Phase 2 - ?
I was quite surprised to see a mention of Twitter in a front page news article in an Australian newspaper - and it wasn’t in the IT section. I checked out the feed, and it was actually a pretty good example of how to use the technology effectively (no fluff, just had the facts - which really is the point of micro-blogging).
Although this is a pretty high profile use case scenario, I’m still not convinced Twitter is really mature enough to use as a business tool just yet. Its recent series of outages, system slowdowns (it took their servers over a week to restore my closed account) and their inability to uphold their terms of service doesn’t bode well for those wanting to use to as a key communications tool. It still has got a lot of bugs to be sorted out from both a technical and governance standpoint. When (or if) it does resolve these issues it will most likely still only be suited as an auxiliary communications tool. A useful one, but not one to base your whole comunications strategy upon.
Twitter needs to sort itself out fast. Google bought competing service Jaiku in October 2007 and has put the service in a holding pattern whilst it works on re-birthing it as a Google App. When that happens, expect it to be pretty well integrated into everything else they’ve already worked their magic on.
Twitter: this isn’t 1998, first mover advantage doesn’t mean anything anymore. And Underpant Gnome business plans aren’t going to convince VC’s to fund your business forever. I think you’re onto a good thing, and have a strong (although very geeky) userbase. But you really have to pull your socks up and get some very basic things sorted out, such as how are you going to make money off this thing?
