As a two week young initiate to Twitter and an erstwhile resister of the preceding social media wave - Facebook, MySpace, Bebo - I’m a long way off hyping (or hoping) that Twitter will change our lives or some such.
Yet, this fast growing, highly emulsified blend of social hubbub and content is expanding – pulsing – at a stunning rate.
However, its not only the network, or the groups, or the search timelines, or Stephen Fry whose army of followers routinely bring down internet sites which he tweets about.
No. Beyond that, what impresses me is the explosion of complementary applications bursting out along the rivulets of Twitterdom, a Matrix (cue Keanu) of real-time messaging scatter-guns between apps, between people…. and there’s a lot of stuff out there jacking in.
Nova Spivak makes a good summation of why and goes further to say it changes everything. His key points about the differences between Twitter and anything before it are correct and as with every new digital dimension before comes a need to hoist another corporate patard. It seems reasonable to suppose that for existing social media concerns not to assimilate themselves would certainly be shortsighted, at worst arrogant.
With Twitter’s own annualised growth at 35% per month and up to 50% per month for some affiliate apps, it’s evident that the chase to monetise on Twitter is well and truly on (not least by themselves at some point). Indeed there’s a great many companies well ahead of me in seeing this coming, so perhaps it’s just my turn to take notice and that’s the surprise.
And then what… For now Twitter stands as internet Wunderkind and social media Utility company in the making.. the kind of internet property which Google itself might itself assimilate.
Whatever happens, it will be great show of sprawling, mashup-worthy proportions as it all wires up… Just one question… where shall I plug in my fibre optic lamp?
