Is SxSW going to be the death of Twitter?
Just about 6 weeks ago, I wrote a post about Twitter being a great evolution of IM, moving to EM, which I called “everywhere messaging”. Well, in the weeks since, I have come to realize it is really about EP, “everywhere publishing” - but not just publishing in the broad sense, but rather, it is a functionally restricted form of micro-blogging. If you look at my Twitter feed, you will see that this is generally how I use it.
Unfortunately, it feels like Fonzi is getting his swim trunks on, and the sharks are looking ferocious. Why would I suggest that this great channel that I have been touting for the last few weeks is about to jump the shark? Because of the amount of focus on the use of Twitter as a communications channel down at SxSW (did I mention how bummed I am that I am not there?). BTW, I am seriously asking the question of whether SxSW will be the death of Twitter? The reason being that we must cross over and bump up against barriers in order for us to realize they exist in new realms - the amount of traffic coming through Twitterific is just overwhelming and causing it to lose its’ intimacy for me.
Tonight, I came back to the Social Media Clubhouse from dinner with Kristie and Tom Foremski to see that my last 20+ Twitters were a back and forth conversation between my friends Chris Pirillo and Robert Scoble about Twitter. In fact, Kristie, Tom and I were just having a conversation in the car no more then 60 minutes ago about the same problem. I already can’t keep track of the friends I really care about staying connected to with the increase in usage, and now I am feeling guilty every time someone adds me as a friend when I don’t add them in return. But I can’t add everyone - I just don’t have the extra attention to invest, and to Chris Pirillo’s point
what happens when you have 10,000 followers - and their responses get buried because you can’t reciprocate?
The thing is, the very nature of Twitter, which Kristie pointed out mirrors the addictive nature of Flickr, will lead to a natural increase in the frequency in usage, the scope of usage and the number of people using the service. In the last week, I have received at least 30 friend requests, and I am not really that well known or popular. Scoble is over 1,000 already and climbing fast. Pirillo is right, but he need not go out to 10,000 followers - Scoble is already having responses and more get buried - it has happened in his voicemail where he directs you to email, and even in email and other channels, he is always going to fight to keep up, despite all his very hard work and great intentions.
The thing about Twitter, Flickr and other similarly architected services is that we like staying in touch with the people we care about, the people we WANT to have connecttions with. Unfortunately, and as I have been saying a lot lately - Humans Don’t Scale. Dunbar was really right - I am pretty much putting the Dunbar number in the same category as Newton’s laws of gravity. It is important to note that I am not hoping for its demise - far from it. I am however wondering what can be done about those of us that care about such things in thinking about some sort of guideliness to prevent usage patterns from destroying the incredible value we find in staying connected to the people we care about most.
So what are the limits of Twitter, what are the best uses? Can we put this altogether in a wiki? Am I just crazy? Or is the usage of it morphing in ways that are really decreasing the value of the channel instead of increasing it? Is there any possibility to save Twitter from Twittering itself to death?
Mea Culpa: Occasionally, I do use the dreaded @ myfriend message myself. At this time, I want to apologize to everyone for this terrible, terrible assault on your attention. Direct messages should be sent directly - or if it was/is necessary to build upon a conversational thread, I should have made the slight additional effort to have blogged it myself on my full site. Perhaps Twitter could make a C messageID, or C myfriend feature to redirect some of this additional traffic. But honestly, I think the additional volume, the experimentation and the morphing of this great everywhere publishing must give us all pause, to rethink what works well and what doesn’t - to then start modeling the behaviour we hope to see from others…
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