A Perspective on Location Services, Mobile Entrepreneurship & Startup Life

[Source: Flutter: The New Twitter]

Why do I blog this? A well-done video about the next big thing, nano-blogging, because Twitter’s micro-blogging approach has signifcant downsides… I like the way to challenge existing application concepts that are often accepted as is but why is Twitter’s 140 character limit so important? The analogy to text messaging is pretty clear and now every other service changing to a little more or less characters are not providing a huge advantage and people are used to stay inside exactly the 140 char limit.

Why do I blog this?

As an active Twitter user I can understand why Twitter is fun and engaging but it has some serious flaws IMHO that can make the hype stop pretty fast.

a) Broadcasting personal messages creates an information overload for receivers. Once following over a hundred users you have to switch to the Twitter search if you are interested in a specific topics, you recognise that social networks provide better utility for the time spend on the site.

b) Switching costs to sites like Facebook are marginal and now that Facebook has a similar and more feature-rich lifestream layout it’s better to post on their site and most people have their real friends just one message away. The @syntax is not working to reach my friends on Facebook, so I should use either or.

c) The broadcasting scheme is perfect for celebraties or companies to inform their fan community and ask questions. It’s like a new media channel which is so extremely limited with its 140 characters that it is really hard to monetize. If they change something in a fundamental way people can be pissed off and turn aways, there is no persistent data that keeps you there. A message is a one time shout out and the collected friend list is just for your ego, business value not as high as on other sites. There is hype and there will be reality after some time.

From the article “Are the Creators of Twitter living in the last Dreamworld on Earth?” by nymag.com.

“No one in the room knew a plane had crashed. The next day, Stone would tell me that the site didn’t even get a traffic spike. “That’s only for huge shared experiences, like the inauguration, or Mumbai.” Twitter had unleashed something … and its executives were completely unaware, as its system worked on its own, without them. That might be what the future holds for Twitter. Or it might not be.“