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Shel Holtz
Communicating at the Intersection of Business and Technology
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Twitter: Gateway to substantive content

Twitter is all about brevity. One-hundred forty characters in which to condense your most profound thoughts. It’s perfect for the Attention Deficit Disorder crowd, since they can’t focus on any one thing for more than a few seconds anyway.

Everything you read about Twitter—and it’s a lot these days, between blog posts like this and a sudden infatuation by mainstream media—mentions the brevity thing. And I think it’s a load of crap.

Yes, the messages are short. But many tweets are just part of some greater content. Tweets direct you to blog posts, breaking news, videos, photos, just about anything you can find on the Net. Remarking on the brevity of these tweets is like pointing out the terseness of tables of contents. In a sense, a lot of tweets are like the listings in a table of contents, signposts to more information, more content.

Shel Holtz

On the most recent Media Hacks podcast, someone (it may have been Julien Smith, but I honestly don’t remember for sure) compared it to seeing a billboard for a McDonald’s hamburger. If it looks good, you don’t drive to the billboard and hope to be served a meal. The sign just makes you want to drive to the restaurant.

Other tweets are notifications of some kind, like Jeremy Pepper spreading word of a tweetup in Venice Beach.

Shel Holtz

Then there are those that are part of a conversation, which is greater than the sum of its tweets. Verbal conversation is mostly brief give-and-take punctuated by a few speeches and lectures. The fact that tweets are brief in a conversation is no big deal.

There are also queries that generate a flurry of interesting, if not useful, information, such as the one to which I recently responded asking our opinions of the greatest rock album ever recorded (I cast my vote for “Dark Side of the Moon”).

Far from a collection of short, standalone messages for the attention-challenged (as many see it) Twitter is frequently a gateway to more, deeper content; in these cases, its role is that of a portal. A social portal, that is, in which the destinations are offered by whomever you choose to follow.

If only there were a way to isolate the tweets of those who only update us on their activities. Then Twitter would be all about brevity. But I scrolled through over 100 tweets from those I’m following and couldn’t find a single simple status update to use as an example. If I had the time, I’d categorize those tweets. Maybe for another day.

03/24/09 | 16 Comments | Twitter: Gateway to substantive content

Comments

  • 1.Holtz: Twitter: Gateway to substantive content: Everyone talks about brevity as the hallmark of Twitter, b.. [link to post] - Posted using Chat Catcher

    http://twitter.com/prblogs/statuses/1387267294 | March 2009

  • 2.Twitter: Gateway to substantive content: Everyone talks about brevity as the hallmark of Twitter, but Twitter is.. [link to post] - Posted using Chat Catcher

    http://twitter.com/shel/statuses/1387353067 | March 2009

  • 3.You're SOOO right, Shel. I'm getting tired of people whining that Twitter is all about "what kind of sandwich someone had for lunch." Used right, it's a brilliant gateway to all kinds of useful business content.

    Donna Papacosta | March 2009 | Toronto

  • 4.We were just discussing this yesterday at our Tweetup in Austin. I've learned more following some very smart people on Twitter and reading what they recommend than I ever get from Digg or my RSS subscriptions. That people use Twitter to point out "larger" content is what makes it so valuable. This post, for example, was cited by two people I follow. When used as such, Twitter is brief but very deep.

    Elmer | March 2009 | Heart O' Texas

  • 5.Well said. I have always referred to Twitter as my "hub" and tell people Twitter messages are a great way to point people to more substantive content. The outbound links are the real hard currency of Twitter and like forums.

    Doug Haslam | March 2009 | Boston

  • 6.The URL I posted represents a conversation I've been having with a friend. In it, my friend admits that his only knowledge of Twitter is of what he's read and what he's read has been mostly negative. I pointed him to this post because I respect Shel and it does a nice job of speaking to its benefits.

    Banky | March 2009 | Kansas City

  • 7.Hi Shel

    Good post. Here are my Twitter categories - with estimates from my receive log:

    - Lunch Tweets (what people are doing - declining category)- 5%

    - Link Tweets (links to interesting non-news blogs and web sites)- 30%

    - News Tweets (breaking news of any kind includes live tweeting from events)- 15%

    - Question Tweets (people asking for info, help, ideas, conversation)- 5%

    - Meetup Tweets (people announcing get-togethers in person) - 5%

    - Back-pat Tweets (growing category as folks cross promote to avoid their tweets looking like next category, includes #followfriday)- 10%

    - Self-promotion (read my blog, join my teleclass, buy my program, go to my web site, sell, sell, sell) - 15%

    - Humour (observations about life's oddities) - 10%

    - Twit-Celeb-Wannabe-Tweets (signing on and off for the day like broadcasters, daily thanks to followers - as if people care)- 5%


    I'm still trying to figure out where I stand on Twitter. I think it's still infotainment, for me. Time will tell.

    Sue Johnston | March 2009 | Waterloo, Ontario

  • 8.As we all know, there are no rules and Twitter fills many different needs for many different people. For some learning the intimate details of what Ashton Kutcher or MC Hammer had for lunch is very compelling. However, I am with you. I love the idea of Twitter being a gateway to deeper content. The billboard or exit sign that leads to deeper content.

    Warren Sukernek | March 2009 | Seattle

  • 9.We do see Twitter as a content chamber of echo, so we developped a tool to have a more visual way of discovering all the links sent by the people we follow.

    We called it Microplaza: http://www.microplaza.com

    Just follow us at @microplaza for an invite.

    And if you like the service and would want to write about it, feel free to contact me, I'l get you a bundle invite code ... ;o)

    Xavier | March 2009 | Belgium

  • 10.Friends of mine, who don't participate in social media, have discussed that Twitter stereotype before - seeing the theme of Twitter content "should be" as socializing, instead of a better reason - networking, for the purpose of personal, professional and society benefit?

    I'm starting to sense a growing divide in society between the Web 2.0 population and those who don't.

    Debbie Horovitch | March 2009 | @Debbie_h2o

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