8
Brian Solis always has thought provoking posts, and today “The Twitter Star: Nova or SuperNova” was no different. It really provoked some thoughts from me regarding Twitter. In the post Brian points out some of the declines in visitors to Twitter.com over the past 3 months. He also points to an April study by Nielsen Online that shows 60 percent of new users do not return.
I know many will point out that these measures do not include all the Twitter tools and the open API, and I will concede this point. Of course Nielsen did not concede that point and in this post they took the study a step further and proved the decline, even when you consider applications.
Over the past few months I have noticed less conversations and a lot more noise which makes it very difficult for new users, and I am sure frustrating to users that have been in the space for a long time. Twitter has been making strides to make things easier, including creating lists which make it easier to follow people that are important to you. They also make a great entry point for people to start following groups of people. Many users have been doing this via tools like peoplebrowsr for a long time. It is great that Twitter is catching up, but is it enough?
I like looking at things as a Customer eyes, even in situations like this. So first lets look at the new Customer experience for Twitter. They hear about Twitter on a news story or from a friend. Based on this info they go to Twitter.com. The new home page has search front and center. I think this is a great step, but as a new user, I am not sure they would know what they want to search for and why. One thing that comes to mind is they may search the word ‘Twitter’ and this is what it looks like:
For a long time we have all seen the benefits of Twitter trending. This has been a tool that has told us news from happenings in Iran to natural disasters to the death of famous people. Today most of the trending topics tend to be filled with spam messages that really do not add value to any of our lives. Here is the top ten as I am writing this (click on any to view the tweets):
Trending Topics:
#classicmoviequotes
Thanksgiving
Google Wave
New Moon
#aintnothinglike
Jedward
Adam Lambert
Christmas
Goodmorning
Black Friday
The most exciting part for a new user is the first people that follow them. Of course they immediate follow back and most likely get an odd DM welcome message. I auto follow back, which causes me to get a lot of spam, but a new user would not know this and will receive similar. Here is a look at DM’s I have received over the past few hours (names and links have been removed since some are caused by malicious code):
- Do you get paid for your tweets? 2 minutes ago
- Hi and thank u! about 1 hour ago
- Hey Frank, I just took “Which Lady GaGa song r u?” and got: Paparazzi ! Try it: about 3 hours ago
- Hey Frank, I just took “Are you really team edward or team jacob? well you may know who you wa…” and got: You love Jake! Try it: about 3 hours ago
- Hey Frank, I just took “How Funny Are You?” and got: Not Bad! Try it: about 3 hours ago
- Hey Frank, I just took “Are you stupid?” and got: Ur ok! Try it: about 3 hours ago
- Hey Cap’n – “Thanks for following!” Don’t fret, you can get all your (Google) Wave news and info at - check it out! about 5 hours ago
- I appreciate your interest in following me. I hope to remain a Twitter friend for a long time. Here is to many pleasant tweets ! about 5 hours ago
- Just for you! $5 off 2 T-Shirts or more! Use code: SALEJUSTFORU at about 7 hours ago
- Lieb von dir, dass du mir folgst – das freut mich riesig. Auf bald, deine Andrea about 8 hours ago
- As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. God bless! about 8 hours ago
- Hello and thanks for the follow. It would be a BLAST to connect on Facebook?(Check it out and tell me what you think) about 9 hours ago
- Just take a moment and see that you can make money with this. A lot of people are doing it now.
I have said for a long time this is a community, and in many ways the community must define what the future of Twitter looks like. If we want it to be relevant long into the future, what would you do? Have you noticed a change in Twitter?
I’ve noticed quite a change
on Twitter.
Though we’ve had different waves of changes
over the years, there has been a dramatic increase
of low-grade small talk, spam, and abusive use of
the site, the past several months.
I have the vantage point of having been on Twitter
since the beginning, and of seeing many new
followers/day.
In my opinion, a bulk of the decline in quality
tweets is significantly due to the recent influx
from MySpace.
I had @KevinMarks dislike that observation recently,
but that’s just a matter of politics.
I give credit to TwitterHQ in the respect that they
have gone from 1 part timer,
to a team of 7 full time Trust & Safety staffers.
But their poor on-boarding and dependence on “It’s opt-in, just unfollow”, underestimate
the harm to the community at large.
Interesting insites Frank. Recently, I’ve found the conversation on Twitter to be much less personal than I previously experienced. Its still a great way to connect—but fewer “2-way” conversations.
Great article, I completely agree and I also agree with Ed that a large crowd of trenders from the MySpace demographic has suddenly landed here. Many of them are tech savvy in the sense that they know little tricks such as how to keep trending topics alive by spamming the site, etc. This only increases the noise but it does work for them. The new Retweet functionality helps to cut some of this down, but not much.
That hasn’t been my experience in my little corner of Twitter. I hang with a very set of IT professionals who like to talk about virtualization on Twitter. Recent developments like Lists have broadened our community and made it easier to find, but I haven’t noticed an influx of noise.
Note that I don’t autofollow – from your experience I’m afraid the days of autofollow may be over. It does remind me of the decline of Usenet.
Anyone not able to receive a communication will soon not be part of a conversation. 99% of the tweets I get back from those I newly follow are so obviously not “received” by an actual person and the lack of real conversation doesn’t bode well for the future existence of Twitter, IMHO.
A definite add of spammers and affiliate market-eers now in the mix. Though the value and power of Twitter is that it is self vetting….and will (over time) screen out the ‘hit and run’ opportunity seeker crowd.
Twitter is about sustainable relevance, not message control or broadcast mindshare. To remain visible ‘in the cloud’ will require a continuous vote of ‘engagement confidence’ that you contribute value to the community, not attempt to suck it out, imj.
Jerry Jampolsky once said, ‘love is letting go of fear’; the new age twitter equivalent mantra may be ‘…pass it on..’ without an agenda.
Yep, Twitter needs more filtering tools. They know it. Seesmic / Tweetdeck know it. So it is just a matter of months before it improves.
Indeed, since I wrote that article about what was lacking in Twitter, there have already been many changes, especially in the Twitter clients.
http://harryseldon.thinkosphere.com/2009/06/14/why-i-love-twitter-and-sometimes-hate-it-too
Irony: The same people putting out noisy and boring tweets are the same people retweeting this blog.
EPICFAILOFTHENIGHT!