Word of the Week: Twitter (my take in Twitterized format)

Alright, so clearly the Word of the Week is Twitter this week. Why? Because it has become the most-hyped thing this side of the AirJordan III. Some love it, some hate it. Even the WSJ has joined into the madness. And Mashable now has a Twitter feed. So instantly you can be notified of new Mashable posts via Twitter. Lastly, where is Evan, Twitter's creator to comment on all of the positive/negative press over the last week? Mr. Ingram has an excellent post about twitter on his site. His comment, “But I also think it is another piece of the puzzle when it comes to understanding how we relate to each other in an online world, and how those relationship mechanisms are changing.” is spot on. Twitter is an evolutionary test perhaps. I still remember when MUDs were the best thing going.

Here are ten thoughts I noted during my time at SXSW and the headlines are in Twitterized format.

Twitter is great for group sms.

Want to tell your friends that the party has been moved from Mo's to Jake's? Use Twitter. It seemed to work prety well at SXSW (though I could never get my messages to show up on the panels). People could easily state where and when they were going to what panel, party or event. I am not a super-heavy SMS user but I am not sure if it is easy to group sms so this might work. Plus it keeps a nice log. It's nice to know that say Tara or Robert or Jeremiah or XYZ are at the club dropping beats and that I could go say hi. Tara notes that it was used widely during the last earthquake in the bay area of California. This is a good use. But still is basically group SMS with an online log.

Twitter is a fan clubs perfection.

Want to know that the presidential candidate just went from Houston to Dallas to speak? Signup to be a follower. Look at Scoble's friends page. 1500 followers. Doesn't anyone care that they are called a follower? It reminds me of seeing Kevin Rose, the ultimate fanboy magnet at the SXSW awards. They stick to him as if he was a magnet. I can only imagine how many followers he would have on his Twitter. The paparazzi will love this as well.

Twitter takes a lot to understand how it works.

I know some may disagree and call me lame, and that's fine. But "getting" how Twitter works, takes time and effort. You have the home page, which only some items show up on. You can become a follower, but for that person to see your messages, they have to add you as a friend as well. There is no way to tell whether x person has added you so sometimes you just write into a black cloud. Rafe at Webware has a good writeup on the basics.

The teenage MySpace type crowd will love Twitter.

Just imagine the messages... "Justin looks hot in those pants"... "the answer for question 13 is A"... "OMG did you see who Lindsay was out drinking with last night?"

Twitter ain't free.

You might think it's free until you get the $200 SMS bill in the mail. And yes, some of you twitter-maniacs are on an unlimited plan, but most of us can't afford that goodness. And just wait, at some point Twitter will need to make money. How will this be done? Hrm!?!?

Twitter will not replace blogging.

Why? Simple. Blogging takes time and thought. Go read a blog. The person typically puts time and effort into creating a post - some with quality and quantity. Can you do that on a sms message? Nope. And I don't want to read 104 twitters to get your message.

Twitter-bait will cause turmoil.

Ok, so we had link-bait, Digg-bait, Slashdot-bait, TechCrunch-bait, Mashable-bait, WSJ-bait, fish-bait, and now we have Twitter-bait. What is this you ask? This is when you post a link in your Twitter message to your post (or any post I guess) in the specific hopes of getting eyes on it. And of course after the Twitter-bait comes through, the other -bait's will start, therefore causing a Twitter-stream.

Twitter will face a spam attack soon.

As soon as the spammers realize they can put their horsesh** on the home page of a major site for free, you best believe they will. And that will be that.

Twitter is not a replacement for real-life.

I worry that Twitter is hurting my 2007 prediction about getting away from the PC. If I know everything you are doing at every minute, do we even need to meet up IRL? C'mon.

Twitter Summary.

So I guess what I am saying is that I am stuck between good and evil Twitter. I would say I lean more towards the evil side but think there are some niches in which Twitter can (and probably will) succeed. Final words... Twitter is great for a group of friends where all are friends on Twitter and are on a level-field.