Twitter Twitter Everywhere
Once upon a time, back in June of 2007, I came across a tiny little micro-blogging site called Twitter.
Twitter wasn’t much of anything at this point in time; think of it as a freshly hatched baby Blue Jay, brand new to the world but with a ferocious appetite and incredible urge to spread its wings and fly.I wasn’t too sure of the purpose or benefit of joining Twitter but I decided to anyway (follow me on Twitter).
As with any young website it’s membership was small and the functionality wasn’t always working at it’s best. And the fact that it was practically unheard of outside of the social networking community, it was hard to enjoy the point of the site, which is to communicate with other people.
Seriously, whats the point of tweeting all day long if there are no members to read them and interact with?
So like any good social networker, when trying to do my part and spread the word of Twitter, I often received a look of confusion and the comment “WTF is Twitter” became a part of my daily life. I had a couple friends who would at least humor me and signed up but the most common reaction from everyone was “this is stupid“.
Now from my experiences with early days of MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and as an internet marketer, I knew the potential that Twitter possessed. All it needed, just like the little baby Blue Jay, was some nourishment and time to learn how to spread it’s wings and fly.
Oh My, Look How Twitter Fly’s
Twitter slowly started to gain its popularity through word of mouth, social networking, bloggers, tech-websites and TV shows like G4 TV.
Then suddenly, out of no where, around October 2008 Twitters popularity exploded. Mainly due to the very public exposure to the media and masses in general from its use during the historical presidential elections. Every News channel you went on you would hear them mention Twitter. Some knew what it was while others had no clue but everyone was talking about it. Twitter became part of daily vocabulary for any news or talk show. Celebrity’s joined Twitter, public officials and even the Republican party decided to join.
Steven Colbert was even the first person on TV to make a controversial issue in reference to the site by using the past tense form of the word Tweet to Twatted on the Today Show, which sent the censors into a frenzy trying to decide if Mr. Colbert just committed an FCC violation or not.
The Future is Twitter
In just under 3 years of Twitters creation it is now the 3rd most popular social networking site on the internet with a membership of approximately 5,979,052 and monthly visits of 54,218,731 at the time of this writing. Twitter has worked its way into our public consciousness, and has done something that no other internet property has ever been able to do; successfully bridge the gap between the real world and the internet:
- For the first time in history of the internet and television; thanks to News agency’s such as CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and so on; a news anchor can make a statement and be able to get a real time response from a viewer thousands of miles away and be able to respond back in a matter of minutes all to the benefit of everyone watching.
- Celebrities can now offer a little bit more of a personal connection between them and their fans, allowing their fans to know aspects of their daily life without any real intrusions into their privacy.
- Companies and corporations are now able to connect more with their target audience and get real time feed back and offer special Twitter promotions to their followers.
It’s truly amazing to see how such a once thought of as insignificant website such as Twitter would actually be responsible for changing the direction of the internet and the world.
What’s even more amazing is that Twitter is able to accomplish this with only 140 characters at a time.
