A little bird told me...

I am a recent convert to the church of Twitter. I don't mind admitting I used to think it was a vacuous waste of everyone's time which offered nothing to the mix that wasn't already catered for many times over by existing social networks. It would appear that in the most part, I was wrong.

Having just discovered the @mentions tab of the web interface (it took me a while) and begun to engage brain with what goes into my tweets I have realised that it is very much a case of "give and you will receive". Twitter is quite literally buzzing with a kind of incestuous activity. End users, multinational companies, and celebrities all slugging it out together in a world of 160 character text shots, with little of the social trappings or hierarchy which govern everyday life.

My feeling is that the concept has been ultimately successful due to the element of anonymity. It allows an outlet for theatrical like outbursts and prodding of multi-national companies alike. Users need only a few details to sign up and can proport to be whoever they like if a name is not already taken. Once you have your twitter wings you can speak to the community of some 50+ million active users (interesting read here, some creative accounting on the total number of users but its still pretty impressive for a fledgling network..)

Twitter's success has got the corporate buy-out buzzards circling, however the organisation and its newly re-instated founder Jack Dorsey (BBC story here) have a struggle on their hands. Twitter is posting some pretty weak profits compared to competitors (Business Insider take a look) and is riding off a whole lot of intangibles surrounding the brand and the concept. On Friday Google was reported to be closing in on a $250 million dollar deal to buy the network, perhaps they will have the magic touch to make advertising revenues work without killing the buzz.

For those of you looking to up your involvement on Twitter some of my personal favourite songbirds include: @Queen_UK, @ProfBrianCox, BillBailey, WiredUK, and not forgetting the recently infamous Bronx Zoo's Cobra which has been a consistent stream of chuckles for the last few weeks. Not least because a fictional account for an escaped cobra managed to achieve 200,000 more followers in a week than the Bronx zoo itself has managed in a lifetime...

But by far and away the most suprising and empowering thing about Twitter is the ability to drum up responses from the mere whiff of a brand name. Having seen social media marketing efforts from the corporate perspective, I know that the majority of switched on organisations have a dedicated person scouring Twitter for a mention of their products, be it positive or negative. As an experiment over the last few days I have been firing out some requests for help, complaints, and promotions of brands which I have encountered. Within a few hours I recieved a response to every single mention. Could this be the end of being put on hold whilst an automated librarian tries to fob you off with stale advice? Why not cut to the chase and badmouth the CEO on twitter, he will probably give you a call...

Follow me @peterwillb


Update 8/4/11: Twitter adds Fortune telling to the mix.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12976254