Great titles say something, and that’s why I am excited about reading Shel Israel’s book-in-process, Twitterville. To me, the title captures the essence of what Twitter is, a social community that’s not quite a megatropolis like Facebook, yet maintains a larger presence, kind of like a small city nestled on the sea (Image: The Old City by Ronsho).
Twitter definitely deserves all of the attention it gets, but at the same time is not the ultra panacea that some say it is. It lacks many of the contact manager, full video, audio, full text and bookmarking capabilities of other networks. Acceptable interaction can be hard to find. It needs other tools like Tweetdeck to automatically repost (retweet) or group people. It’s just 140 characters, really. So when I hear about whole communication plans or even businesses being developed solely for Twitter, I get skeptical.
Yet at the same time, Twitter’s simplicity is what makes it great. It truly fosters a community, a large village with different cliques, different stories, and different conversations that vary by interest. Cross pollination occurs by interest or professional commonality. And it can really do great things, and help people affect societal change.
"Twitter is the most intimate of social media platforms," said Shel in a written interview he gave for this post. "It lets people online behave more than they do in real life than anything that has preceded it."
Isn’t that the truth, both good and bad? I mean consider the whole Matt Bacak press release melodrama. For those who are not familiar, Bacak issued a press release about his status as a top Twitterer due to Twitter Grader’s analysis of his profle. Bacak argued this makes his marketing prowess worthy of top dollars int he release. Given the suspect nature of Twitter Grader, he rightly caught a ton of grief about it. Bacak’s had a pretty smart recovery in his responses to folks today on Twitter.
The Bacak case did highlight how Twitter can really let individuals thrust themselves into the spotlight and build what some might consider to be undeserving greatness. Or reap/create undeserving havoc. For example, in my opinion, the Motrin melodrama seemed a bit overwrought.
But like every village, there are good and bad folks; people who do great, and others who make mistakes. And there are great organizations in our community and others who don’t make the grade. It’s just another day in the life of Twitterville.
Shel added more insights into our funny little community and what to expect from his book:
Twitterville is a virtual place where the people you meet are real and the relationships you form are often quite valuable. The book gives a compelling argument for companies of all sizes to join in, particularly during these tough economic times.
Twitterville is a place where global businesses can set up very, local, personal shops at very low cost. It is simultaneously where people like Geoff Livingston can establish global reputations while remaining in relatively small organizations. Twitterville is comprised of global neighborhoods where geography is irrelevant and people organize around shared interests.
Ah yes, the first social media book that I’ve been excited to read in a long while… Twitterville. Looking forward to the late next year release (hopefully).
What do you think of our little village (or Shel’s forthcoming book)?
Shel has some intriguing ideas, but I don’t think it’s the right paradigm.
Your Twitter stream looks very different than mine, but you and I both converse with a lot of the same people, Shel included.
There are MANY different ecosystems on Twitter, and they do not overlap. Memes and ideas that matter to one don’t propagate to the others. And the general expectations and behavior of the members in each segment can vary wildly as well.
Example: there are many internet forums hosted on the Simple Machines platform. They show great diversity in their frequency, boundaries, and civility.
“Twitterville” isn’t a place, real or virtual. Instead, we have many disconnected tidal pools, which have in common little more than water as a medium (and precious little of that water is shared.)
I look forward to seeing how his thought mesh with mine, my only question is about the over-arching paradigm.
(NOTE: Early readers will not see the link with the “suspect nature of Twitter Grader” while my server migration is underway. Here is a link to the Google Cache from that page — http://snurl.com/76kon )
@ikepiggot But they do interact when the interests, fate and paths dictate they should. Just like a small city. So I have to say that I disagree, Ike.
ShelIsrael was one of the very first person I followed in Twitter right before he went to China, as he said I had a feeling talking to him while he was in Beijing we were real life friends. I have facebook but I think it is a little too confuse to me… and use social internet since the good old time of a video program called cusee-me in 96. I can’t wait to read Twitterville… it is difficult to explain to people that do not use it what in the world is it… to keep in touch with people 140 characters a time… for me it is perfect …simple… unpretentious (where is my spell checker??) eficient… and highly addictive.
Btw, to follow Barack Obama be elected the President of the USA with Twitter friends was a great experience, and in a sad note it always be an unforgetable experience to make friends in India, and follow with them the terrible news of Mumbai terror attack….
Ok back to twitter :-) did I mention I am in Bahia, Brazil? I started to follow you today in twitter… see you there!!
Lisi
Ike, In the book, I deal with the self-organizational aspects of Twitterville. People group themselves into comfy global neighborhoods. This is why we all can feel like we are in a tight-kit neighborhood, despite the fact that there are probably 4 million people in twitterville and the place is growing faster than any megalopolis on Earth.
He did just what he wanted and it WORKED! He got everyone to talk about him. You guys are falling for the trap. Lots of hot heads around here.
@shaun ooooh, a Twitterville conspiracy. Even better!