09 August 2009
Twitter (not) going to close
12/08/09 14:06 Filed in: Social media
Is Twitter going to close? I
suspect not. Ask me in 100 years and if by some
freak of nature I’m still around I might
well have changed my mind, but for the moment it
has an air of permanence about it, threats from
Facebook’s forthcoming Lite version and
its acquisition of Friendfeed
aside. I don’t underestimate the
importance of these moves but I don’t
think they’re going to kill it - yet.
So why do I bring it up? I thought you’d never ask. I mention it because I’ve seen this story - which asks the question, what would happen if Twitter folded? After a couple of outages last week, would anyone really miss it in the way they’d miss, say, McDonald’s if it went?
The coverage annoys me for a couple of reasons. First, a couple of technical glitches after the speed at which Twitter has grown is unfortunate but maybe not a surprise. Honest. I’m a full time journalist and at times am short of a story and believe me I would need more substantiation than this to run something.
The other main reason is that the conclusion is so skewed. Anyone who saw the reaction to the Twitter outage last week will be certain it made a difference to a lot of people. Of course these are people who’d never heard of Twitter a couple of years ago but that’s OK, a decade ago I’d never heard of DVDs and I’d miss them now. Speaking personally I’d be five figures of income short if not for the emergence of Twitter and companies like it (yes, that figure is skewed by the fact that I write about this stuff for a living but I include leads I’ve found using the service as well as writing about it). There are loads of other businesses finding it makes a difference too. We’re talking about substantial concerns averting legal battles, improving customer relations and of course finding new customers.
I’m willing to be proven wrong of course. But no, Twitter isn’t going anywhere in the near future. And yes, people would miss it if it did.
P. S. I’ve put links to my forthcoming books on my homepage here - I’ll just let the subtle hint to click and buy them remain implied.
So why do I bring it up? I thought you’d never ask. I mention it because I’ve seen this story - which asks the question, what would happen if Twitter folded? After a couple of outages last week, would anyone really miss it in the way they’d miss, say, McDonald’s if it went?
The coverage annoys me for a couple of reasons. First, a couple of technical glitches after the speed at which Twitter has grown is unfortunate but maybe not a surprise. Honest. I’m a full time journalist and at times am short of a story and believe me I would need more substantiation than this to run something.
The other main reason is that the conclusion is so skewed. Anyone who saw the reaction to the Twitter outage last week will be certain it made a difference to a lot of people. Of course these are people who’d never heard of Twitter a couple of years ago but that’s OK, a decade ago I’d never heard of DVDs and I’d miss them now. Speaking personally I’d be five figures of income short if not for the emergence of Twitter and companies like it (yes, that figure is skewed by the fact that I write about this stuff for a living but I include leads I’ve found using the service as well as writing about it). There are loads of other businesses finding it makes a difference too. We’re talking about substantial concerns averting legal battles, improving customer relations and of course finding new customers.
I’m willing to be proven wrong of course. But no, Twitter isn’t going anywhere in the near future. And yes, people would miss it if it did.
P. S. I’ve put links to my forthcoming books on my homepage here - I’ll just let the subtle hint to click and buy them remain implied.
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