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One of the common misconceptions in tech is that the product itself is what ultimately matters most in the success or failure of a company. If anyone proves that theory wrong, it’s Twitter.
Over the years since i started blogging, I have found myself writing a post for the sole purpose of sending it to someone the next time they ask me a question like “What is the point of Twitter?” or send me a message asking me to like their Facebook page. Well, this post is another one in the series.
Seeing someone join Twitter and watching them make the same mistakes so many others have made is often painful. I am referring to spamming celebrities in the hopes that they will get a response (and more followers, as a result). I am talking about misusing hashtags on every word in the tweet, in the hope to show up in people’s searches (and get more followers, as a result). And those are just two of the many things you see new Twitter users doing.
The tech space is so ironic sometimes. While pundits refuse to believe that anyone can compete with Android’s market share and are quick to dismiss Windows Phone with the claim “They are just too late to the game”, the same is happening to Google in the social space.
As I spend more time on the social Web, some enlightening facts become apparent daily. For example, I know I hang out on Twitter and Google+ way too much, but most normal people do not. I know, it is hard to believe, but some people have lives outside of Twitter and Google+. What that means is that when I share a blog post I wrote, a cute picture, or any other type of content on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or any other platform, there are going to be many people who do not see that content.
Now that we established that everyone needs a blog, the question remains, where does one start? Well, there is the platform and topic you choose, of course, but those are topics for another time. Before writing a post, or perhaps once you finish writing the post, you are going to have to choose a title wisely. Why does the title matter? Well, the tweet below says it best.
OK, this is just getting ridiculous and I waited long enough to write this post. Technology moves fast, I get it, but there’s fast, and then there’s the pace at which the world of social media has been moving over the past few months.
Twitter, as a company, has made its share of mistakes over the years. These include implementing its own retweeting system that makes it significantly more difficult to see how many people retweeted you and who they are (not to mention the fact that when I use the Twitter retweet, I can’t add my two cents to the original tweet, it all kind of defeats the purpose), the Twitter URL shortening service, which seems to break more links than it shortens, or many others. But the good news was that with all these issues, I always had Tweetdeck to fall back on. Then Twitter bought Tweetdeck.
It has been quite a crazy month in and out of the tech industry and while I usually try to post these articles on a weekly basis, clearly, that did not work too well in the last couple of week. But since many (many) people seem to depend on these posts to get up to date, I am forcing myself to get back into the swing of things.
If I had a dime for every person who said to me “I don’t do Twitter. Why do I need to announce to the world what I am eating or when I go to the bathroom”? Now, I am not sure how or when Twitter got the reputation of being a service for pointless and insignificant status updates, but if anyone deserves that title, it is Facebook. The amount of content, relationships, and engagement I have gathered on Twitter over the years, or even on a daily basis, is absolutely unprecedented anywhere else on or off the Web.
The technology reporting scene on the Web is always full of excitement and drama. Paul Carr makes sure of it. The man is a constant source of entertainment both in his blog posts and on Twitter. The latest TechCrunch story brought out the best in Paul and as soon as Arrington was not permitted to choose his successor as the Editor of TechCrunch, Paul left, just like he promised he would.
