Twitter Fever: it's all up in ur social mediaz
I’ve been spending a lot of time over on Twitter these last several months, and it seems like a growing chunk of the social media-addicted earth populace is as well. The number of stories pouring out about Twitter each day seems to at least rival the buzz that the microblogging phenom received coming out of SXSW in the spring of 2007.
Here are some of the more interesting stories that I’ve noticed over the last day or two.
Top 3 Twitterers of Each Country in the World based on Number of Followers (Updated)
As a stats junkie, bourgeoning Twitter addict, and believer in the global flattening effect brought on by technology, this story is particularly cool.
How cool?
Cool enough to note while looking at one screen that Carol of Taiwan has 2,201 followers, Baher Al Hakim of United Arab Emirates has 1,542, and noted author (and one of my all time favorites) Stephen Fry of the United Kingdom has 32,058.
Oh, and who’s #1? That would be a gentleman named Mr. Barack Obama of the United States, with 149,001 followers and counting.
The takeaway: Twitter is for real, global and worldwide.
Ways to Monetize Twitter and Repeat After Me: Revenue Generation
The “how’s Twitter gonna make money” meme has long been a good one to jawbone about. My long standing (and suffering) take: throw a 728×90 banner at the top of every single web-based Twitter profile page. It may not be a panacea, but I’d love to hear someone explain to me why that would be a bad idea!
In any event, the debate continues and is even intensifying as the economy gets wackier and the spotlight on Twitter brightens. Ideas for monetization really run the gamut, from “freemium” models to tweet-based ads to focusing on search. And Twitterati notes that Twitter’s job posting for a revenue-focused product manager may mean that we will learn more soon. So perhaps the long wait is nearly over!
News About News, in 140 Characters
The ways in which Twitter is starting to shape and even drive news coverage around the world is another area of attention and focus. You can kind of feel the unease and discomfort in how the mainstream media is contending with these developments – along with the economic hardships that traditional media companies are facing – in blocks of copy such as this:
With staff changes and reductions across the media industry, even a blog post can be too time-consuming a way to announce who is in and out of a job. That is why a public relations employee turned to the instant-blogging platform Twitter to create The Media Is Dying, a Twitter feed that documents media hirings and firings in one-sentence bursts of text.
I find the use of the term “instant-blogging” very interesting here. Makes using Twitter sound so easy, doesn’t it, with a side of insignificant, perhaps? However, the truth is that while Twitter is easy to use, it’s also flexible in scope, and remains a simple yet powerful publishing/micrblogging platform.
That, my friends, is a far cry from insignificant.
