Comments on: More reasons to be cautious about Twitter

By: rich

rich — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:28:39 +0000

It could definitely come into play for breaking news if Murdoch starts trying to charge for news sites http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8186701.stm
Of course there’s the problem of chinese whispers but overall probably more balance than Faux News…

By: Paul D

Paul D — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:48:07 +0000

Bill Simmons has said this, and I think it might be true, that twitter’s not really a social network, but more for breaking news, etc. It’s worked that way for sports anyways. I wouldn’t be investing in Twitter though

By: graeme

graeme — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:35:41 +0000

Sorry, I don’t think I was clear. I think you can engage within a friend network meaningfully below the 100 follower threshold. But I’m looking at the macro level, with how information flows through the entire network. If it’s truly a forum for “new journalism” and “community building”, then it would need to be very different than it is now.

Mike, you’re quite correct- it is useful for communicating with friends. I just don’t believe (as you don’t) that it represents some watershed in online communication.

By: Karen

Karen — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:04:17 +0000

I have under 100 followers because I keep my feed private, yet I have tweeted 2633 times since…January, I think? I’d consider myself sub-100 and engaged.

By: Mike Beltzner

Mike Beltzner — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:57:16 +0000

I’m not sure that the over 100 followers metric is relevant; Twitter wasn’t invented to be a marketing or broad communication mechanism (though certain niche organizations, cewebrities and celebrities have used it that way to great effect) but rather as a way to keep your friends up to date with where you are and what you’re doing. Social studies have shown that social circles generally range in the sub-100 numbers, so I’d actually expect most Twitter users to have fewer than 100 followers. (More interesting to me, actually, would be the number of people most Twitter users follow.)

Of course, I agree with you that the media seems to have found Twitter, the cewebrities and the celebrities and is now making a huge amount of hay about how it will change the universe and make ice cream that never goes melty. None of this is true, though it is a nice way to keep in touch with what other people are doing.