Avenue. Twitter might as well be a grill- mounted loudspeaker hoi polloi use to broadcast their regal presence and progression to we lesser mortals, so that we can avert our eyes and bow in time.

            But I can see some uses for Twitter: A.) The best use of it so far was by Dan Lyons, writing from audience at Steve Jobs’ MacWorld opening speech in San Francisco, earlier this year. Lyon’s twitter feeds may have been the funniest things ever posted on the Internet. B.) If I were an executive at a hardware maker or software developer, I can see where my job would be made easier by Twitter, since it gives me a chance to have conversations about product performance, reliability and usability in real time with select customers. C.) The same argument holds true right now, moving into National elections. If I were on a campaign management staff, Twitter could be an important tool in gauging the effectiveness of a dynamic campaign, in real time;D) as someone who was searching for topical local news in the middle of a community-wide conflgration last Fall, I think a dedicated twitter channel could have be equally important to both citizens and first responders.

            I have seen Twitter put to effective use by two good friends who hold high-level marketing positions with PC manufacturing companies. Both use it to stay abreast of customer support issues—which may be one of the most important applications of this mini-Instant Messaging format.

            If I were still working as a producer on Demo Shows, I could see using a Twitter channel for communicating with my audience and for strategic market research, in real time.

            But do I care when someone is jumping into his or her car for a trip across SF Bay to go see a movie? Hell No! I don’t.

            None of this should be interpreted as dismissing the hard work developers have put into Twitter and Twitter applications.  I appreciate good softwaremuch more than most people.

            And I’ve been wrong about things before.  Just last week I was dismissive about my daughter’s chance to win a new car in a lottery. But,  early this morning I got an email from The Lovely Miss Amanda telling me how utterly surprised she was to find out she had just won a brand new 2008 Volkswagen Beetle.—Jim Forbes, 04/07/2008