March 31, 2009
Why Twitter Works
(This post appears as part of our Tech Tuesday series.)
Twitter is the new social media darling. It has entered the domain of health, sports, entertainment, and emergency rescue. You can even find recipes in 140 characters or less.
Yesterday, people confirmed an earthquake via Twitter.
But with all this hype and promise does anyone know why Twitter works?
Henning von Vogelsang offers up a list of 10 things that make Twitter work. James Howard gives an example of Twitter working in the 'Great Conversation.'
But it's Daniel Miessler who I think gets closest to the mark. On his blog he writes:
Twitter, on the other hand, by having the deepest personal penetration (mobile phone) combined with the most ease of use (text message), has an effort rating that falls below most people’s natural resistance to participate, and its positive reward ratio is much higher because people are far more likely to respond to a text message than almost anything else.
Or as I would put it in 140 characters or less, Twitter works because it's simple.
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