The Trouble with Twitter

Like many people, I have jumped on to Twitter.  Just in case you have been living under a rock recently, Twitter is a communication service that broadcasts your messages (limited to 140 characters) for all the world to see.  When people subscribe to your message feed (“following” in Twitter speak), they can be sure to see your tweets in their personal view of the global message stream.

People chat about many things on Twitter.  A favorite topic seems to be Twitter itself.  In the stream of tweets on innovation, several comments have gone by recently suggesting that Twitter is a disruptive technology that may displace Google.  This notion raises some interesting questions.  Is Twitter a disruptive technology?  What are the prospects for Twitter to emerge with a viable monetization strategy?  Is Twitter long for this world, or will it vanish as quickly into obscurity as it emerged on the scene as it is replaced by fast-followers?

In examining these questions, let’s start by asking what customer need Twitter actually serves.  Generically, Twitter provides a interpersonal communications platform.  In this sense, it competes with a wide variety of technologies and products.  These cover traditional web sites, blogs, video sharing (Flicker, YouTube), e-mail, instant messaging, hosted discussion lists, community/social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn), SMS, and phone based communications.  It is a wide field of application serving a broad range of specific needs for the users of each.  What distinguishes Twitter?  Here’s my quick list:

• Real-time model
• Highly engagement
• Voyeur friendly
• Concise messaging
• Medium independence

On the flip side, here are some things Twitter seems weak in:

• Deep exchanges (I still am laughing about the person that expected me to explain a complete theory and methodology of sustainable strategic innovation practice and deployment 140 characters at a time.)
• Direct rich content
• Continuity of exchange
• Easy navigability of information

In a very nice article, Renee Hopkins Callahan suggests Twitter’s target customer is the person needing an easy one-to-many means of communication.   I think this is not an accurate characterization of the customer that Twitter needs to identify for success.   Why?  A painful truth that Twitter will need to come to terms with is that the one-to-many communication space already has a few strong and established players (Facebook and the like), and the real-time aspect of the Twitter model is not a significant barrier for these established channels to overcome.  [In the interval between my writing this article and posting it, Facebook has announced that it will be adding real-time status capability in the near term.]  This will bring into sharp focus the limitations of Twitter and force them to find the factors and hence refined use model to which they are uniquely suited.

Already, I have seen bands of Twitterati forming discussion group off the tweetin’ path.  Why?  So that they can break free of the limitation of 140 characters and poor discussion continuity.  Real-time fast-followers have strengths in areas of rich content and media.  They also have much further community reach than the fledgling Twitter.  (These days, 6 million registrations is probably not critical mass.)

The bottom line is that when community/social networking sites start rolling out real-time, and instant messaging services roll out one-many syndication, Twitter will find itself in a very awkward position.  So, where does Twitter turn?

They are unlikely to be able to withstand the entrance of a big player into their current niche.  They have not carved out a sufficiently distinguished value proposition.  This really just leaves Twitter with two options:

1. Find a more defined value prop that can secure a real and significant revenue stream
2. Hang the “For Sale” sign on the front door and auction the technology asset off to the highest bidding fast follower that wants to get a jump on adding a missing piece of capability to their offering

We’ve all heard of Twitter’s secret business plan, but time is running out as companies like Yammer are already trying to establish a lead in specific niche markets that are aligned with Twitter’s current service.  Evan Williams’ recent talk at TED doesn’t give Twitterati much to hang their hopes on either.  The window of opportunity is closing very quickly, and Twitter needs to stop being so cavalier about its future.

I suspect that option 2 is the most likely outcome for Twitter.  There are many strong market forces converging that could push this choice on Twitter. 

Granted this is not a deep analysis of Twitter’s outlook since I am not privy to their business plan, and only time will reveal the final outcome.  But at this time, I don’t see any evidence that Twitter presents a significant threat to Google as some have suggested, and I do seen many indicators pointing to Twitter being just another interesting paragraph in the history of the internet.

Comments

[Braden Kelley]

Twitter is a product feature and will struggle against Facebook, Plaxo, Windows Live and others unless they can turn this product feature into a platform.

Windows Live, Yahoo!, Facebook and others are locked in a death match to become the place that people start their day.

I'm not sure that Twitter has the table stakes to compete.

It will be very interesting to see whether they can establish themselves as a platform or are forced to sell out.

[Drew Boyd]

Jim, I agree with Branden's comment that Twitter must turn itself into a platform. Time is running out, and many other companies are out-innovating them. I took a whack at creating some possible platform ideas for Twitter (see http://www.innovationinpractice.com/innovation_in_practice/2009/02/the-lab-monetizing-twitter-with-attribute-dependency-february-2009.html). They seem to be waiting for "the big idea" to come along, but my sense is that it's going to take some good, ol' fashion innovating to figure this one out.

[Jim Belfiore]

Oh the irony of ironies.

Your (well thought-out) musings on 140 characters is akin to Shakespeare writing a sonnet about a garment's washing-instructions tag. You and others are looking to find the hidden value in this medium that has gripped the world, and some might say was instrumental in putting a junior marketing executive into the Oval Office.

I hate to say it, but the only disruptive value of Twitter is one of hyper-leveraging basic human flaws - laziness, banality, and narcissism.

I also hate to say it, but I've seen it all play out before, over 20 years ago.

In the last days of an ancient contraption called the ARPANet, when bits traveled uphill (both ways) to get to their intended time wasters, and Spam was still potentially nutritious, dozens of people on closed networks were familiar with an application called "Oneline" that was very similar to Twitter, except we only had 80 characters to express our most in-depth thoughts, and we could only make one post per day. The behaviours I observed then are all too familiar in today's Twitterati.

People want to feel like they have control of their environment, no matter how trivial. People also have an amazing capability to lose all sense of time management when an opportunity to engage their pleasure centers is presented. Twitter offers people a way for people to become fortune-cookie publishers in any conceivable location, at any moment. A person can push a button and feel good that they have sent their bit of e-wit into the ether, for the benefit of society. We even have metrics provided for us that shows how we rank as important members of society, and how to improve ourselves (just look at Twitalyzer, Twitter Friends, and other tools that emerge almost daily). You and I, Jim, are ranked as "emerging personalities" by Twitalyzer (yes, I looked).

Twitter succeeds because it is a game, and games are important to the human psyche.

Twitter and other social media platforms that provide free outlets for would-be Shakespeares, are not developed for the users. They are developed for marketing and advertising concerns. We are the endless supply free fool..er..fuel that powers their machines. While we certainly take benefits from the experience (at least our pleasure centers tell us so), the disruption is not in how we benefit and how we work, but in how we are used.

Still, The Trouble with The Twitters is not a problem to be solved.

Certainly I can't see the whole kitten-kaboodle being whisked away - there'd be no Twitter at all.

(I should tweet that.)

[Renee Hopkins Callahan]

Hi there! I missed this until now, although we discussed it at dinner last week. My observation about Twitter's target customer leads to an obvious question -- does such a person with such an unfulfilled job-to-be-done exist in enough quantities to ensure success for Twitter? Alas, the jury is still out on that one. Meanwhile, as pretty much all the rest of you have pointed out, Twitter still has no business model or means of making money. The choice to build their audience with VC funds rather than put something out there that they are charging for and thus get a very quick and specific answer about what people are willing to pay for, they've muddied the picture for themselves and missed out on gathering valuable information about their potential customer base.

[Renee Hopkins Callahan]

OK, well, that last sentence is missing a verb! Try "The choice to build their audience with VC funds rather than put something out there that they are charging for and thus get a very quick and specific answer about what people are willing to pay for MEANS they've muddied the picture for themselves and missed out on gathering valuable information about their potential customer base.

[James Todhunter]

Brandon, Drew, Jim, and Renee: Thanks for the great comments. I think you are all spot on in your observations.

Since this was posted, the Twitter debate has continued with no real insights into a Twitter strategy. Meanwhile, rumors of M&A talks behind the scenes continue to surface, and Facebook continues to look like it's taking aim directly at Twitter.

I for one am waiting to see the rest of the saga unfold.