Twitter is getting a *lot* of press lately, from the over-hyped race between Ashton Kutcher and CNN to Oprah's first tweet and the first tweet from space. There is a lot that I like about Twitter. For one thing, it allows me to sift through enormous amounts of interesting information by trusting the recommendations of the people I follow. It also has expanded my network of "friends" (intentional air quotes).
But in my opinion there are a couple of nagging issues with the twittersphere:
1. Twitter shouldn't be a popularity contest. I watch my followers like a hawk, but it's not to watch my level of tweetcred grow. In fact, I do the opposite. I visit every person that follows me. I read their tweets and decide if I should keep them (and not follow, for now), keep and follow, or block.
More often than not, I go for the block. Since I'm in marketing and use marketing #hashtags, I get a lot of riff-raff. Get rich quick schemes, attractive swimsuit models with names like Bob Johnson (I don't remember seeing Bob in the latest SI), or people with amazing systems for 'getting 3500 followers in 20 minutes'. But is that the point?
I say tend to your garden, don't let it grow out of control. Even though I manage my followers, I am still shocked by the number of people that I deem legitimate that get suspended for suspicious activity. So the point is, does size matter? I don't think so. I'd rather have a few hundred solid followers than a few thousand garbage users.
2. Can I see your passport? As I stated before, I'm deleting affiliate marketers left and right who in some way think the will make money off the latest craze. How about a rating system? There are people who I read religiously no matter what they post. They already have an imaginary five star rating in my mind. Let's make it official. If someone follows me and 500 people have rated them as a quality user, I'm more likely to welcome them into my circle of friends. It would also help quickly weed out the gaff. Of course, affiliate marketers will try to stay ahead of the game by establishing rating farms, but you can never stop people from doing bad things. However, we could make it much more difficult and add a lot of friction to the process!
3. Truth in Advertising. I think Twitter gets a bad rap. I was not an early adopter of Twitter. I had heard many stories about people tweeting about mundane life. "I ate an apple.", "I'm tired.", etc. I don't find this to be a problem ( maybe I weed these people out?). My problem with Twitter is that it is touted as a communication tool. I define communication as two way, and I just don't find Twitter to be good for that (yet?). Twitter is not "Facebook on Steroids" as I often hear it described. Instead, I think of it more as a community of extroverts. It's like a large crowd of people talking AT each other, OVER each other, but not necessarily TO each other.
It's also a veritable wasteland of top ten lists. "Top Ten CSS Cheats", "Ten Ways to Improve Communication", "Ten Interesting Sinks". Believe me, I click on a ton of links, and look at a lot of top ten lists. I like them. But will I still be interested a year from now? How about two years?
It makes me wonder, as Twitter continues to grow, will it blossom into a true communication vehicle, or will the popularity contest wear thin? Will we run out of top ten lists or will we find better ways to share information (and conversation) in a more meaningful way? Only time will tell, and until then I'll continue to weed out fake followers, read way too many top ten lists (with pleasure) and continue to try and see the forest for the trees but in the back of my mind I still debate whether Twitter is the new frontier, or if it will itself be relegated to some sort of kitschy "It came from the 2000's" countdown list? "Remember when we used to 'tweet'? What were we thinking?!"
A buddy and I were joking about new pricing models on the web. We quickly landed on blackmail. :) This is a fictitious press release for a fictitious company. But in an increasingly bi-polar world where we are both paranoid about our privacy yet tweet about what we ate for lunch, the what-if's are endless. Possible?
Side note: This domain is currently available. Let me know if you need our top-secret algorithm. :)
New Website To Offer Safe Surfing for Some, Unfortunate News for Others: Suspicious Web Surfing Activities No Longer a Personal Secret
Grand Rapids, Mich – April 16, 2009 – We Know What You Did Last Night™ (www.wkwydln.com) is a free service intended to limit the objectification of women and men online. Using a proprietary algorithm that’s patent- pending), WKWYDLN collects data about a person’s Internet-browsing behavior.
“It’s actually a wicked brilliant design,” said Erickson Leftelm, CTO and technology evangelist, WKWYDLN.com “We call it our passive/active system. By passively collecting data through a large network of online ad affiliates, we can effectively track traffic patterns and filter millions of page views per hour,” Leftelm said.
The information is then filtered and tagged into distinct categories. The active system constantly traverses the web, mapping what they describe as “digital thumbprints” it detects on blogs, social networking services (such as Facebook and Twitter) as well as hundreds of other well-trafficked sites.
“We spent several years perfecting this technology. The lines between public and private lives have been blurred” said George Forest, CMO and head decency analyst. He added, “by cross-referencing multiple sites, we can build a pretty complete profile of a person including a spouse, child or parent’s contact information.”
Information from the passive/active system is cross-referenced and if suspicious behavior is detected, the real power of the system kicks in. “In-house, we like to call it the ‘10AM Fire Alarm’” Leftelm added with a slight grin. “We’ve built a very robust communication system that is already connected to Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and sooner or later, Myspace.”
Using WKWYDLN’s advanced profiling system, it can notify friends, relatives and loved ones of the improprieties. “We consider this the next wave of social networking. We call it eIntervention™. Our whole mission is to let loved ones know what is going on after dark so that they can confront the offender and say ‘hey, we know what you are doing, and you should stop’” said Forest. “If we don’t stop it now, what will the world look like in 5 or 10 years? Honestly, I’m doing it for my children, and more importantly, all children.” Before researching this venture, Forest had never even heard of some of the subject matter people view in the privacy of their own homes. “I didn’t even know badunkadunk was a word, let alone what it meant. Now I reluctantly consider myself an expert, and we’re going to let the world know what you are looking at!”
We Know What You Did Last Night™ will be free-to-all, but that does not mean they don’t intend to generate revenue. “We actually have a two-pronged approach to get in the black as quickly as possible.” The first approach is through a subscription service called myBad™. “Simply put, myBad™ allows someone to pay a small yearly subscription fee to opt-out of our eIntervention™ service.” Forest said.
“Even the most innocent person can stumble upon some pretty unsavory sites. We created the myBad™ opt-out service so people can quickly login to our site, and not experience unnecessary Facebook notifications, tweets or emails to their spouse and friends. It’s all about control”. Forest thinks pricing will fall somewhere in the ten to twenty dollar range, “but honestly, in our testing, once someone receives an eIntervention™ they seem willing to pay almost anything to opt-out!” he added with a chuckle.
The second factor in reaching profitability fast is going to be accomplished through cost savings.
“The great thing about social networking is that word spreads fast. We don’t really need to advertising in traditional methods. Social media is booming, and we intend to spread the word virally, not through a huge advertising push”, Forest said. “One of the other ways we plan on staying lean is through our distribution of CPU utilization. Through our testing and research we found that most of our suspicious traffic, oddly enough, happens between the hours of 10:00pm and 2:00am”. So in effect, data collection and filtering happens during the night, while the eIntervention™ system works during the day. “Without even trying, we effectively doubled our CPU capabilities, lowering our hard costs.”
A soft launch is expected sometime in May and Leftelm expects they will be running at full capacity in June. “Early estimates are that we’ll send approximately 500,000 unique eInterventions™ a night” he added. At that rate they expect to clear $100 million in revenue within the first 8 months of operation. “This is the real deal. We’re coming out of the gates quickly” said Forest. Plans are already in the works to integrate their technology into the latest Mobile devices. “With GPS widely available in almost every new mobile phone, we see a huge market in the mobile world” added Leftelm. “Ultimately, it is about personal accountability.” Forest said before going into a meeting with potential partners.