I still haven’t really taken the plunge with Twitter yet – I’ve set up an account, added the Facebook application and posted some ‘twits’ . But seeing as I’ll shortl be leaving my current job to dedicate myself entirely to building Marketing Tom Media, I’m thinking of giving Twitter another go. And having just watched this interesting video interview of the founders of Twitter by Shel Israel, I think I’m starting to see more business and personal reasons to use this application.
Here are some facts which come out of the interview:
- Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, was riping up the carpet of his new home when he receives a text message from Evan Williams, the other co-founder who was having a glass of wine at the same time. He thinks it quite cool that he can find out what his friend is doing in some different location and the germ for Twitter is born at that moment.
- The average user posts 3 times a day
- People update their Twitter statuses through web, SMS, IM and API‘s
- 60% of their traffic is non-US, with Japan accounting for 40% of that market. They mention that the Japanese see Twitter as their virtual pet!!
- The UK and Spain are also strong markets
- 50% of users follow 10 people and,in turn, they have 10 followers
- People like to connect with people they already know and find it cool to follow old friends
- Twitter only employs around 15 people and just 5 are engineers.
- Business uses include customer support and tracking what’s happening with companies
I liked when Biz Stone said that he was invited to Nike because, he was told, “none of our people really know what is happening online and what tools people are using,” and he asked, “why not?” The reply he got was quite surprising, “well, we don’t let them use them.” I am sure that some of the clients I work with – from the public sector, colleges or within the Welsh Assembly – will be able to empathise with these folk. It is quite amazing how organisations that rely on the Internet, to attract and drive customers to their websites, don’t allow staff to explore/research what is going on in that community.
I’ll be posting about my journey into Twitterdom in the near future!
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