Twittering the Internet

Matt Williamson — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:38:00 +0000

Twitter is what some might consider an anomaly, even on the Internet which began its’ own life as an anomaly. Twitter doesn’t produce what most would think of as consumable information, Twitter doesn’t provide a community calendar, an email platform or a way to gain an upper hand on your competitor; but it is all of those, and more. It is a micro-blogging platform with a huge social community built around it. Though you can only post messages with 140 characters or less, some of the ‘tweets’ are amazing.

I have been aware of Twitter for a long time, and had an account from the beginning, but I only really started paying attention in the last few months. I have more than a few friends who microblog on Twitter, so I wanted to stay abreast of what they were doing and where they were. For instance, if Scott is traveling he usually sends a quick text to his Twitter account saying that he has landed or is in some city preparing for a meeting or giving a speech. So even though I might not speak with Scott in person or on the phone for a couple of days or even a week, I am aware of his schedule and what he is working on.

Taking the idea of microblogging to the enterprise we find companies like Apple, Dell, CNN and JetBlue. JetBlue uses Twitter to communicate with customers on a basis that before the Internet simply was not feasible. From weather updates to actual conversation about JetBlue offerings, we have what I consider the first steps of a seamless global conversation between consumers and producers. For instance, take this exchange on Twitter:

@steverubel BetaBlue is the name of a single plane within our fleet used as a test bed for new products and services -currently testing WiFi 03:10 PM June 04, 2008 from web in reply to steverubel

JetBlue had mentioned on a tweet that BetaBlue was testing well. BetaBlue offers access to Exchange, Gmail, AOL Mail, Hotmail, Windows Live Mail as well as shopping on Amazon.com while in-flight on a test plane. Another Twitter post asked about the iPhone and then the conversation leads to Steve Rubel asking how many planes are equipped with BetaBlue. We go from what might have been a simple, static press release, to a real conversation with actual information and interaction. That is what the Internet is about.

I said earlier that Twitter is not a calendar, an email platform or even a system to gain information about your competitors; but with some imagination it is all of those. Searching Twitter is something that could lead to some excellent demographical information. Summarize has done a very good job of providing an interface to delve deep into tweets. If you are wondering who’s talking about the iPhone, and what they are saying, you just need to search Summarize for references to the iPhone. Perhaps you are taking the pulse of the Internet about Cisco? Well, according to Summarize, someone named Frater_Phoenix is in Second Life at the Cisco Technology Center.

If you were to plot where someone has been by their tweets that would be very marketable information. A service of Bright Kite allows you to post your physical location to your Twitter account from your cell phone automatically. You can post your location at anytime in the Twitter interface, but Bright Kite wants to make it happen for you. Perhaps Bright Kite, or another start up, will plot all of those people on a Google Map and offer them discounts when they are close to fast food chain or the local Barnes and Noble? Discovering where people are at any given point is easy enough with Twitter, if they want you to know.

That leads me to Twittervision, a site that made me smile. Twittervision takes Twitter posts and shows you in real time where they originated from around the world. As long as the person posting has a location defined on Twitter you will see the post show up on a Google Map with their image and the post. It is addicting and beautiful in some ways. You are watching small pieces of peoples lives as they flash up before you.

For all of its uses, Twitter does have a penchant for going down on occasion (heavy load plays into this problem) but I can live with that as long as the company is making smart choices with technology and striving for uptime. Granted, I don’t lose money when Twitter is down, but I do get twitchy.

We have yet to see the killer app for businesses using Twitter, but at least some forward thinking companies are testing the water. It is clear that we continue to evolve our technological brains and this is just one more branch on the Internet family tree, but I am excited about the leaves.

Some Twitter links of interest:

Technology Story » microblog

Twittering the Internet