The Evolution of Twitter as an Information Service

Twitter recently announced that they were NOT a social media service, and with the release of Twitter 2.0 (I still haven’t got it yet!) it is clear that they mean it. The new permutation is more focused on being a news and content service than a social media platform, and while I initially rejected the distinction, it came to grow on me.

I know it’s old news, the conference when this was announced was a few weeks ago now, but it has taken me some time to think about this revelation, and what it means for the social space.

I’ve blogged before about how much I love Twitter, and for me there are definitely some solid social media aspects as to why this is the case. After reflection, however, I also realised that the information network part of Twitter played an equally large role in this perception.

There is no denying the fact that Twitter is so much more than a social network. It’s social news, news without spin, news you cannot see (more on that in a bit), it’s interaction, discussion, collaboration, customer service, argument, controversy, TRENDING, fun… the list goes on.

Part of my ‘awakening’ to the idea of Twitter as more than a social media service happened the other day when I was stuck on a train trying to get past a ‘major incident’ at Clapham Junction (this part is the news you cannot see). We were repeatedly told by the guard that this ‘major incident’ had caused a bottleneck and that we were queuing up to get past. Seemed to most of us that what was actually happening was the halting of our train while numerous others zoomed past. I decided that I wanted to know what had really happened, so I turned to twitter to see if Clapham was trending.

It was.

The one tweet that stuck out as being both enlightening and devoid of any editorial party line was by Emma and James Firth.
George Cathcart Retweets

I don’t know why getting this extra information made me feel more involved or connected to the incident, but getting drip-fed the same line over and over while your backside gets progressively more numb makes you thirsty for something of substance. Twitter provided that for me, and apparently countless others, too. I also felt connected to the hundreds of tired and pi**ed off commuters who just wanted to get home and have their tea. As Twitter-folk, we are at once the editors, distributors, promoters and moderators of the news we consume- that makes us pretty powerful. Perhaps it is this consumer power which is a key catalyst for brands investing in and developing social CRM strategies. A cynical motivation, perhaps – it would be nice to think that this shift in consciousness was for holistic reasons and not just businesses reacting to changing market conditions. (It’s really not all like that, so please excuse my cynicism!)

As a closing comment, I’d like to turn your attention to this story, and in particular the third page. Work done by Neuroeconomist, Paul Zak, has suggested that social networking produces the same hormone response as face-to-face interaction. Oxytocin is the hormone responsible for the bond formed between a mother and her new-born baby, as well as being vitally important for the feelings of empathy, generosity, trust, and more. In an isolated experiment, Paul got Adam Penenberg, a writer for Fast Company, to interact online with people for 10 minutes. Blood tests were taken before and immediately after the task.Those 10 minutes saw an oxytocin spike of 13.2%, as well as marked reduction in stress hormones. This spike of oxytocin was similar to the spire that a friend of Dr Zak’s experienced when he got married.

Obviously this is not a clinical study, and there is only one participant. Combine that with the fact that Adam is a regular user of social networks, and we have no grounds what so ever for generalising these results across any kind of population. It’s interesting food for thought, though. Dr Zak says that electronic connection is processed much the same way as face to face connection, and there are certainly similarities from what I’ve observed.

The implications for this, if it were proved to be accurate, are fairly huge. From companies having an open policy on letting their employees tweet during the day, to brands really focusing on engaging with their customers using these channels. This in the hope that the warm fuzzy feeling they get when they develop a relationship with their brand creates brand affinity, and maximises advocacy and buzz.

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New Twitter!

Twitter released their new & updated platform today, to be rolled out across the twittersphere over the next few weeks. They announced it with an awesome video, which not only is an awesome edit job, but it epitomises what twitter is, what its for, and the ethos that twitter has come to hold.

I’m a glutton for HD, professionally edited video in any case, but this really turns my buttons. I’ve been a die-hard Tweetdeck user for some time now due to the terrible UI twitter has had in the past, but the new one looks much more usable.

I love Twitter, and the direction its going in. For me Twitter is more than a social media platform – when you use twitter and it becomes integrated into your general musings on life, it starts to reflect who you are as a person. This isn’t digital personality management, its a personality mirror.

I’m going on a bit here, but perhaps you should look in your twitter mirror and see who you are.  I’m probably just a crazed enavgelist, and I know there are carefully monitored and considered profiles out there, but when you use Twitter for what it is supposed to be used for, its a voyage of self discovery and enjoyment, and is one of the very reasons that it is my favourite social media service.

Of course, Twitter say they aren’t a social network, but what ever they are, I love em!

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What Is Customer 2.0?

What is customer 2.0? – That is the very question I found myself asking when I first came across the expression early this year. It took quite a lot of searching the interwebz to actually find and deduce the answer, and despite it being a ‘buzz’ word (laced with pejorative and ephemeral connotation) it actually made a lot of sense that this new paradigm had surfaced.

At the same time, it’s always a bit of an uneasy process when you de-personalise a noun, such as ‘customer’, and breed it to have cybernetic implants.

Customer 2.0 is essentially a reflection of the shift in consumer consciousness being experienced across Generation X and Y. New media and the digital revolution has resulted in the extreme globalisation of everything, and as such consumerism is evolving. We, as consumers, are responding to this changing environment in an interesting way. It is interesting because, for the most part, we’re not aware of what’s going on. Those in the marketing and advertising industry are no doubt more attuned to these shifts in the hive mind – it’s their jobs to exploit these direction changes as best they can. From the consumer perspective, however, its harder to see. Let me give you an example.

Customer 1.0 loves to read magazines and papers. They are inclined to make brand choices on the back of traditional advertising, and they don’t quite understand what this digital nonsense is all about. Tweeting is what birds do! Customer 1.0 expects to have to resolve product issues through the traditional avenues of phone and face-to-face customer support. Customer 1.0 does make decisions on the back of word of mouth endorsements.

Customer 2.0 will tweet what they had for breakfast! papers are growing ever-more defunkt as the boom of online news and RSS functionality reaches epic proportions. They LOVE viral, and probably spend more time online than watching tv. Customer 2.0 expects companies to have an online presence, they prefer to shop online (for the vast majority of purchases), and the ecommerce sites they do this on better be quick or they’re going elsewhere. Customer 2.0 seeks user-reviews to inform brand choices, and is likely to put a significant amount of time into researching potential purchases. Customer 2.0 is starting to expect a social media presence too, and they love innovation (and reward brands for being innovative). Customer 2.0 prefers email to phones.

The point I’m trying to make here is that Customer 2.0 expects these technological advances to become a part of their consumer experience. They aren’t treated as novel or new, they are just expected to be there. Furthermore Customer 2.0 is tied to Web 2.0 (an oft-disputed term its self) – in that the evolution of the internet and the customer are moving in the same direction.

In a bid to avoid the vague ambiguity that some articles on Customer 2.0 have dished up, I shall define what I think Customer 2.0 is…  (you may obviously have a different opinion – comments always welcome)

Customer 2.0

  • Tech savvy > competent to fluent on many websites/programs/operating systems
  • Discerning > un-trusting of traditional advertising and marketing methods, they look to fellow consumers for product endorsement and will research key purchases in depth
  • Tiny Attention Span > websites need to be super quick, information moves through the brain very fast, ‘viral’ media peaks then fades quickly
  • Dual Personality > often managing several social media and community profiles as well as the ‘offline’ world, Customer 2.0 has different persona’s across the spectrum
  • Loves Email > Customer 2.0 generally prefers to sort customer service problems over digital media (seeing the start of social media integration)
  • Flexible > Customer 2.0 is more flexible than Customer 1.0, up for trying new services, prepared to consider a different method of achieving something (e.g. customer service via Facebook)

I think the above list is probably a bit elementary, but it gets the key message across; Customer 2.0 is technologically savvy and expects more from their brands. For the brands to survive, or at least keep ahead, they much change too and they must do so in the same direction their customers are headed.

But that’s for another time.

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‘Ping’ Pongs

Today Apple released its groundbreaking new injection into the social media market in the form of Ping, their flagship social media platform. Ping, as Apple would describe it, is a social network for music where you can ‘follow your favorite artists and friends to discover the music they’re talking about, listening to and downloading’. Now without considering its various merits (or lack thereof), that just sounds like some tired old social media line, hovering around the subject of conversation. Lackluster, boring and frankly dated. They could have at least got someone with a certain degree of lexical creativity to sparkle it up a bit. Social media is about conversation, yes, but its also about innovation, creativity and excitement.

You missed out on this one, Jobs.

The story doesn’t get much better after that, as we learn that Ping is going to be primarily centred in iTunes 10 (which was also launched today), with no web support and limited device support.

iTunes.

Are. You. Serious?

iTunes has risen to disgusting ubiquity as the only fully supported music library (and online store) that will sync with an iPod or iPhone, products that are also more or less ubiquitous in todays western world. The iPod I like, but the software for it is terrible. iTunes is a RAM-hungry, slow, often times buggy (on both PC’s and Mac’s), poor excuse (or choice for that matter) for a music content management system. Frankly I cannot believe that Apple have chosen to launch Ping inside it.

Thankfully, not everyone likes Ping, and I’m happy in the knowledge that I am not along in my dislike of iTunes. An excellent article by @jemimakiss on the Guardian website pretty much says everything I was already thinking in a far more eloquent way (she was paid to do it, I’m trying to write this before bed!). Others have dubbed Ping as ‘interesting’ but ‘noting to get excited about’, and another excellent post by Nick Oneil breaks down the 10 reasons why Ping isn’t going anywhere very fast.

This story could have had a different tone to it, had Facebook  been on board, but due to ‘onerous’ terms the partnership was cut short before it even started. Jobs has said its no big deal, I think he’s saving face.

I don’t like Jobs, which is weird for me as I have been an extreme apple advocate in the past, bordering on a crazed evangelist, and I wouldn’t go back to using a PC if you paid me. Honestly I find him to be arrogant, bigoted and completely frustrating (I’m fighting the desire to use obscenity here!). His war with Adobe is a perfect example of this, and is frankly ridiculous. I have also recently begun to move more and more into the open source culture, or at least look for cross over programs which I can use, which of course is the antithesis of the Apple organisation.

I am particularly excited about Diaspora, the open source social networking project, but I’m digressing and that is for another time.

If you want to check Ping out then follow this link to update your iTunes to version 10, followed by selling your soul to Jobs, and getting ‘involved’ with the Ping ‘community’. Before long your pocket will be a little bit lighter, your music collection slightly augmented, and a smug Jobs with that irksome grin will be patting himself on the back, laughing at the criticism that Ping received on launch, and counting his dollar.

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