I love posterous. Funny, that you didn't submit this blog post via posterous tho.
Twitter is amazing for real time search - it is a great way to find out what people are thinking about you product. Or to find out why there are helicopters flying over LA. I hope twitter doesn't die, because i love consuming the content through search, but as a content creator on twitter, i feel kind of blah about it.
mattmaroon
· 8 months ago
Do you really think real time search is largely used for stuff that can't wait? The choppers over you I can understand I guess. But if I want to know what people think about my company, I use Google Alerts, or Techrigy, or something of that nature. While I hope they return all relevant tweets too, I don't really feel the need to know about it within moments of it happening.
webwright
· 8 months ago
People keep talking about realtime search. I understand the value of social/conversation search (a la BackType). If I could search all conversations online to get a sense of what speakers I should buy, that's powerful. However, realtime news is really only valuable for newshounds.
Realtime brand awareness is clearly a business, but I don't think it's a billion dollar business. And BackType would do THAT better than Twitter, too (if a few minutes later).
Of course, Google would probably do it better than both of them if they created a "conversations" vertical that searched Twitter, blog comments, forums, etc., with recency being and bit part of search relevance.
mattmaroon
· 8 months ago
Google alerts does seem pretty sporadic when it comes to Twitter, blog comments, etc. I've found a service called Techrigy that does a much better job of those.
defdac
· 8 months ago
Wow, I am of the exact same opionion about Twitter as you and I also directly saw how much more I will use posterous. I daily email stuff to myself to remember stuff and just general ideas I have. THANKS for sharing!
Nnanna
· 8 months ago
I love twitter. I've convinced most of my friends and family abroad to install it on their phones, and I no longer have to pay AT&T 25 cents for each international sms I send :)
As for the "I'm watching TV right now" par of twitter, I don't know if I'll ever 'get' it
Hasan
· 8 months ago
once you start using posterous you begin to experience just how simple and powerful it is. I agree that their bookmarklet is incredible, custom URL is super simple, and the a core feature for using native email format for blogging is in and of itself totally awesome.
twitter has become quite mainstream so early adopters are def on the prowl for whats next. also twitter has always been noisy but its gotten much worse as it has grown, and why they cant keep their servers working properly is beyond me.
Ian
· 8 months ago
I think I may be the only person in the entire world who is actually ambivalent about Twitter. Most people either love it or hate it, yet I find myself somewhere in the middle.
No. It's just that ambivalent people are least likely to write about it.
chedigitz
· 8 months ago
Great article!
Twitter is extremely disruptive technology, low entry point and quick. Think of it as a data product, ie (google search, youtube, delicious).Twitter search will evolve into a robust search engine that has the potential to make it to the top 3. In a similar fashion that YouTube was able reached #2 search engine on the net.
I agree that posterous is a clener and better experience. However, imho, that alone is not enough to take down the big bird in the room. Only time will tell... :)
doctorkaje
· 8 months ago
I've never really thought of twitter as blogging though. I've always seen it as a cool kind of service to hook up to my blog, to voluntarily subscribe to specific friends' lives, and to communicate with my more tech-savvy friends. The fact that you're not force-fed news that you didn't subscribe to (Facebook this is for you) -- that's what makes twitter so useful.
JayCruz
· 8 months ago
You just explained exactly how I feel about Twitter, but articulated it way much better than I ever could. There's this idea being sold about the "importance" of Twitter and how it's going to change the future of media that's just ridiculous.
Jim in Colorado
· 7 months ago
Totally agree. FB you can keep up with. Twitter flys by quick if you dont check to 30x a day it becomes worthless. Plus who wants to really put info out there that non friends can see?
As for real time search to a twitter search on "swine flue". See how much useful real time info you get.
I lean toward fad, but who knows it might turn into something useful for everyone eventually.
All Comments
Twitter is amazing for real time search - it is a great way to find out what people are thinking about you product. Or to find out why there are helicopters flying over LA. I hope twitter doesn't die, because i love consuming the content through search, but as a content creator on twitter, i feel kind of blah about it.
Realtime brand awareness is clearly a business, but I don't think it's a billion dollar business. And BackType would do THAT better than Twitter, too (if a few minutes later).
Of course, Google would probably do it better than both of them if they created a "conversations" vertical that searched Twitter, blog comments, forums, etc., with recency being and bit part of search relevance.
As for the "I'm watching TV right now" par of twitter, I don't know if I'll ever 'get' it
twitter has become quite mainstream so early adopters are def on the prowl for whats next. also twitter has always been noisy but its gotten much worse as it has grown, and why they cant keep their servers working properly is beyond me.
No. It's just that ambivalent people are least likely to write about it.
Twitter is extremely disruptive technology, low entry point and quick. Think of it as a data product, ie (google search, youtube, delicious).Twitter search will evolve into a robust search engine that has the potential to make it to the top 3. In a similar fashion that YouTube was able reached #2 search engine on the net.
I agree that posterous is a clener and better experience. However, imho, that alone is not enough to take down the big bird in the room. Only time will tell... :)
As for real time search to a twitter search on "swine flue". See how much useful real time info you get.
I lean toward fad, but who knows it might turn into something useful for everyone eventually.