The whole Ashton vs. CNN thing made me realize three things.
- Twitter is mostly misunderstood as a marketing tool.
- Ashton is a pretty smart guy.
- I like Twitter.
Lately, I’ve immersed myself in this whole “social networking” thing on the ‘net. Overall, I find it fascinating though, until today, I also found it a little confusing. These social network sites are ok but nothing amazing. I used to call them glorified bulletin boards (not the old Internet bulletin board, mind you, but an actually cork board. To me, Facebook is nothing more than refrigerator door). Facebook and Myspace still are just that, glorified bulletin boards. Twitter is another matter.
As a tool to stay connected, Twitter is nearly perfect. You follow other people, they follow you. You write something, they write something. Everyone reads. To be sure, much of what is written is inane, but at worst, Twitter allows you to tell people what’s up with you and you get to find out what’s up with them. Our current president used Twitter in this way very well. Twitter though does not have the added baggage of detailed profiles, messy interfaces, mind-numbing apps, ads, or stalking psychos that Facebook and MySpace have. Instead you have a simple interface, clear and flexible messages, and the ability to use your real name but hide behind the facade/fantasy of a “user name” as well as the power to block anyone you deem crosses the line.
At its best, however, Twitter is a place to share, to share humor, information, or just the time of day. And if one takes this notion seriously, the notion that we are sharing so make the info count, one stops merely broadcasting the facts of one’s day and begins to create meaning through monologue, dialogue, rant, and quip. Words from the “twitterati” begin to have heft, and once words have heft, they stop aspiring to gossip or trivia and begin to genuinely entertain and, quite possibly, become profound.
In short, Twitter is like television for readers.
This is what happened with Ashton vs. CNN. Charismatic, tech savvy, Ashton seems perfect to take on CNN. In trying to reach 1 million followers first, Ashton simply made the plea on old media, sent out the word online, and watched the community grow. CNN on the other hand, ran a scroll at the bottom of its broadcast screen. As far as I could tell, there was very little lobbying on their Twitter page. Also, CNN has many feeds. MANY. I think I stopped counting at around 15. And herein lies my first point. CNN thinks having twitter feeds creates marketing. But truth be told, Ashton created the rivalry and buzz. Old media still serves new media but rarely does it go the other way. So in the end, a person made this a rivalry, not a corporation. Because companies like CNN see Twitter simply as a place to use press release marketing, people respond to their posts with commenserate enthusiasm. What makes Twitter so unique is that it gives a person the same stature as a company. But unlike a company, a person is identifiable to his/her audience. So the individual leaps over the company. Until companies realize this and create tweets (the official term is “tweeting” which I find so juvenile I had hoped to avoid using the phrase) that sound more human, people will always see corporate tweeting (oh dear) as a sham. Ashton understands this. Hence point #2. Now he controls the eyes of 1.3 million people. Ashton’s very smart indeed.
Point #3 began while all this was taking place and came to a head the other day. I went to my page where I follow 61 people and organizations. It seems I hit a tipping point with this mix because as I read their tweets, a flood of witticisms, factoids, ideas, complaints, and home spun wisdom came my way. They all shared that essential quality which makes them interesting: the tweets were about real things people do using real words people use.
The best practitioners are the comedians, who treat Twitter like a classroom where they are still the class clown. The loudest is Rainn Wilson from “The Office,” who seems to have no job other than posting to Twitter. I would swear he has an assistant do this for him except each post is so nonsensical (“Why is whatever lips are made of limited to the area around the mouth? I want my body to be covered in puffy red lip skin.”) or trivial (“Nearing 500k followers. That’s like the whole entire population of China.”) I believe he wrote them even if he didn’t. Other comics are like this but seem less manic. My favorites are Andy Dick who likes to pepper the day with patter about what he’s up to, advertisements for his blog, and sweet homilies about his addiction troubles, and British actor/writer Stephen Fry, who writes with such aplomb and in just that British way (“I note that Steve “Legend” Davis is exactly 2 days older than me. Can’t decide if this is uplifting or faintly dispiriting.”)
But surprisingly, my other feeds sound this way too. I follow the PM of Britain at DowningStreet. Someone in the office (hopefully not the PM) puts a cheerful spin on most official activity and occasionally interjects a more personal message (Spring is in the air – take a look at the Number10 garden and its colourful array of flowers in our new gallery: http://tinyurl.com/db3soa). The note was so unusal for DowningStreet yet seemed perfectly appropriate. Not all companies are so blithe. But when they are, it stands out. And I want to hang out with them more.
So goes my Twitter experiment. I have many more observations but I’ll save those for another day. In the meantime I’ll just enjoy those sweet tweets and try to sing along.
Filed under: Stuff, Andy Dick, Ashton Kutcher, blogger, blogging, CNN, facebook, Gordon Brown, myspace, nonfiction, Rainn Wilson, Stephen Fry, twitter, wordpress
