Twitter is yet a new way to be heard (and to listen)

The user generated content explosion

It has been already a few years since the social networking phenomenon started developing on the Internet, even before that (through the rise of blogs) we saw very early signs of a trend that is now clear and unstoppable. Given the right tools, people will express themselves. They post their thoughts on blogs (like this one), their photos on Flickr, their videos on YouTube and pretty much everything else on Facebook (although Facebook is mostly a closed network, which means your content is only seen by your friends).

The most interesting aspect of all these networks is that most of them started as a "sandbox" or a set of tools that would allow their users to explore different ways of broadcasting content. The very nature of user generated content is that users make of it whatever they want.

Your life in 140 characters

When Twitter appeared it was difficult to understand why we would need yet another tool to broadcast our content, but its signature twist was what made all the difference: On Twitter you can say all you want as long as you limit your updates to 140 characters at a time. Originally, the idea was to provide a medium through which we could keep up with what friends where doing but it soon developed into much more. Here is a short video that Twitter uses to describe its service:

The other key to Twitter's success was the fact that anyone could (and still can) develop a Twitter client (a piece of software from which you could read other people's updates or update your own status) which means that now there are dozens of different ways to keep up with it (through the Twitter site, desktop apps like Tweetie, Twitterrific or TweetDeck, through iPhone apps, Blackberry apps or even through SMS and instant messaging).

Suddenly, a bunch of people started not only sharing their mundane activities but also links to interesting articles or blog posts as well as having "public" conversations about different topics (in Twitter one can post a public reply to another user).

The revolution will not be televised, but twittered?

Fast forward to today and Twitter has become a massive communication and information tool for millions of people, some studies estimate 12 million people will be Twitter users by the end of 2009. Famous technology personalities (like Kevin Rose, Tim O’Reilly, Leo Laporte, Pete Cashmore), celebrities (like Britney Spears, Oprah, Jimmy Fallon) and politicians (like Barack Obama, Al Gore, John McCain) have helped Twitter achieve its current status by making it one of the main ways that their followers or fans can keep up with them.

All major news outlets (from The New York Times to Al Jazeera) now use Twitter as an additional channel to broadcast their news.
Moreover, Twitter’s importance has been highlighted recently as it was an instrumental tool to get the word out in recent conflicts such as the Iranian elections where the press was heavily censored.

Twitter and Brands

Predictably, the corporate world discovered Twitter. The same way celebrities can use it to keep up with their fans, brands can use it to keep a direct line of communications with their customers.
Companies like Southwest Airlines, Zappos and Dell have managed to build a robust base of followers but Twitter’s most important use for brands and companies should be the ability to listen what people are saying about them and their competitors. Simply by searching on Twitter’s search you can find out if someone has been praising or cursing your brand, and even directly reply to your customer. CRM software suites like SalesForce.com are already incorporating “Twitter modules” in order to do just that.

Twitter and Research

The impact that Twitter is having on the research industry is limited but (as with any social network) the potential is very interesting.

Millions of people are voicing out their thoughts, opinions, rants and ideas publicly with Twitter without asking anything in exchange. Moreover, people are asking, discussing, arguing and collaborating on Twitter on thousands of different topics.
The challenge for the research industry will be about how to cleverly leverage all this information and blend it with other sources to produce valuable insights for our clients without biasing or arising suspicion or lack of confidence in the users.
For the first time in history anybody with access to a computer and an Internet connection can broadcast their thoughts to the world for an insignificant marginal cost, whether we ask about for it or not.
It’s up to us to use this wisely…

August 10, 2009