Following Twitter
Photo courtsey http://twitter.com/riku

As much as writing this makes I feel like a ‘hater’, I think this post is necessary. I am really getting tired of seeing posts about how Twitter is going to save Iraq, Africa, and the world.  I wonder why this start up is being shoved down our throats. I think it is hi time we looked through all the hype.

How does Oprah joining twitter become news? Did Oprah getting a Facebook page become news? Why is it that every movie or music star joining or not joining Twitter makes the news?

Twitter does not count as a revolutionary tech/web product. To be, it has to drastically change our lives and create real industries.  I will mention a few.

1.    The iPod/iTunes: This revolutionized the music business, we now have companies like BOSE creating new lines of speakers just for the iPod

2.    iPhone: it is unbelievable that this product is only three years old. The iPhone has created several multi millionaires through the app store

3.    Facebook: They changed the concept of social networking forever. With 200 million users, Facebook is a power house and like the iPhone churns out millionaires who have apps on their platforms.

4.    YouTube: YouTube is revolutionary and has eliminated the barrier to become a super star. If in doubt, ask Susan Boyle.

None of these earth breaking products of companies have received the cultic following that the proponents of Twitter want.

Few people have pointed out that there is a grand plan to hype to death so it can receive a giant valuation when it gets acquired. Such allegations are quite heavy so I will neither concur nor oppose.

Do not get me wrong, Twitter is a VERY innovative product but not as earth shattering as friends of Twitter want us to think.  As Larry Page pointed out, Twitter made people start looking at search differently. It made us understand the value of real time information. As for Twitter enabling celebrities have direct access to their fans, Facebook pages offer that in a more robust manner(Notes, Videos e.t.c). As I pointed out in my FB post, Facebook has much more to offer if they get their act together. The main barrier to their opening up the status messaging (and killing Twitter) is the privacy clause which I believe is no real hindrance and can be work upon easily.

What I have learnt from this Twitter debacle is that 30% of your funds and effort should go to product development, while 70% should be for PR. If TechCrunch posts about you 50% of the time you are bound to have the momentum to reach great heights as long as you are not as incompetent as Cuil. 81 of MG’s posts on TechCrunch in one month have been about Twitter (make that 82. While I was writing this, he added another), While Mike has made 31 posts since March (funny, but make that 32), let alone other writers on TechCrunch.  This is what makes young founders seek attention rather than developing an innovative product.

Interestingly twitter has decided it can conquer TV too. Consequently, the King of Twitter has threatened to pull the plug if it happens. Communicating with your fans does not mean you should be stalked…

I would conclude by making this Wager. If Twitter is not acquired in the next 9 months, I will donate 10 mosquito nets or $100 dollars to any charity of your choice to save the poverty stricken Africans (hm.. Twitter seems to be saving the world in arguments too). If interested, drop me a message.

24 thoughts on “Twitter is not Jesus and will not save humanity.

  1. Anyone who has an idea of the IT landscape will not want to wager with you on that bet. Either twitter would be acquired or go out of business because they have tried to follow the google model and I don’t think that is working as intended.

  2. Anyone who has an idea of the IT landscape will not want to wager with you on that bet. Either twitter would be acquired or go out of business because they have tried to follow the google model and I don’t think that is working as intended.

  3. Anyone who has an idea of the IT landscape will not want to wager with you on that bet. Either twitter would be acquired or go out of business because they have tried to follow the google model and I don’t think that is working as intended.

  4. I actually dont believe that ipod was earth shattering, it came 20 years after the sony walkman, which did pretty much the same thing. Sure you could not download music, but then there was no Internet.

    As for the iphone I think it was/is awesome/clever marketing, they wanted to sell a handheld computer, (thats what I think), but who would buy that instead, they sold it as a phone, and slowly over time the calling ability has taken a back seat, and the apps the front seat, so now we all have a hand held computer.

    Have to disagree with facebook also, in fact am thinking not much is earth shattering, facebook is a social network, these have been around since the web began, mailing lists, egroups, usenet, all had groups of people around a common interest. Yes facebook allowed you to do more like post pics, but that could not be done in the usenet days, because of bandwidth/camera phones.

    Youtube made it easy to upload vids. The internet works as do many things in cycles, with every cycle you dont really get innovation, but you get value added to something that was done before. Zimbra made email better, as did google/yahoomail etc, they all added nice colours 🙂 and made the functionality better, but who has innovated and solved the spam problem.

    Twitter, I have to agree, not exactly sure what it is all about, its great for reaching out, and getting in touch with people, and also getting cool links which you would not come across. I still think twitter should NOT try to make money, it should use the money it has to fund companies who are making products using twitter.

    I.

  5. I actually dont believe that ipod was earth shattering, it came 20 years after the sony walkman, which did pretty much the same thing. Sure you could not download music, but then there was no Internet.

    As for the iphone I think it was/is awesome/clever marketing, they wanted to sell a handheld computer, (thats what I think), but who would buy that instead, they sold it as a phone, and slowly over time the calling ability has taken a back seat, and the apps the front seat, so now we all have a hand held computer.

    Have to disagree with facebook also, in fact am thinking not much is earth shattering, facebook is a social network, these have been around since the web began, mailing lists, egroups, usenet, all had groups of people around a common interest. Yes facebook allowed you to do more like post pics, but that could not be done in the usenet days, because of bandwidth/camera phones.

    Youtube made it easy to upload vids. The internet works as do many things in cycles, with every cycle you dont really get innovation, but you get value added to something that was done before. Zimbra made email better, as did google/yahoomail etc, they all added nice colours 🙂 and made the functionality better, but who has innovated and solved the spam problem.

    Twitter, I have to agree, not exactly sure what it is all about, its great for reaching out, and getting in touch with people, and also getting cool links which you would not come across. I still think twitter should NOT try to make money, it should use the money it has to fund companies who are making products using twitter.

    I.

  6. I actually dont believe that ipod was earth shattering, it came 20 years after the sony walkman, which did pretty much the same thing. Sure you could not download music, but then there was no Internet.

    As for the iphone I think it was/is awesome/clever marketing, they wanted to sell a handheld computer, (thats what I think), but who would buy that instead, they sold it as a phone, and slowly over time the calling ability has taken a back seat, and the apps the front seat, so now we all have a hand held computer.

    Have to disagree with facebook also, in fact am thinking not much is earth shattering, facebook is a social network, these have been around since the web began, mailing lists, egroups, usenet, all had groups of people around a common interest. Yes facebook allowed you to do more like post pics, but that could not be done in the usenet days, because of bandwidth/camera phones.

    Youtube made it easy to upload vids. The internet works as do many things in cycles, with every cycle you dont really get innovation, but you get value added to something that was done before. Zimbra made email better, as did google/yahoomail etc, they all added nice colours 🙂 and made the functionality better, but who has innovated and solved the spam problem.

    Twitter, I have to agree, not exactly sure what it is all about, its great for reaching out, and getting in touch with people, and also getting cool links which you would not come across. I still think twitter should NOT try to make money, it should use the money it has to fund companies who are making products using twitter.

    I.

  7. hey..OO..nice post but i say u got this one wrong man…twitter is real time information..in a simple ..no frills form from those whom you want to hear from.. IT is very much worth the HYPE..

    i LOVE twitter and i use my account to follow NEWS and BUSINESS information realtime..information that I would have had to obtain from visiting too many sites in a day…. in a way that FACEBOOK cannot give me..FACEBOOK is about friendship and SOCIAL NETWORKS..TWITTER is about REAL TIME INFORMATION..understand the difference..

    if you consider abit about internet history & development you will appreciate that for now TWITTER is the next stage of internet evolution…

    each stage brings sumthin unique thats why it gets such massive sustainable hype.. example.. first was YAHOO (EMAIL)..then GOOGLE(SEARCH)…as so on until WEB 2.0(USER GENERATED CONTENT) when the likes of MYSPACE popped up..then..FACEBOOK… and now the next stage..TWITTER..

    Summary, each internet product that is a hit..is just one more step on the path of internet evolution.. & TWITTER is worth every HYPE IT GETS..however some folks misuse twitter..i.e following 90,000 people.. thats crazy..but TWITTER is a very useful tool if used properly.

  8. hey..OO..nice post but i say u got this one wrong man…twitter is real time information..in a simple ..no frills form from those whom you want to hear from.. IT is very much worth the HYPE..

    i LOVE twitter and i use my account to follow NEWS and BUSINESS information realtime..information that I would have had to obtain from visiting too many sites in a day…. in a way that FACEBOOK cannot give me..FACEBOOK is about friendship and SOCIAL NETWORKS..TWITTER is about REAL TIME INFORMATION..understand the difference..

    if you consider abit about internet history & development you will appreciate that for now TWITTER is the next stage of internet evolution…

    each stage brings sumthin unique thats why it gets such massive sustainable hype.. example.. first was YAHOO (EMAIL)..then GOOGLE(SEARCH)…as so on until WEB 2.0(USER GENERATED CONTENT) when the likes of MYSPACE popped up..then..FACEBOOK… and now the next stage..TWITTER..

    Summary, each internet product that is a hit..is just one more step on the path of internet evolution.. & TWITTER is worth every HYPE IT GETS..however some folks misuse twitter..i.e following 90,000 people.. thats crazy..but TWITTER is a very useful tool if used properly.

  9. hey..OO..nice post but i say u got this one wrong man…twitter is real time information..in a simple ..no frills form from those whom you want to hear from.. IT is very much worth the HYPE..

    i LOVE twitter and i use my account to follow NEWS and BUSINESS information realtime..information that I would have had to obtain from visiting too many sites in a day…. in a way that FACEBOOK cannot give me..FACEBOOK is about friendship and SOCIAL NETWORKS..TWITTER is about REAL TIME INFORMATION..understand the difference..

    if you consider abit about internet history & development you will appreciate that for now TWITTER is the next stage of internet evolution…

    each stage brings sumthin unique thats why it gets such massive sustainable hype.. example.. first was YAHOO (EMAIL)..then GOOGLE(SEARCH)…as so on until WEB 2.0(USER GENERATED CONTENT) when the likes of MYSPACE popped up..then..FACEBOOK… and now the next stage..TWITTER..

    Summary, each internet product that is a hit..is just one more step on the path of internet evolution.. & TWITTER is worth every HYPE IT GETS..however some folks misuse twitter..i.e following 90,000 people.. thats crazy..but TWITTER is a very useful tool if used properly.

  10. @Iqbal: By your methodology, no productis earth shattering. But you see, the companies above were able to take existing good ideas and make it work and build profitable companies and industries, changing the game. Remember, there were car companies before Ford.
    Sony had no Idea how to take their domination of music to the next level , Apple did. What Palm could not do, Apple came from behind and did. you have to give it to them.
    Facebook is the future I can stake anything on that. Once they get search right, and open up a bit you will be amazed at the possibilities.
    Twitter is not worthy of being HYPED this much. they cannot be a profitable company on their own. Twitter will work better as a product and that is where Google or Microsoft will come it. Google is already working on dated search results as you can see.

    @ Iteye: You have explained the downfall of Twitter. people following 90,000 people so they can gain followers. it is about talking down on people whereas Facboook is talking with people. up till now, i do not know which of my Friends is on Twitter. Without the social graph, they have failed. I repeat, a company with 20 million users have not changed the world. Skype has 400 million users.
    the next game changer I believe is Wolfram Alpha.

  11. @Iqbal: By your methodology, no productis earth shattering. But you see, the companies above were able to take existing good ideas and make it work and build profitable companies and industries, changing the game. Remember, there were car companies before Ford.
    Sony had no Idea how to take their domination of music to the next level , Apple did. What Palm could not do, Apple came from behind and did. you have to give it to them.
    Facebook is the future I can stake anything on that. Once they get search right, and open up a bit you will be amazed at the possibilities.
    Twitter is not worthy of being HYPED this much. they cannot be a profitable company on their own. Twitter will work better as a product and that is where Google or Microsoft will come it. Google is already working on dated search results as you can see.

    @ Iteye: You have explained the downfall of Twitter. people following 90,000 people so they can gain followers. it is about talking down on people whereas Facboook is talking with people. up till now, i do not know which of my Friends is on Twitter. Without the social graph, they have failed. I repeat, a company with 20 million users have not changed the world. Skype has 400 million users.
    the next game changer I believe is Wolfram Alpha.

  12. @Iqbal: By your methodology, no productis earth shattering. But you see, the companies above were able to take existing good ideas and make it work and build profitable companies and industries, changing the game. Remember, there were car companies before Ford.
    Sony had no Idea how to take their domination of music to the next level , Apple did. What Palm could not do, Apple came from behind and did. you have to give it to them.
    Facebook is the future I can stake anything on that. Once they get search right, and open up a bit you will be amazed at the possibilities.
    Twitter is not worthy of being HYPED this much. they cannot be a profitable company on their own. Twitter will work better as a product and that is where Google or Microsoft will come it. Google is already working on dated search results as you can see.

    @ Iteye: You have explained the downfall of Twitter. people following 90,000 people so they can gain followers. it is about talking down on people whereas Facboook is talking with people. up till now, i do not know which of my Friends is on Twitter. Without the social graph, they have failed. I repeat, a company with 20 million users have not changed the world. Skype has 400 million users.
    the next game changer I believe is Wolfram Alpha.

  13. Hi James,

    The only thing I am fed up with is the obsession.. Twitter is very impressive and gives people a voice. so is the mobile phone, email, blogging and the Internet. The obsession with Twitter will have to stop sometime.

    Mind you, Twitter is not the only microblogging service.

  14. Hi James,

    The only thing I am fed up with is the obsession.. Twitter is very impressive and gives people a voice. so is the mobile phone, email, blogging and the Internet. The obsession with Twitter will have to stop sometime.

    Mind you, Twitter is not the only microblogging service.

  15. Hi James,

    The only thing I am fed up with is the obsession.. Twitter is very impressive and gives people a voice. so is the mobile phone, email, blogging and the Internet. The obsession with Twitter will have to stop sometime.

    Mind you, Twitter is not the only microblogging service.

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