Twitter: 2009’s Second Life?
Do you remember Second Life?
It seems so 2007, doesn’t it? But I well recall the frenzy and hype about Second Life in late 2006 and early 2007. I sat through a couple of really excruciating conference presentations with consultants insisting that the folks in the room-advancement officers, admissions officers, and others-had to have a presence in Second Life or students would shun them and alumni would stop giving.
I exaggerate. But only a little.
I confess that I was a skeptic about Second Life from the start. You can get a clue about my attitude toward it in the title of the first of several blog posts I wrote: Second Thoughts on Second Life. I got tired of having clients who had trouble managing their website asking me about how to build a campus in Second Life. To me, it’s a no-brainer. You don’t put on a shiny new roof if your foundation won’t support the extra weight and collapse the first time you get a heavy snowfall. [Here in Vermont, this is a real concern.]
I’m thinking about Second Life this morning because I read a thought-provoking blog post by Greg Verdino entitled Twitter is this year’s Second Life. Though I hadn’t made the connection with Second Life, I’ve been wondering about the longevity and utility of Twitter and Greg’s post has me thinking even harder.
Do you Twitter? And if you do, why? I’ve been pretty active on Twitter for about a month and a half [you can follow me @mstonerblog]. I’m enjoying the experience personally and I’m learning a lot, but I have to say that, for me, the jury is still out about how useful Twitter is or can be for mStoner’s clients.
I’ll write more about that in the future. Now, back to Twitter and Second Life.
Here’s another thought to add to the ten similarities that Greg identifies in this post. I’m seriously concerned about the apparent lack of a business model for Twitter, which—as far as I can tell, is one of the factors that sank Second Life. Despite all the desperate and fawning PR Twitter is getting, how will it fare in the econopocolypse?
I also worry about what the utility curve for Twitter will look like vis-a-vis the adoption curve in a year or so: will we find reasons for normal people to use Twitter? To Twitter fans, I’m sorry to say that most people have a limited appetite for trivia. Despite its allure, Twitter can get boring, fast, and it’s a huge time sink if you’re following people who tweet a lot. The jury’s still out.
But then again, one of the huge differences between Twitter and Second Life is that Twitter takes little time to learn to use. I confess that I just didn’t have the patience to spend much time in Second Life. It reminded me of what I heard from people who used the first generation of alumni community software: it was hard to learn, slow, buggy. And you spent a lot of effort … for not much return.
And I certainly agree with Verdino’s conclusion. It’s not about the tool, it’s about the strategy:
If your social media consultant is telling you that you absolutely must have a Twitter strategy, you need to have security escort them out of your building. Immediately. You don’t need a Twitter strategy. You didn’t need a Second Life strategy. In fact, there is no such thing as a Twitter or Second Life strategy. Both of these things—along with the dozens of other emergent media options marketers can choose from—are at best tactics. At worst, they’re just enabling technology platforms. They might have a place in your marketing strategy, but none of these things are the strategy in and of themselves.
And, for us, it’s about making sure that a tactic doesn’t cause our clients to lose focus on the really important tactics that yield bottom-line results.
As I just commented on Mr. Verdino’s blog post, ‘normal’ people are using twitter. As a gardener, I use it as a way to keep track of weather, what’s happening in my garden, when I’m planting etc. I keep up ~ mostly ~ with fellow gardeners. Few of us are what Mr. Verdino calls “early adapters” (although I will have great fun thinking of myself as such for using twitter). We’ve just found a way to use twitter to serve our purposes (as do some craftspeople I follow).
Posted on March 11, 2009 by kate
I think the post meant normal people tweeting, as opposed to normal people following tweets about a business or the weather. The question is weather people will be tweeting “I just sneezed” and whether anyone would care.
If you’re using twitter as a ...diary? to review when you did something, that’s a whole other use.
Posted on March 12, 2009 by confusion-buster
confusion-buster is right. Kate cites some good examples of “normal” people using Twitter to do something that’s important to them. Most of the people I see on Twitter are either folks like Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) who are marketing themselves and their businesses, pure and simple; people who are in the social media biz; and media types. More people are starting to see Twitter as a way to record their own lives or to share info with others for purposes of mutual interests—the craftspeople you cite, Kate. Until many more people decide they want to do that, though, Twitter will remain a niche tool.
Posted on March 13, 2009 by Michael Stoner
I think you make a really good point here but I think there are a lot of differences between second life and twitter. I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at second life for my insitution because it seemed like it would take a lot of time and resources to get set up which I didn’t have. However with twitter it took me less than a day to set up @gettysburg and push our RSS feeds to it.
I do agree with you that I am not sure what the “staying” power of twitter will be. Of course some people said the same thing about the web years ago.
Posted on March 15, 2009 by Paul Redfern
I agree that a strict strategy for Twitter may be over the top. However, a strategy for how to use social media is certainly not something to ignore. In our college communications office, we have adopted social media best practices, which includes Twitter. Overwhelmingly, professors, reporters and alumni have responded to how easily people can keep up about the latest news at the University of Minnesota on Twitter.
Do we spend an hour everyday outlining a strategy? No. Do we think about how we can best spread news to all interested parties in everything we do? Yes. Twitter just happens to fall into that category.
Posted on March 17, 2009 by Liz Giorgi
Maybe Mr. Stoner should be more concerned about whether his blog will survive since he seems to be talking about the same thing for over a year, second life.
Second life is growing, not shrinking, twitter is growing not shrinking.
I would be interested in learning if Mr. Stoners web hits are growing or shrinking
Posted on March 23, 2009 by Awaken Yoshikawa
Thanks for all the comments. My main point is not so much to disparage Twitter (I’d much rather tweet than work these days) but to point out that so many people look for a magic bullet rather than thinking about what is likely to get results. Case in point: when there was so much clamor about Second Life, smart institutions were developing Facebook groups of various kinds. And those initiatives are paying off. The transaction costs are simply lower and the community was there.
To Awaken Yoshikawa, here IRL, we need to think about such sticky issues as results. They really do matter. I always encourage people to experiment and to learn; but there’s a huge difference between sharing enthusiasm for something new like Second Life and the largely unconsidered evangelism for it. I’ve seen lots of fads come and go, which is one reason I’m skeptical about them and reluctant to advise clients to jump on board in a big way until there’s some indication that a technology will be around say, tomorrow.
Posted on March 30, 2009 by Michael Stoner
Michale Stoner, I don’t really get your results comment. Here is a quote from your above blog.
“I confess that I was a skeptic about Second Life from the start. “
That pretty much tells it all. How can you possibly go against yourself by going against your own preconceived notions about sl. You say it’s dying, yet I see it’s user numbers going up by the week. Again I ask the same question. Are yours?
Posted on May 12, 2009 by Awaken Yoshikawa
Sorry dude, I’m a born skeptic. I was very skeptical about Twitter at first, but I’ve changed my mind about it, just as I have about plenty of other stuff. When I do, I’ll own my change of mind, as I did about Twitter in another blog post.
Last week, I was happy to tweet about CASE Western’s SL announcement: I think it’s exciting and a great approach to SL.
And two points:
It’s Michael, not Michale.
As far as this blog, we’re not concerned about growing our numbers without growing the quality of those numbers two. We’re doing well on both counts. Thanks for being concerned about us, but this is working just fine.
Posted on May 12, 2009 by Michael Stoner
Great post!!
Thanks for sharing.
Posted on June 24, 2009 by freelance management
Well this could go round and round and we each have own opinion. Quality is a very nebulous quality where the individual decides what is quality and what is not. I was not so much concerned about you as concerned about making conclusions without sufficient data, That’s all.
Posted on October 11, 2009 by Awaken Yoshikawa