Has Twitter reached its peak of success, and is it heading now for the trough of discontent? Has it been over-hyped? I find myself wondering.
Possible signs of trouble:
- The site has been too busy of late — I’ve been unable to complete tasks because their server was too busy. That discourages me from returning.
- Twitter is now serving as a vector for a worm. As a result one of my clients’ IT department is now blocking access to Twitter from corporate PCs and laptops until they’ve figured out how to protect employees from the malware delivered via Twitter.
- Its search capabilities are too limited when it comes to trying to find people with very common names. (I have much better luck with LinkedIn.)
- It’s not easy to sort the good stuff from the random tweets that are just annoying…
I understand that a lot of well-respected pundits and media outlets are predicting it will be the next “killer app,” but I’m not yet convinced. Yes, I’m definitely a newbie when it comes to Twitter — but I’d far rather talk to friends and family by phone or in person…
I can see its benefit for personal communications among friends and family, but as a business vehicle, where’s the value beyond short and sweet communications?
Because so many tweets are written in SMS-like shorthand, I question the value of monitoring tweets for brand perceptions… It’s likely to take a lot of labor-intensive human analysis to get much value out of the sentiments and perceptions expressed there. (Blogs are probably more valuable as a source of customer or influencer insights for companies that are investing in “listening strategies.”)
For a more academic discussion, with the contrarian point of view, check out Tom Davenport’s blog posting at HBR. He definitely thinks that Twitter is just a fad.
I’m open to the notion that Twitter may be here to stay, but for the moment, I think it’s just part of the interpersonal communications mix…