SheGeeks: Why Twitter Has Failed: The Power of Time and Mainstream
bukolae
· 1 year ago
I think Twitter caters to the tech savvy crowd which covers the demographics you mentioned (tech, design, pr). I would also include the gaming press and the gamers they serve (hardcore gamers tend to be tech nerds as well).
I think the mainstream crowd is having their needs fulfilled with status-like features in facebook, linkedin, and myspace. The concept of status checking IS mainstream but a standalone product like twitter has yet to provide immediate value to mainstream users.
Shey
· 1 year ago
I'm still not convinced "Web 2.0" has gone mainstream yet. Until then, all this talk about Twitter and Friendfeed going mainstream is futile.
sarahintampa
· 1 year ago
Oh, I don't know...I wouldn't write off Twitter just yet. :) But I see your point . However, if any of the microblogging apps have the potential to cross the chasm, it is this one. Or maybe I'm just hoping so.
Hmmm, would love to find some stats on Twitter's user count over time.
gwalter
· 1 year ago
I'm not so sure I agree with you Corvida. Like @Shey has said above, until Web2.0 goes mainstream, none of these products has the impact we think they should have.
The other day I was trying to convince a friend that the Ning site I created for him was better than the $1500 static site he was about to purchase. I talked about the ability to comment, build relationships, and have constant updates. He wasn't buying.
I talked about how the under 30 crowd is eschewing email for other communication links. However, this was a paradigm shift his barely keeping up with email mind wasn't ready to grasp yet.
It isn't Twitter that has failed, it is just that so many of us on Twitter are so far ahead of the curve, as early adopters, that Twitter is now old and we want the next new thing. Sometimes us early adopters have to pause and let the world catch up.
BTW, I'm an avid user of Twitter and I'm not "tech, design, or PR" I derive much benefit from Twitter - and at least here in PDX, we have community.
He says: "Google was a very good search engine for two years before you started using it."
See? Hope for Twitter! :)
JohnnyV
· 1 year ago
Of course it hasn't gone "mainstream" yet...The other forms of media are scared to mention 'web 2.0' because it invades their own place in the world of media. Pretty much the only time you hear about Twitter, MySpace, Facebook is when it deals with people stalking others...then it gets its place in mainstream media
Albert Willis
· 1 year ago
I don't agree that Twitter has “failed.” Lets not assume just because something isn’t “mainstream” (whatever that means in a world where everything is niche and personalized) that it has failed. Using that criteria, Apple is a failure because its market share (though climbing) has been in the single digits compared to Windows for many years. In this regard, Twitter is like Apple: its influence and mindshare—who’s using it, not how many—is what really matters.
There will come a time when there’s a tipping point for micro-blogging, which will be lead by Twitter.
achernow
· 1 year ago
Twitter does have some usage by the main-stream-media. I know of at least a handful of newsrooms, including CNN, who are using it to push breaking news updates. I don't know if their feeds have many followers, but there is at least *some* adoption main stream.
Btw.. I don't fit into Tech, Design or PR... I direct the news at a tv station (who does not twitter, btw... in fact, it's blocked from our network.)
[Edited to correct grammar]
Andy DeSoto
· 1 year ago
Hi Corvida, thanks for the mention!
Completely agree with what you say here, even if it's elicited a bit of disagreement from my fellow commenters. I think the main problem with Twitter remains this: no matter how simple Twitter as a concept is, it's still much too hard to explain its purpose to potential users. And that's partly because those niche groups you mention all use it for a slightly different purpose.
mdoeff
· 1 year ago
I have to disagree. I see plenty of people outside of Tech, Design, PR on Twitter. There are thousands of people discussing nothing but politics on Twitter right now - journalists, lobbyists, congressmen, etc.
David Risley
· 1 year ago
Almost everything we talk about on a daily basis could be argued not to be mainstream. It is easy to forget that most people are really out of touch when it comes to computers and technology. They use their PC for casual internet surfing, photos, and that's about it. To people like that, Twitter is just a nerdy buzzword.
People need to see a real benefit to Twitter before they'll use it. And, as foreign as it may seem to early adopters, most people just don't give a flying crap.
kylelacy
· 1 year ago
Your preaching to the choir. The tech savvy crowd is def. the majority of the users on Twitter. I can tell you as a small business owner it hardly exists among my peers.
Katie
· 1 year ago
The mainstream users of Myspace and Facebook have little to no clue about Twitter.
I can definitely agree with this statement.
Saandstorm
· 1 year ago
With the iPhone Facebook app and the ability to update your Facebook status via most cell phones, my Facebook feed has become my defacto "tweets". My social circle is just as religious to updating their status as the most hardcore tweeter. With my social circle me posting on Twitter is the equivalent of: If a tree falls in the forest does anyone hear?
In my observation for some mainstream folks the idea of signing up for yet another network to invite friends, etc... Is just a little too much right now even for something as simple as Twitter.
Nathan
· 1 year ago
I agree with what you're saying. On the other hand, it's also true that there are small niche communities using Twitter in lots of other fields. My own -- higher education -- is an example. It certainly hasn't caught on among college faculty, but there is a sizeable number of educational technology people using it heavily, and it's spread slightly into the education crowd more generally (i.e., outside of educational technology). I wish it were more popular, though, because I think there are great possibilities for its use in education, but only if it becomes sufficiently widespread to achieve a critical mass. I also think that Saandstorm is right -- most "mainstream" folks are not interested in signing up for yet another thing.
Mark
· 1 year ago
i disagree, and you are comparing Twitter to FB/MySpace? And those sites have been are for how long, and twitter is what, 2 years old?
Corvida Raven
· 1 year ago
Facebook/Myspace we major hits within their first two years of coming out with mainstream. At 20 months Myspace had already gained 14 million unique visitors a month.
Persistance
· 1 year ago
I work across tech and social policy circles and i love twitter too. i like the design, short (almost real time) posts from "outside - in", and hope it never tends towards constant chatter me-think of facebook\myspace.
It is a firehose and for that reason will likely shift thinking on measures of socnet success from traffic based to influence based. check cnn and cspan for mainstream influence.
Albert Willis
· 1 year ago
I also wonder about what happens when Twitter does become mainstream and everyone starts using it. Until those guys work out the scalability issues, I can wait. The ratio of noise to signal will increase dramatically. Be careful what you wish for…
nappy_rash
· 1 year ago
Personally I don't think Twitter will be around in 5 years time.
Roger
· 1 year ago
I agree that Twitter has not yet "broken through" to the public consciousness like Facebook and MySpace. But I think Corvida's analysis misses two key points.
First, is that Twitter is such novel concept it is going to take longer to catch on anyway. Also, it's growth has been phenomenal and it has been reported in the mainstream press. So it is being noticed.
Second, it has had considerably scalability problems which may have inhibited growth but more to the point has helped competitors such as Plurk and identi.ca. So a more meaningful analysis would be of the microblogging space generally and how this is growing and evolving. I suspect that a closer inspection would show that the recent growth could not have been sustained if the usage was only among techies and geeks, but that regular users are using it too.
Warren Whitlock
· 1 year ago
I was referred to this article by someone wanting to know about Twitter shutting it's doors.
Failure? ... Hardly.
Not main stream? .. of course, we're just getting started
DotComPreneur Magazine
· 1 year ago
If ...or rather... when it catches on to the "mainstream" it has the potential to become very noisy and much less productive. But watching it evolve is part of the mystery and beauty of all things 2.0
Either the tweens haven't found out about it yet or they're not interested
In the meantime, I am enjoying connecting with other DotComPreneurs
I love Twitter too. But when I speak of it around the workplace (information technology service people), most say: "what's that?"
I see its increasing growth in its application to status feeds on websites, and its benefit as a social media optimisation tool. Perhaps Twitter will simply be relegated to that: a search engine optimisation phenomena only utilised for website promotion?
We'll see. Meanwhile, I will continue to use ping.fm and watch which "status update" service (e.g. "Pownce") gets the limelight.
All Comments
I think the mainstream crowd is having their needs fulfilled with status-like features in facebook, linkedin, and myspace. The concept of status checking IS mainstream but a standalone product like twitter has yet to provide immediate value to mainstream users.
Hmmm, would love to find some stats on Twitter's user count over time.
The other day I was trying to convince a friend that the Ning site I created for him was better than the $1500 static site he was about to purchase. I talked about the ability to comment, build relationships, and have constant updates. He wasn't buying.
I talked about how the under 30 crowd is eschewing email for other communication links. However, this was a paradigm shift his barely keeping up with email mind wasn't ready to grasp yet.
It isn't Twitter that has failed, it is just that so many of us on Twitter are so far ahead of the curve, as early adopters, that Twitter is now old and we want the next new thing. Sometimes us early adopters have to pause and let the world catch up.
BTW, I'm an avid user of Twitter and I'm not "tech, design, or PR" I derive much benefit from Twitter - and at least here in PDX, we have community.
He says: "Google was a very good search engine for two years before you started using it."
See? Hope for Twitter! :)
There will come a time when there’s a tipping point for micro-blogging, which will be lead by Twitter.
Btw.. I don't fit into Tech, Design or PR... I direct the news at a tv station (who does not twitter, btw... in fact, it's blocked from our network.)
[Edited to correct grammar]
Completely agree with what you say here, even if it's elicited a bit of disagreement from my fellow commenters. I think the main problem with Twitter remains this: no matter how simple Twitter as a concept is, it's still much too hard to explain its purpose to potential users. And that's partly because those niche groups you mention all use it for a slightly different purpose.
People need to see a real benefit to Twitter before they'll use it. And, as foreign as it may seem to early adopters, most people just don't give a flying crap.
I can definitely agree with this statement.
In my observation for some mainstream folks the idea of signing up for yet another network to invite friends, etc... Is just a little too much right now even for something as simple as Twitter.
It is a firehose and for that reason will likely shift thinking on measures of socnet success from traffic based to influence based. check cnn and cspan for mainstream influence.
First, is that Twitter is such novel concept it is going to take longer to catch on anyway. Also, it's growth has been phenomenal and it has been reported in the mainstream press. So it is being noticed.
Second, it has had considerably scalability problems which may have inhibited growth but more to the point has helped competitors such as Plurk and identi.ca. So a more meaningful analysis would be of the microblogging space generally and how this is growing and evolving. I suspect that a closer inspection would show that the recent growth could not have been sustained if the usage was only among techies and geeks, but that regular users are using it too.
Failure? ... Hardly.
Not main stream? .. of course, we're just getting started
Either the tweens haven't found out about it yet or they're not interested
In the meantime, I am enjoying connecting with other DotComPreneurs
http://www.Twitter.com/jillkoenig
I see its increasing growth in its application to status feeds on websites, and its benefit as a social media optimisation tool. Perhaps Twitter will simply be relegated to that: a search engine optimisation phenomena only utilised for website promotion?
We'll see. Meanwhile, I will continue to use ping.fm and watch which "status update" service (e.g. "Pownce") gets the limelight.
It's an exciting time to be on the Web, eh?!