WTF is Twitter

WTF is ? Barkley Education Series April 2008 Dustin Jacobsen, Technical Director http://twitter.com/dustinj djacobsen@barkleyus.com 1 Agenda      Introduction Twitter Overview Usage (Current/Future) Applications Live Feed 2 Twitter is the latest shiny toy in the web 2.0 toolbox Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own. 3 The New York Times calls Twitter "one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet." TIME Magazine says, "Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app" Newsweek noted that "Suddenly, it seems as though all the world's a-twitter." [via] 4 The Revolution Will Be Twittered From Bloggers to Corporations, Everyone is ‘Tweeting’  The James Buck Story [ABC News] [CNN] 5 Twitter Overview   Who Usage  “Year on year, Internet visits to Twitter.com are up 8 fold. In the past three months, visits have more than doubled and traffic continues to climb, up 60% in the past month.” [via]  How much is Twitter Worth? 6 Twitter in plain English  Video [2:25] 7 GNTV: A Talk with the Twitter Guys The founders talk candidly on where they've been & where they're going  Video [first 5:45] 8 How People Interact: Update via web Update via mobile web Update via SMS Update via 3rd party apps [poll 1] [poll 2] 9 Twitter integration: Twitter feed Blogs Facebook, Plaxo status 10 Why people love Twitter  Video (6:19) [via] 11 Keeping Pace: The Evolution of Marketing and Branding    Rule #1, change is constant Keeping up with the “ME” Economy Multiple access points or “gateways” to products and services Create value Content is still king 12   Even if Twitter is Just a Geek Haven, It’s Still Very Influential  Geeks are by far more influential than any other online contingency, except the big media.  “How many people do you know outside your tech community that want to have 25 desktop applications live, running Firefox alongside with 10 tabs open, twittering 100 times a day, reading and commenting articles on FriendFeed, writing a blog post about it, starting riots to get traffic going, AND still have a normal day job and a life after that? I don't know anyone that fancies that kind of life.” 13 Techno-Bias for Those who Twitter  “If someone is talking about social media on their blog, and you go to Twitter and search for them, and they're absent, what does that say about their social media skills?”  “There are plenty of other ways to be all social-media'd out.” 14 Confessions of a Twitter Snob  “I'm judging whether or not to add someone based on their username, what their most recent tweets are, how many other people are following them and, if I'm lucky, maybe there's a link to a Blog which gives me more insight.” 15 How Companies Use Twitter    Promotions Listening and responding to customers Employees as ambassadors 16 Twitter Wrote this Column for Me    Describe Twitter How can Twitter help marketers? Have you bought anything because of Twitter? 17 How to Get Customer Service via Twitter [via]  “While it's nice to know that Twitter is available as a way of getting a company's attention, all methods of customer service and support should be treated with the same consideration.” “By pouncing on the Twitter complaints while ignoring the emails, one has to wonder if the company is, in fact, more concerned with reputation than they are with service.”  18 Brands on Twitter    H&R Block [interview, pt. 5] [interview (video:6:25)] Southwest Air Zappos [tip: protect your brand] 19 How-To: Using Twitter to Build Brand Integrity         Subscribe generously Don’t just be casual; be personal Be responsive Be faster than RSS Spark interactivity Ask for help Be Tweet-worthy Monitor and reply carefully 20 What Not to Do    Could Advertising Pollute Twitter? The Noise about Twitter Noise Twitter Spam - being focused on pushing out messaging but not engaging in a real discussion or conversation Listen Up: @BarackObama is following 25,897.Twitter is about listening and not just being heard 21  Website Applications Search Feed Statistics Mapping Random 22 Search TwitterTroll Tweetscan Summize Hashtags 23 Feed FriendFeed [note: many RSS readers can consume the Twitter feed] 24 Statistics / Research Tweetstats Twitterverse Twist Tweet Clouds [via] 25 Mapping TwitterLocal Twittervision TwitterEarth 26 Random Twistori Twittersnooze Tweetfight [via] Group Tweet [via] 27 Alternate Interfaces Twhirl Twitterific OutTwit [via] TwitBin others 28 The world is changing in real time.. and it will be published Qik (live streaming from a phone) [Kevin Rose car damage] 29 Thanks! Dustin Jacobsen http://twitter.com/dustinj 30