Thursday, March 4, 2010
Insights and Opinions: Twitter has Jumped the Shark
For our Insights and Opinions section today, we have this opinion piece by Scott Fox, author of Internet Riches, the best-selling guide to starting a business online, and also e-Riches 2.0: Next Generation Online Marketing Strategies, a new guide to Web 2.0 online marketing strategies. He is a former Southern California high tech executive, and recently penned this post on his blog, which he gave us permission to reprint here.
Is Twitter still "the future of online marketing"? Or is it just a 21st century babble machine?
Charmed by the new tool's potential, I recommended Twitter in my latest book. But today (only a year later), I think Twitter is collapsing under the weight of its own success.
Here are 5 reasons why I think Twitter is OVER and has "jumped the shark":
1. Twitter is too easy to use: Twitter has such a low threshold to use (only 140 characters per message and FREE), that people have no hesitation to babble. And less scrupulous marketers have no hesitation to spam.
The pretend "conversation" we're all supposed to be having on Twitter has devolved into an opt-in spam fest.
"Big time" twitterers with large followings (or social media pros who are online all day) still find Twitter useful for conversation but the signal to noise ratio is dropping rapidly, making Twitter a less useful marketing tool every day.
2. Synchronicity - NOT:
Twitter can only be used to communicate with people who are also on and active at the same time. This restricts Twitter's utility to real-time conversations, often in the same time zone.... ( Continued... )
Read the rest of Scott's post in our Insights section.