This is a bit of a rant about something that is occuring all too frequently these days on my favourite social tool – Twitter. Yesterday an article in the Globe & Mail by Margaret Wente appeared that questioned, in her particular snarky tone of voice, the value of Twitter. You would have thought she questioned the cuteness of puppies by the vehement reaction by the Canadian Twitterverse. Update after update sought to match her snide tone and “set her straight”. It was an over-the-top reaction to a piece that in the grand scheme of things was just one persons opinion based on the plethora of mainstream media attention Twitter has been getting recently as the “next Internet phenom!!”. 

We really need to stop being so defensive. It’s a tool some of us use. It’s not for everyone after all and none of us own stocks.

Sure, it would have been nice if Wente had spent more time getting to know the tool before writing a piece about it, but let’s not forget that not every one has hours to spend figuring out the ins and outs of what is a highly charged, established community who are quite vocal when they deem you aren’t using it right. Not every one wants to either. If we cheer when Twitter makes the Wall Street Journal or The Star, are we not asking the general public to join based on what they’re reading? As with anything in life (and marketers should really know this already) people go through phases before deciding to buy (or join). Sure, we’d *like* them to take a test drive, but sometimes we have to rely on the dry specs and pretty pictures to even get on their consideration list. So Wente (who most likely has been hearing about the wonders of new media and Twitter from her colleague Mathew Ingram for months now) checked out the public stream and wasn’t impressed. Not surprising, there’s a lot of updates there about what people are having for lunch, and unless you have a group of people for whom you care about what they’re having for lunch, it really would seem silly for the lay person if we’re being honest. Of course that isn’t the *only* thing happening on Twitter, and not the reason I use it (I’ve explained before here and in an interview on CityNews recently why I use Twitter), but it takes a lot of time and energy to build that network… and maybe that isn’t time some people want to invest, or know they have to. Twitter works when it’s a conversation vs a monologue and perhaps, just perhaps, someone may have other channels they use when they want to converse. 

Let’s also add some perspective to the time investment using Twitter properly is – some people may not be able to bill clients for the hours upon hours they spend using the tool each day either, because they aren’t in marketing communications, PR, or customer service (or an entrepreneur, artist, etc.). Let’s keep that in mind when we jump all over people for not “getting” the tool.

I’m not a fan of Wente’s writing (or opinions) for the most part, but I recognize frustration with over-hype when I read it, and that’s what her piece felt like to me. I also wonder why no one called out the most glaring thing in regards to her article — she asked @biz (the guy who OWNS Twitter) for a chance to interview him the day before the piece ran. Did he care enough to defend it, or even respond? Perhaps her view of Twitter may have been different if the guy with the vested interest in getting positive coverage of his business by Canada’s largest daily paper had gotten back to her.

Twitter is for some, not for others, and it would be productive in my view to allow that there is more than one way to use the tool, or not. 

Also, that everyone is entitled to form an opinion based on what they read/ see. It’s up to the community to convince people the tool is right for them if we are going to get so defensive when they don’t “get it” and vocalize that, question it, or poke fun at it.

[photo credit: merwing via Flickr]

Via Mashable comes the latest Nielsen/ NetRatings report on web traffic in August for social networking, video and blog sites. Of particular interest is that while FaceBook leads in growth amongst social networking sites at 117% growth to 19mm uniques from August 2006, MySpace continues to dominate traffic and usage with 60mm unique visitors in August and 23% growth. For marketers, as much as we have come to view MySpace as “so last year” it is important to note that the public in general continue to find it useful.

[photo credit: maddog on Flickr]

Tags: Nielsen; FaceBook; MySpace

I’m at the second version of the mesh conference as I type and it’s been an interesting morning. I missed the keynote with Mike Arrington, but made it for the always inspiring panel keynote with Tom Williams and Austin Hill

What Austin and Tom are doing online is truly inspiring and one of the key points I took away from their discussion was the notion of charity being absolutely conducive with UGC in order to engage and provide a sense of community to the donors. It isn’t just about being a credit card. (more thoughts about this later, and UGC in general)

The first panel discussion of the afternoon was “The Web and Politics” with Scott Feschuk, Garth Turner and Phil de Vellis (Phil of course being the paid consultant on the Barack Obama campaign who mashed up Apple’s ‘1984′ ad with a speech of Hilary Clinton). I have to say it was entirely more cynical than I expected and really take issue with the myopic view expressed by Scott and Phil. But then again, they are allied with specific campaigns, I suppose their view of what politicians and campaigns should be doing online is, out of necessity, tied to getting a vote from the “constituent”.

What struck me as quite narrow minded is the thought that most people who comment on blogs are stupid and should be ignored. Wow. I can imagine how well that thought would carry over into a townhall meeting for example. Yes, there are trolls who will always only seek to disrupt, but the majority of people are not and have views and opinions which shouldn’t be ignored. The web is not a giant press release, nor a news conference on CNN. Garth at least seemed to recognize and embrace that notion.

A common thread that emerged was that politicians would only want to use these new social networking tools if it could be shown they could persuade someone who may not have voted for them to do so. The panel was in agreement that it probably couldn’t be done.

Phil mentioned dailykos.com quite a few times as being a site worthy of attention by politicians, but went on to state that most of the commentators there (vs. those who post ‘diaries’ or in non-blog terms, articles) should be ignored as crazies. If that is the take of the folks advising politicians then I suppose it’s not surprising the candidates feel they can or should ignore what the voters have to say. Obama for example posted a highly contentious ‘diary’ last year on Daily Kos and when large numbers of the community disagreed with his position he and his staff ignored, rather than engaged, and subsequently appeared to alienate a hell of a lot of the American voters (who may be Democrats but hadn’t declared which nominee they would support for President) who took the time to post passionate comments in disagreement.

Does that serve the goals of the campaign? Maybe. Does it undermine any subsequent fundraising or outreach efforts Obama will need for his run? Probably.

Interesting discussion all in all, and it says a lot about the state of politics that a politician, Garth Turner, came off the best in the panel.

I may post updates to these thoughts as we go, but I’d like to hear from other ‘voters’ how they would like to see their politicians or candidates interact with them online.

Tags: Mesh 2007; Garth Turner; Hillary Clinton; Barack Obama; Phil de Vellis; Scott Feschuk; Austin Hill; Tom Williams

I have a love/ hate relationship with the show The Family Guy… sometimes I love it, sometimes it makes me cringe…and it’s certainly no Simpsons, but I digress. It is a hugely popular and mostly witty show that holds a coveted spot in the Fox lineup on Sunday nights. A night known for poking fun at the doings of the parent company.

Which is why it was no surprise, but quite poignant and laugh worthy, when they tackled user-generated content, or content by committee in certain instances, in their episode on Sunday. I wrote about the potential pitfalls of over-doing UGC back in the euphoric Snakes on a Plane days, and the point still stands – some things really do take expertise to make them great, and art is one of them, as the Family Guy writers sarcastically reminded.

At two points during the episode the frame freezes and a voiceover comes on asking for viewers to vote on what the character should say next – “text 1 if Stewie should X”. In each case, after the 3 options were presented (2 being a logical extension of the plot and 1 being completely unrelated), the “audience” chose the nonsensical that detracted from the story, but was “cool”.

Before being accused of being elitist, there is a great value in input, integration, and participation across the board, as I’ve been harping on since I started the blog. But… there is a downside, and it is great as well. Diluting artistic vision, and in the case of a TV show, a collaborative partnership of creative folk, by force-fitting audience/ user participation can end with an inferior product that under-delivers. That can damage reputation, sales, loyalty, future endeavours, employee morale – the gamut. It’s a balancing act and demands as much strategic planning as any other portion of a campaign. Does asking for UGC add value for the consumer and the brand? Does it make sense? Will it stand the test of time? Does it need to? Etc.

When done right (ala the Bengals or Nike) it’s a beautiful thing. When done wrong it’s, well, stupid.

Tags: The Family Guy; TV; Fox

Over the last 2 weeks I’ve noticed something about my online habits – they were being driven by primarily offline stimuli or personal silos. This was a significant enough change from the norm for me since, oh, 1995 when I got my first Internet connection. In the past 11 years I’ve surfed the web… clicking on banners, feeling lucky on Google, spending hours comparing prices or looking at vacation locations, Asking Jeeves, clicking on links in emails, blogrolls, message boards, or content on my merry way around the web. In a way I let the medium guide my behaviour and direction of my habits. I passively consumed the content and allowed my experience to be guided by the various entities I encountered.

The last two weeks (at least that’s when I started paying more serious attention) have been, well, a tad different. I’ve been busy catching up at work, I’ve been busy trying to read my RSS feeds & emails, and I’ve been out networking and strategizing in real life. This has left little time for any kind of surfing that wasn’t directly related to my immediate, or short-term needs. I clicked through to the articles that interested me from my email newsletters and bookmarked the ones to come back to. On occasion I followed a link from one of my RSS feeds to another site. Except… for the three TV commercials I saw while taking a break which prompted me to write down the URL’s (yes, with pen & paper!) and visit the websites. The commercials grabbed my attention because they were well executed, catchy, and had a memorable URL. And one prompted me to go out and buy the product (okay, fine, it’s the Trivial Pursuit “Totally 80’s“ board game, I couldn’t resist even if the website was umm, not robust…).

Then there were the four conversations I had offline, that referenced something I googled when I got home (yes Google, I actually googled on Google), and explored in more depth. Two were brand related and confirm the power of WOM, and two were marketing related and confirm that content is king and SEO is more than a nice-to-have.

My web experience morphed into a self-directed one driven by stimuli that was important enough for me to take time to pay attention to and engage with.

As we continue to get more time crunched and content saturated how difficult will it be for companies to get themselves positively featured in my self-directed experience? The goal of social media and engagement is to ensure that happens, but as we’ve talked about at the various industry meet-ups and events, the conversation exists both offline and on and changes daily. A big challenge moving forward will be the ability to successfully integrate the conversations and messages online & offline, while continuing to provide real value for the customer. Focusing on one or the other (and being a medium evangelist vs. a customer evangelist) is counterintuitive to human interaction and behaviour.

[photo credit: olivander on Flickr]