[start video @ :48 to avoid bad language]
Twitter certainly has ingrained into our culture. In fact, it’s become integrated into the latest version of OS X, Mountain Lion.
It’s been interesting to watch Twitter grow and evolve over the years. For a long time, it was highly criticized and theorized about its future. There has been this awkward tension with how Twitter would generate income. I never thought Twitter would go away due to a lack of profitability, but a sudden exodus of users? That could kill it.
Facebook’s recent snafu got me thinking about leaving the social media platform, like others.
But, what would make me leave Twitter?
Value
That’s what it comes down to, right?
The value Twitter has is important to advertisers and investors, but there’s more power held by the user. If you don’t find Twitter valuable, you’ll leave. If you don’t believe me, show me your active MySpace page.
So that leads me to a more probing question:
What would hurt Twitter’s value the most for you?
Buying Followers
Fast Company recently exposed “social media’s black market.” It turns out that buying Twitter followers is both easy and cheap. A lot of Twitter’s social clout is centered around the number of followers you have and blogs often combine Twitter numbers to their social reach (as ChurchMag does). To find users abusing Twitter’s social currency will certainly decrease its value.
Account Promotion
Have you ever had a blog post trend on Twitter?
It’s like magic sauce for your pageviews.
What if I told you that you could help that along by giving Twitter your credit card number?
You can promote your account as well as “amplify your message by promoting your Tweets.”
I understand Twitter needs to make money. As Editor of ChurchMag, I have an understanding of web-o-nomics. ChurchMag even tweets some sponsored tweets, but this? This seems so — meh.
Please, tell me what you think!
When you combine this stuff with Twitter pulling the plug on their Third-Party API clients, it makes me wonder where Twitter is headed.
Google has become evil, Facebook is annoying and now Twitter?
Either this is the new Internet or it’s an opportunity for something new to surface.
Tyler Hess says
i actually just signed up for the new myspace…so there! timberlake brought sexy back, now he’s bringing myspace back!
Eric Dye says
😀