temporary retreat from randomness

Here's last week's Campaign thing. I fell for the last resort of the desperate columnist and wrote about twitter. Sorry about that.

If you've been watching the blogosphere recently you'll have noticed that everyone's all aflutter about something called Twitter. It's a simple little thing that allows a kind of nano-blogging; you can use your phone or your computer to announce (to your friends or to the world) what you're doing right now. And some people do that. Others use it as a platform for jokes or complaints, or to announce the biscuits they're going to eat in a meeting. For some it's a digital postcard. Most people use it as a virtual equivalent of the quick hello in the corridor. It's stupid, pointless, trivial and completely addictive. The best introduction is to go to twittervision.com and watch the twitters roll in from around the world, it's like a haiku-sized soap opera with a cast of digerati grouching and joking through their digitally-mediated lives. I mention it because Twitter points at some interesting things to think about:

1. It wasn't invented by who it should have been invented by.

Twitter has driven massive amounts of increased text usage, from me alone, yet it wasn't invented by any telco, it was invented by some software/web guys in silicon valley, because it was a service they wanted. The costs of developing these things are so low now that ideas like this are popping up everywhere, in a fraction of the time it would take to squeeze them through a corporate hierarchy. And it didn't have to be tech guys. It could have been someone reading this.

2. The stuff we used to dig for is now bubbling to the surface.

If I was launching a global marketing campaign today, especially if it was vaguely techy, I'd project a big twittervision screen on the wall and see if it showed up there. That would be a sign of success. I bet Apple could do that, watching the twitterings about the iPhone announcement was a mark of their brand power. You can see your campaigns unfold on blogs today, but it's slow, it doesn't really live up to the name 'buzz'. When/If Twitter gets big you'll know immediately if you've made an impression.

3. You won't understand it until you try it.

It's become increasingly clear to me that you can't explain new media to people. Just as you can't understand TV by reading about it you can't really get digital media without trying it. It's not how the service works that's important, it's how it feels to do it and share it with your friends. So have a go. And add me at twitter.com/russelldavies

And on a more important note Caroline of Campaign has another Campaign Yahoo! Big Ideas interview coming up and wonders if anyone has any thoughts:

The next Campaign Yahoo! Big Ideas interview is with Alan Bishop who as chief executive of COI has one of the most challenging and varied jobs in communications, handling the most important campaigns around with objectives set by ministers rather than marketing directors. Caroline would like to hear if you have any questions to put to Alan (who is, incidentally, Britain’s largest producer of toy hedgehogs – for its child road safety initiative). Comments on this below please.
 

Comments

[Marcus]

I've lost hours on twittervision.

[Henri Weijo]

I'm very interested in seeing how this whole budding Jaiku vs. Twitter war is going to end. Is it going to be just Europe with Jaiku and America with Twitter or are we in for a global winner?

I for one think Jaiku is far superior, with more potential. But the buzz Twitter is getting now is deafening.

[Charles]

wow Twittervision rules!

I've recently signed up for a Facebook account (its kinda like myspace) but it has a STATUS function thats just like twitter - you type in what you're doing 'checking blogs' and it notifies all of your friends and anyone looking at your profile. Its pretty fun although a micro version of Twitter - would be cool if Twitter actually synched with things like that. Was also thinking it would be pretty cool if your phone had a twitter function so if you decided to go to bed early you wouldn't get drunk friends texting or calling or perhaps if you were in a meeting - I guess you could just turn your phone off but hey thats no fun.