The Twitter Market Place
Twitter describes itself as a "Social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface".
It is essentially text messaging to a wide audience where you can post a short message of 140 characters to tell your friends and family (twitter followers) what you're doing.
There are many ways of posting these messages (known as 'tweets').
You can use various software such as Tweetdeck or Tweetie, but one of the things that makes twitter particularly attractive is that you can update on the go from your mobile phone.
The fact that you don't have to be online and sitting infront of your computer means that you really can tell your followers what you're doing, as you're doing it.
Stephen Fry once posted about getting on board the new Airbus 380 aircraft, including posting photographs from his mobile phone as he did so - fascinating stuff if you're interested in @stephen fry and his choice of travel arrangements.
Once you've posted a tweet, it's possible for people to comment or reply to your tweet using two methods - either @replies or DMs.
DM being a Direct Message and @replies are simply posting another tweet with @username in front to direct the message to the person in question.
Its easy to treat these messages like emails - they're most certainly not.
For a start the recipient does not get a message on twitter to say that there are messages waiting to be read and also, if the person in question is following thousands of people and receiving (potentially) thousands of DMs, it's perfectly possible that your DM will be lost somewhere down the bottom of the list.
It's a bit like doing a Google search - you only ever really look at the first three items on the list, you almost certainly don't scroll back through the last three pages.
DMs and @replies are only useful in conversation if the person you're contacting is online at the same time as you.
Hence twitter as a conversation tool, is very much in the 'now'.
In order to fully participate in any discussion or exchange of ideas you need to be online.
Even then, if you're tweeting to many people at once using @replies and direct messages, it can get terribly confusing trying to keep up several independent conversations.
It is perhaps better to look at twitter as more of a way of broadcasting information.
Indeed with all the supposed 'online marketing entrepreneur, social media experts' posting tweets about their favourite money-making, get-rich-quick affiliate programs, twitter is fast becoming one huge market-place.
Were it in real life, it would consist of people walking about a market square with billboards on their backs shouting to advertise their wares.
Much like the scene in the 1968 version of 'Oliver' when Mark Lester (Oliver) sings 'Who will buy...
(this wonderful morning)'.
If only it were a wonderful morning the tweeters were selling and not yet another promise of unimaginable (and almost certainly unattainable) wealth.
So is twitter being ruined by these marketers? Well, maybe, maybe not.
If you're a new business just starting out, twitter provides a great place to do some market research and, once you're up and running, allows you to advertise your company for free and post links to your website.
If you're looking for a bit of a chat and some social interaction, you're probably better off on Facebook.
It is essentially text messaging to a wide audience where you can post a short message of 140 characters to tell your friends and family (twitter followers) what you're doing.
There are many ways of posting these messages (known as 'tweets').
You can use various software such as Tweetdeck or Tweetie, but one of the things that makes twitter particularly attractive is that you can update on the go from your mobile phone.
The fact that you don't have to be online and sitting infront of your computer means that you really can tell your followers what you're doing, as you're doing it.
Stephen Fry once posted about getting on board the new Airbus 380 aircraft, including posting photographs from his mobile phone as he did so - fascinating stuff if you're interested in @stephen fry and his choice of travel arrangements.
Once you've posted a tweet, it's possible for people to comment or reply to your tweet using two methods - either @replies or DMs.
DM being a Direct Message and @replies are simply posting another tweet with @username in front to direct the message to the person in question.
Its easy to treat these messages like emails - they're most certainly not.
For a start the recipient does not get a message on twitter to say that there are messages waiting to be read and also, if the person in question is following thousands of people and receiving (potentially) thousands of DMs, it's perfectly possible that your DM will be lost somewhere down the bottom of the list.
It's a bit like doing a Google search - you only ever really look at the first three items on the list, you almost certainly don't scroll back through the last three pages.
DMs and @replies are only useful in conversation if the person you're contacting is online at the same time as you.
Hence twitter as a conversation tool, is very much in the 'now'.
In order to fully participate in any discussion or exchange of ideas you need to be online.
Even then, if you're tweeting to many people at once using @replies and direct messages, it can get terribly confusing trying to keep up several independent conversations.
It is perhaps better to look at twitter as more of a way of broadcasting information.
Indeed with all the supposed 'online marketing entrepreneur, social media experts' posting tweets about their favourite money-making, get-rich-quick affiliate programs, twitter is fast becoming one huge market-place.
Were it in real life, it would consist of people walking about a market square with billboards on their backs shouting to advertise their wares.
Much like the scene in the 1968 version of 'Oliver' when Mark Lester (Oliver) sings 'Who will buy...
(this wonderful morning)'.
If only it were a wonderful morning the tweeters were selling and not yet another promise of unimaginable (and almost certainly unattainable) wealth.
So is twitter being ruined by these marketers? Well, maybe, maybe not.
If you're a new business just starting out, twitter provides a great place to do some market research and, once you're up and running, allows you to advertise your company for free and post links to your website.
If you're looking for a bit of a chat and some social interaction, you're probably better off on Facebook.
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