Comments on: Conversations: Should Twitter "Fire" Its Users?

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:29:49 +0000

Scott,
Interesting observations. There is much discussion and knowledge about twitter at the national level. Here's what I'd like to know about Twitter: What's the best way for for local, small business to capture followers and build relationships (and eventually, prospects) — especially b2b professional service companies (accountants for example) or health care professionals (optometrists as another example)? They don't need followers from India or Australia.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:29:49 +0000

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:29:49 +0000

By: Jared O'Toole

Jared O'Toole — Sun, 10 May 2009 02:48:21 +0000

What I love about twitter is how those # increases don't matter to me. I dont follow those people if I dont want to. So I dont see their conversation or care when they dont ever come back to twitter. Follow who you care about and thats all that matters.

By: Jared O'Toole

Jared O'Toole — Sat, 09 May 2009 19:48:21 +0000

By: MediaMensch

MediaMensch — Sat, 09 May 2009 17:00:08 +0000

Twitter's main issue is it has to grow up - meaning it has to decide on its interface. For most users Facebook's discussion/comments/posting is easier to use and feeds out to people you know creating a real conversation among friends.

The other thing twitter faces is that although the character limitation is a new concept, it is also not conducive to true conversation and response. It causes people to put in half baked or incomplete thoughts, bad grammar, etc.

As far as subscription models, social media and paid models are not out their yet, in fact that is why newspapers are closing. Most people are not willing to pay for consumer type content anymore. (versus business/intellectual).

For social networks - paid vs. free - look at Classmates.com vs Facebook. Which one grew the fastest and has the most relevancy?

Good points and discussion.

By: MediaMensch

MediaMensch — Sat, 09 May 2009 10:00:08 +0000

Twitter's main issue is it has to grow up - meaning it has to decide on its interface. For most users Facebook's discussion/comments/posting is easier to use and feeds out to people you know creating a real conversation among friends.

The other thing twitter faces is that although the character limitation is a cool thing, it is also not conducive to true conversation and response. It causes sometimes people to put in half or incomplete thought, bad grammar, etc.

As far as subscription models, social media and paid models are not out their yet, in fact that is why newspapers are closing. Most people are not willing to pay for consumer type content anymore. (versus business/intellectual). Look at Classmates.com vs Facebook. Which one grew the fastest and has the most relevancy?

Good points and discussion.

By: Brent Friar

Brent Friar — Sat, 09 May 2009 02:47:34 +0000

Wow. I hadn't really thought of the math involved on a scale the size of Twitter. For anyone who has taken the time to build a sizable (and more importantly targeted) following, I would imagine that a small fee would be preferable to pulling up stakes and starting over elsewhere. I know I would pay it.

To take your example one step further, Twitter could offer their service for $1 per month, fire 90% of it's users, and still pull in $36M a year. Plus you would have a highly refined userbase that would be worth a lot more to advertisers.

By: Stuart Foster

Stuart Foster — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:14:57 +0000

I think the problem here is that the technology is far to easy to replicate. The appeal of Twitter is its population of users and little else. I would be on another platform if the people I looked up to decided to jump ship. It just has to hit a critical mass of people leaving in order for that to happen. We are already seeing an exodus to friendfeed…could a paid model really be that valuable?

By: Brent Friar

Brent Friar — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:47:34 +0000