Social Media Is Dead; Film At 11

CM Comment: Commentary on the future of popular social media sites like Twitter.

August 17, 2009: summarized from InfoWorld -- The death of social media is upon us. How do I know this? I read it on the InterWebs.

Let's start with a report by the BBC about a study of random tweets by Pear Analytics, which shows some 40 percent of all content on Twitter is "pointless babble."

To which the obvious reply: Only 40 percent?

Pear conducted this study by dipping into the tweet stream every 30 minutes over a two-week period, and then placing each tweet into one of six categories. Number two behind "babble" was "conversational" (37.5 percent), as in the "I just had a tuna melt and it sure was yummy"; in the third slot at just under 9 percent were tweets containing useful info or links, followed by self-promotional (6 percent) tweets and spam (4 percent).

Think about it, though. Compared to every other communications channel in your life -- phone conversations, email, SMS texts, newspaper articles, blogs, TV newscasts, political speechifying, and so on -- Twitter's pointless babble ratio isn't that bad. Can you honestly say that almost 10 percent of any of those things contains useful info? (If so, maybe you hang out with smarter people than I do.) And who wouldn't kill for a spam rate of only 4 percent? I'm sure that won't last.

Still, I hear from a lot of Cringesters who say they find Twitter 100 percent pointless. I maintain it's something you have to use for a while before you understand it.

Just today I was talking to an analyst at Forrester who covers CRM and customer service issues. She told me what a lot of people have told me about Twitter: At first she pooh-poohed it, thinking it a stupid waste of time. Then she realized she had to start using Twitter because the companies she's been analyzing all were relying on it for customer service. Now tweeting is an essential part of her day. She doesn't think it's stupid any more.

My sermon to the residents of Cringeville today is, if you don't use social media tools like Twitter and Facebook, you're falling behind. You are at least two steps closer to the junk heap than everyone else who does. You're like the crotchety old folks who refused to use touchtone number pads on their phones because, dammit, a dial was good enough.

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