Twitter isn't meaningful communication?

Yeah. Yet another Twitter post. But trust me, this one's worth it.
Lots of juice. With pulp.

So let's just get things started:

"Twitter isn’t meaningful communication."

Where's the laughing emoticon when you need it? Someone really said that. And because it ranks right up there with the Best of the Worst Tech Predictions Known To Man, I figured I’d dig up a few others to emphasize how quickly some “industry experts” clamor to be the voice of reason when technology starts seeming a bit too sci-fi for them.


“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943


“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”
Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946


“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977


“Apple is already dead.”
Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft chief technology officer, 1997


“I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”
Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995


“[The] ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
Western Union, 1879


“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.”
Prentice Hall (Publishing), 1957


And now we present for your enjoyment:

“Twitter isn’t meaningful communication.”


I actually came across this on the Daily Beast blog site. You should read the blog. http://tinyurl.com/cdjr6f. Good times.

Given Twitter’s sheer ability to allow people to communicate and access RELEVANT INTERESTING CONCISE information in real time, it’s hard to believe anyone who’s given an honest five minutes to Twitter could bash it with a straight face.

What it comes down to is that there’s a lot going on with social media right now. You’ve got the people who are adapting on one side of the fence, and the ones that are behind the curve on the other. Instead of stepping over and catching up, some of the traditionalists are trying to hide behind their comfy blogs, hoping by denouncing anything they don't immediately understand they can just make it all go away. I mean seriously, the last couple of “anti-social media” blogs I’ve come across have sounded more like overwhelmed rants than astute observations. I think deep down they know something's coming, but they're just not ready to make all the huge, sweeping changes that come along with it.

It’s starting to seem like the issue is less about the product and more about operator error. I think the next time I come across a blog that rants against social media I’ll post something in the comments that’s simple and easy for them to comprehend:

Adaption FAIL.

Defending Twitter

Now here's the deal. This post is going to suck. No attention to grammar. No smooth segues. No cloying humor. And forget a tidy tie-in at the end. It seems I'm addicted to twitter and don't have time to be bothered by the particulars of a blog anymore. The world out there is spinning and churning and scrolling while I'm stuck in this little box. I feel... so... isolated.

Which is why it perplexes me that anyone (especially someone in the business of COMMUNICATING) could have two bad words to say about twitter. It's the greatest thing since sliced facebook.

But apparently Bob Hoffman (The Ad Contrarian), CEO of Hoffman/Lewis San Francisco isn't hitching a ride on this freedom train.

"How the narcissistic keep in touch with the feckless"

is his personal take on this whole newfangled toy the kids are playing with. http://tinyurl.com/cdhn8j. Hmmm. By his own admission his opinion is founded on... ahem... two bold encounters. But he claims psychologists support his observations, so it must be right.

Why yes, it's absolutely logical. That someone who isn't active on twitter would look from the outside and peep in like an octogenarian listening in on high school chatter. Tsk! Tsk!

Or that someone who's dedicated their career to the study and treatment of mental health disorders would dance in glee over the prospect of a new "ailment/addiction/syndrome" suffered by millions of people... who by happenstance love talking about themselves. Match made in heaven.

So yeah, a guy who doesn't get twitter (or get on it for that matter) and a group of PhDs whose whole existence (and Mercedes payments) hinge on VERBAL twitter are going to pound the gavel? I think not.

My two things about twitter:

1. I don't care if half the people on twitter are narcissistic and the other half are cross-dressers. THEY ARE THE CONSUMER AND THIS IS WHERE THEY LIVE. This is who they are, and the job of the marketer/brander/ad guy is to figure out what's valuable to them and what will motivate them to connect with a brand.

2. Twitter turns conventional media on its head. For that matter it's turning facebook (and google!) on its head. Think of the record companies and their reaction to new media: They're so attached to their 50 year-old business model they don't see opportunity when she comes knocking at the door in the middle of the night with a bottle of Jameson and a box of Trojans.

Okay, here's one more thing:

3. For every cool old ad guy that's drinking from the twitter cup, there's another old ad guy that's feeling a bit squirmy about a medium where a corporation doesn't control the content, a corporation can't use tired analytics to measure ROI, and a corporation doesn't write the monthly retainer check. Of course he's not going to like twitter! Or those pesky kids who use it.

Twitter haters, RIAA executives... what's the difference. The world is changing and they're about to become obsolete. The ones that will still be standing in 5/10 years are the ones that realize the consumer really, truly is RIGHT. And not in a lip service kind of way. The consumer is right because the consumer finally has control over the options. Twitter being one of them. A big one of them.

Methinks squirmy ad guys should embrace what the world embraces. Learn to love what you don't understand. Face down what scares you. (It's called GROWTH.)

And this is where I'd normally throw in some quippy little kicker of a wrap-up but that would take an extra five minutes. And a lot can happen on twitter in five minutes.

(Why are you still here??? Get back there!)