Social Media News

Founded in 2006, by Jack Dorsey, the concept of micro-blogging took over with dramatic results in March 2009; the outlet Twitter. Responsible for the social media revolution, quickly Twitter gained popularity and notability worldwide; as its network allowed a globally interconnected society a stable foundation for connectivity, while trading valuable user-based information — these tweets each limited to 140 characters, each led to the rapid spread of information in a vast array of ways. Created with little funding, Twitter’s projected revenue for 2009 is expected to surpass $400,000; with a rise so drastic in revenue and popularity changes first had to be implicated to the interface -– those changes, such as spam control and grouping users are currently being reviewed in use by loyalists.

However, regardless of the modifications to service; a select hand full of people, from all target age ranges, are still giving Twitter a cold shoulder when it comes to social media. Research has shown that within a six month time period, as Twitter gained more popularity, some were consumed with curiously to the micro-blogging concept; many of those users, who swore off Twitter, are now active account holders that tweet daily. Yet, as diverse as the users itself, are the reasons for those who have shunned the social medium; an article by community enthusiast and social media strategist, Dave Delaney, details the love hate relationship with this social service. Unknowing as Twitter seeks out funding, in a networking boom that was not planned for in populous, the structure of its social media will only climb to suit the user’s needs.

As a single channel in a global Internet universe of literarily hundreds of social media mediums; Twitter allows its users the freedom to become their media – creating, censoring, editing, communicating, sharing, and deleting it at their will. However, as we step back from the clinical research to review other concepts that have been introduced in a changing Twitter; these positive concepts show a changing landscape that stands to continue changing for the good of its users. Putting further emphasize on Twitter, to further its concept; new trends, ideas, third party applications, ease-of-use gadgets, and endless features –- continuing to make Twitter increasing popular for both personal and business use.

• Openness: –- A concept from the start of its popularity, Twitter continues to provide openness to its users; increasing interpersonal communications as it creates and develops larger audiences. A single user, with a public account, can send out a single message and that message carries across the globe; smashing Myspace and Facebook, where in order to see a post you must be accepted to the particular users list of friends. Often this openness has been the single reason for user boycotting, yet as the network advances the benefits of openness have been visually noted; such as with the Iran Elections. Aggregators have been a wonderful step towards openness; these allow your feed/updates to be posted to a vast array of network at your control. Friendfeed remains the best in social media aggregation as it allows for both input and output of more than fifty sites and RSS feeds; this concept is also available to popular sites like Tumblr and Facebook –- on Twitter a message is not just carried to a limit of ten, but reaches tens of millions.

• Up to Date: Again, a concept from the birth of Twitter’s boom in popularity; with minor tweaks for better performance, Twitter allows is users to stay up to date with what is going on around them quite easily. Twitter is fully operational on a concept of real-time, simplistically meaning that what a user views at any given point in time is current; Twitter search also is that of a real-time up-to-date rich feature that gives to its users the principals of being current in their media viewing. Real-time is critical for both personal social media Twitter use and that of business. Twitter has made changes to its Trending Topic feature, which allows users to participate in text orientated conversations; their choice of ten most popularly talked about concepts –- using the proper denoting words/hashtags users appear in a timeline that is based on real-time current trades of information. Users who utilize real-time Trending Topics stand to be retweeted to millions and establish interpersonal relationships with newly found founds. As Twitter continues to gain its popularity as a network that revolutionized social media, real-time trades in information have been mentioned in the top three benefits of this simple to use network. Many loyalists mentioned media via Twitter is one to three days quicker then media via television, and many days quicker then newspaper print; this was seen in the death of Micheal Jackson as Twitter reported his death via celebrity reporting prior to the universal world of television media —this tragic death appeared four minutes after it was first reported to celebrity press, to a surprised and saddened world of Twitter. Twitter has also received prestigious awards in its coverage on The Iran Election, which television news did not report; as well as The Miracle on the Hudson, the Fort Hood massacre, Ms. America 2009 controversy, Technology releases, weather/earthquakes, H1N1 outbreaks, and a vast assortment of celebrity information and deaths. Using a real time social media medium with real time search yields instantaneous results, a great benefit; used commonly when other media networks cease functioning such as Friendfeed or Digg.

• Interpersonal Communication: To listen, to learn, to care, and to serve, interpersonal relationships are founded on these four basic theories via Twitter; according to Laura Fitton, author of the best selling “Twitter for Dummies”. In correlation with Twitter’s openness human relationships are created by following those peers with like-minded interests; to maintain those established relationships one must listen to what the other say while putting effort into interpersonal connection by exhibiting compassion in humanity. Without limitations users are free to follow any member, a concept important also in the field of business; no matter what the business field may be, colleagues can be found by both search and information. Users also have the freedom to follow users who are of interest, with no connection as a peer or colleague; such as celebrities, founders of modern day technology, news reporters, or geniuses. As a major compliment on Twitter, the retweet; the more retweets a user produces the more compassion they exhibit; this is true for mentions as well. Delving deeper into this concept Twitter brings to the user traffic that shows human compassion, this traffic is needed to build positive friendships and stable connections; traffic to a blog gets content out to a larger opened audience – with a single follow and retweet a user may increase their publicity by 10,000 members.

• Spam Control: — A brand new feature for Twitter was the November 2009 deployment of a spam control team; adding a button to each members page that easily allows for the reporting of spam as well as the block of a user.  Many people reported to Twitter that it was the large number of uncontrolled spam, which was hard to report, that kept them away; this button now makes the concept a two click process. Each spam report will be reviewed by a spam team member and action will be taken to remove the account; if the account contains violations of the newly implemented spam team Terms of Service. Like the environment, Twitter relies on the users to clean up the trash; each user has the role to use this new feature to clean up their social media environment.

• Expansion: — As Twitter continues to gain in popularity, the network is expanding into more languages as it is currently available in dominate English and on a separate interface in Japanese; this roll out, as Twitter calls it, will include Spanish, French, Italian, and German — with more to follow as growth develops. This multilingual language expansion is projected to have a profound impact on Twitter; creating more interest and globally expanding both openness and interpersonal communications to personal and business life online. Looking to other successful networks, Twitter is taking its cues from Facebook that currently exists in a broad 65 multilingual languages; these cues are mutual as Facebook gains concepts from Twitter — in a back and forth trade of business growth and development, while other networks follow suit to leaders.

• Grouping: — A brand new feature, requested by tens of thousands of Twitter loyalists, released slowly in November 2009; after a beta testing phase. These lists provide Twitter users control, over the tweets they desire to obtain by allowing unlimited groups to be created. Each followed member can be placed in one or all of the user created groups, as Twitter gives the user the organization requested. Twitter refers to this grouping as ‘Twitter Lists’, each list controlled by the user can remain public or listed as private. Public groups aid in novice and outside users to become invested in Twitter, as they can easily follow these public lists of similarities of interest subjectivity. Private lists remain private to the user who created it; these lists do not get shared on the global network.  Twitter has included a unique URL with each user’s ‘Twitter List” that can easy be passed on in the network, shared in chat, within other social media mediums, or listed on websites. On the principal of giving the user what he/she wants, Twitter Lists is a complete organization of connections on a social system.

• Business Growth: — While Twitter is a new-age method to create online marketing via social media; there are also newly introduced concepts that Twitter holds in the business market — featured in many business magazines abroad. Many companies are now deploying customer service via Twitter medium; such as Windstream, Comcast, and Hulu — with many more to follow suit, in this tested sustainable success. Communication with these service members is rather quick and can take place easily; all with the primary goals of answering questions, fixing issues, and building a more personal relationship with their members.

Twitter is just getting started and users have not seen anything yet, the new micro-blogging concept should not detour anyone from the immense list of true benefits of using the network; users have nothing to lose as accounts are free to sign up and easy to delete at the users digression. With thousands of third party Twitter applications that aid in the use of this network, chances are pretty good that if one gives it a chance they too will join the world of Twitter. Without a doubt more features will continue to add to the success of Twitter, with many currently being talked about that will change the network’s landscape. Take the time to explore, on your own, so that you can make your own unbiased opinion of the social network that quickly became a popular household name.

(Copyright © Social-Media-News 2009)