Evan Williams, the co-founder of Twitter and the founder of Blogger, spoke at TED 2009 earlier this month about “How Twitter’s spectacular growth is being driven by unexpected uses.”
Twitter is clearly a trend that keeps on giving and Williams does a nice job of revealing how the folks using Twitter affected the service, changing it from simple status updates for friends and family to a communication tool now used for purposes like following breaking news (e.g., the San Diego wildfires) and for business use (e.g., following the location of an exceptionally popular Korean barbecue taco truck in LA).
He even reveals that the use of @name was an invention of Twitterers that was then built into the system. Of course, that convention is now becoming a part of web communication more generally, as you’ll see at Trend Hunter’s Community Wall!
Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
Key Themes Behind This Trend
- Unexpected Uses of Social Media Services
- Business professionals can look for opportunities in exploring and capitalizing on users' unexpected uses of social media services to further expand their target audience.
- Impact of User Generated Conventions
- Disruptive innovation opportunities can arise when companies look to incorporate the conventions and ideas generated by users, as seen with Twitter's use of @name.
- Real-time Communication Tools
- Companies in various industries can benefit from developing similar real-time communication tools to allow for speedy updates, and content sharing.
Where This Applies
- Social Media
- Social media companies can gain a competitive advantage by exploring unexpected uses and conventions developed by their users.
- Marketing
- Incorporating real-time communication tools can be useful for marketers to quickly disseminate updated information, and receive feedback from their target audience.
- News and Journalism
- News and Journalism companies can capitalize on real-time communication tools to quickly disseminate breaking news to their audiences.
