Who will control the all powerful?

I’d like you to imagine something for me.

Its a Thursday night and you’re up talking to your friends. You’ve had a great night and say goodnight to them, looking forward to chatting again in the morning.

The next morning, your world is thrown into turmoil. You wake up only to find that your contact with the outside world has been blocked. You’re not allowed to talk to any of your friends, and they can’t contact you. You have no idea why this has happened, and no-one will explain it. All you are told is that you might find out what has happened sometime in the next 30 days. You are cutoff from the outside world.

After three days of nothing you finally are told that you have been cutoff because you have made too many friends in too short a time, which is not allowed. You find out that you will be able to talk to your friends again, but only in a weeks time. You have no way to challenge this,  and no-one who can assist. You are helpless.

The above story happened in the last week to someone I know. Jono Haysom, a colleague of mine at Telstra and an avid user of Twitter (@jonoh is his Twitter id) went to bed on Thursday night last week after chatting with his friends on Twitter, and woke up on Friday morning to find that his account was suspended. He had no idea why and when he contacted Twitter they responded with an auto-response email saying  they would get back to him in 30 days. After much agitation, they eventually came back to him on Sunday and said he could re-apply to open up his account in 7 days time.

The reason they gave for suspending his account was that he had followed back too many people that had followed him in too short a time . That’s right, he followed people that were already following him! Apparently mass followings like this are a trait of spammers so he was blocked.  

Besides this being grossly unfair, the bigger issue here is that as services like Twitter become more and more prevalent, and more and more of our communications with friends moves online,  being cutoff from your social network for a lengthy period of time such as a week would be an extremely unsettling, frustrating and stressful situation for anyone, never mind a person who has done nothing wrong.  If you extend that to a business environment, exclusion like this could affect a persons livelihood in a huge way, especially if the period was not say a week but a month or longer.

The fact is, the above could happen to anyone at any time, and nothing can be done about it.  The administrators of services like Twitter have total control over who can and can’t use their service, and can kick someone off the service at anytime. There is no-one overseeing what they are doing, and no way to appeal against any of their decisions.

Ok, Jono was still able to use email and other services to talk to some of his friends with whom he had established relationships outside of Twitter, but one can easily imagine a time where all communication services are controlled by one group or organisation (look at Google Wave for an example of an integrated service which combines multiple communication mechanisms).

Imagine the power a  group like that would wield then.  Perhaps we should start thinking about that future and considering what checks and balances need to be put in place so that there is always a way to address an injustice such as what was inflicted on Jono.

Its scary when you think about it.

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Update: Well its been a week since @jonoh was suspended and he still hasnt heard anything more back from them. He has sent 7 emails,  many with the same response

“If you feel you’ve been suspended in error, please reply to this email with a short explanation if you haven’t already, and don’t forget to include your user name. We will do our best to get back to you within 30 days.”

This really is an indictment on Twitter and its error management processes . They had a loyal and high-volume user who I only ever saw promote the service, and they have totally disenfranchised him by cutting him off from the outside world.

Lets hope this doesnt start happening to more and more of us across social networking services as they try to crack down on the growing spam problem affecting their legitimate users.

Twitter’s growth and why I dont post (much)

It has been a while since I last blogged. Instead most of my time has been spent on Twitter  interacting with those I follow, or who follow me.

In thinking about why this is the case, I have come up with two reasons, both of which are quite illuminating in perhaps explaining part of Twitter’s success over the last few months.

1. Although Twitter can be used in many different ways, what most interests me, and keeps me coming back, is the conversational nature of tweeting. That is, using Twitter you can easily interact almost in real-time with a large group of people, as well as joining conversations others are involved in. This is diametrically opposed to blogging, which by its nature is much less conversational (yes, comments can be used but these are not a conversation to me).             
2. Tweeting is easy, much easier than writing a blog post. In fact, of all the web 2.0 services, Twitter is probably the easiest to use.  All you need to do is put in up to 140 characters of text and submit, and away you go. This is much easier than writing a post for a blog or setting up a Facebook profile, to give two other examples of popular web 2.0 services.

As mentioned above, these two reasons may actually explain part of the astonishing growth of Twitter recently.

The first point illustrates the fact that humans are inherently social creatures who in most cases enjoy and in fact need to interact with other people. Thus, Twitter is fulfilling one of the basic needs of people everywhere.

The second point above shows that the “barriers to entry” to using Twitter for someone new (or relatively new) to social networking are extremely low, and the lowest of probably all web 2.0 services available.

Combining these two observations, it becomes apparent that Twitter is fulfilling a basic human need, and doing it in a way that is extremely easy when first used. Really, the perfect recipe for viral growth.

Is it introversion that drives the success of Twitter?

Earlier today I listened to a really interesting interview of Jane Mason by Cameron Reilly (listen to it here). They were discussing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in people and categorise everyone into 16 different personality types.

The part of the conversation that I found most interesting was when they were discussing introversion, and the fact that introverted people are not always against interacting with other people, its just that they like to control those interactions (e.g. a number of famous actors are introverted).

This led me to thinking about Twitter and other microblogging services, and why they have been so successful. The conclusion I came to was that it is the early-adopting introverted “geeks” (I apologise for the term but its the best I could come up with)  like me who naturally flocked to Twitter as it allows us to interact with others, whilst still controlling those interactions.

Obviously, this conclusion relies on a number of assumptions:

1. That the archetypal “geeks” are the early-adopters of many new technologies
2. That “geeks” have a tendency to be introverts
3. That Twitter allows people to control the interactions they have with others

I think I’m fairly safe with the first assumption, but the other two probably need a bit more thought.

In terms of geeks being introverts, whilst I haven’t been able to find any definitive resources to prove this fact, my general observations do reinforce the perception that this assumption is almost definitely correct.

In terms of Twitter and its use, if you think about it, Twitter is really the ultimate tool in controlling interactions with the outside world. A Twitter user has total control over who they follow, as well as what they tweet about, and which conversations they get involved in. They even have the ability to tune out totally from the tweetstream if they want to. As such, this is a great tool for introverts to control their communication with the outside world, whilst still making themselves heard.

Drawing together the three assumptions above, it is therefore clear that Twitter was a perfect tool for the early-adopter introverted crows to flock to. This allowed it to build up a critical mass of users, to the point where it is now beginning to go mainstream. It is also at the point where the extroverts, the people who thrive on interactions with others now also flock to Twitter as it is an outlet for them to communicate with a broad audience given its huge reach.

It is interesting to think about this paradigm when trying to think about what the “next” big web application might be. I’m tipping it will be one that allows the introverts to even further control their interactions with others, although I’m not sure what that will be.

Update (4/12/08): Danu Poyner has an interesting post on his blog which talks about the fact that Twitter is great for the Intuitive (N) type people highlighted in Myers-Briggs. He also refers to a great survey of Twitter done by the MBTI blog which shows that the most common (self-reported) MBTI type on Twitter is INFP, with both Is and Ns being over-represented in Twitter as a whole.

Social networks are real time..TV stations need to catchup

Social networks, and especially micro-blogging services like Twitter are incredible sources for the real-time release of news and sports results. As a result, as their use grows and expands, television networks are going to face huge challenges to their archaic programming practices.

These television networks are used to being the “only” source of coverage for their customers to keep up with happenings around the world, be they the latest scores or updates on breaking news items. Because of this, most networks, especially in a place like Australia which is far removed in terms of timezone and geography from most locations globally, often show sporting events on delayed telecast, or hold back breaking news items until regular news bulletins or broadcasts.

These days, that is really playing with fire. At any time, it is very easy to use a service like Twitter Search to find someone tweeting sports scores, or commenting on news items. For example, Channel 7 during the Olympics delayed the broadcast of many of the events, including Matthew Mitcham winning gold in the 10m platform diving. As a result, a number of people tweeted the result of the event before Channel 7 showed it (see here for an example). This meant actually watching became a total let-down and definitely encouraged me to switch channels before it was finished.

If the stations aren’t careful this will start happening more and more, and will be just another death blow to the “dinosaur” networks who are under extreme pressure from a variety of sources (including online) already.

Update (1/9/08): About 10 minutes after posting this it was bought to my attention that someone was live Twittering the coup in Thailand (see here). Yet another great example of the real-time news breaking caapbilities of social networks whic television networks (and for that matter newspapers as well) just can’t replicate.

Web 2.0 companies still need to listen to their customers

Many companies who claim they work in the web 2.0 space listen closely and pay attention to any feedback, issues or comments that their customers may have. However, just calling themselves a web 2.0 company doesn’t mean that a company can forget their most important asset, their customer base. In fact, I would argue that companies who claim to be developing collaborative applications or encouraging customer to create, modify or mash-up content HAVE to listen to their customers intently or face the real risk of losing their credibility totally.

Unfortunately a first-hand example has arisen recently showing that some companies are really dropping the ball in these situations.

The issue involves a product called Twhirl , a Twitter client for the PC which has recently been purchased by Seesmic, a company who encourages customers to create their own video content. Seesmic uses a customer feedback website called GetSatisfaction to track customer feedback, highlight whether they are working on the issues raised, and to provide solutions. Unfortunately it appears that recently Seesmic have not been listening to the feedback from their customers regarding issues with Twhirl.

Sixteen days ago (August 5th) I posted an issue to GetSatisfaction highlighting the fact that the ability to follow someone in Twitter through Twhirl was broken. To date there has been no answer, even though 11 other people to date have flagged the same issue and 5 replies have been posted. In addition, I have tweeted a number of times to Seesmic (see here and here for examples of 2 of the 4 tweets) none of which having garnered any responses.

This is terrible customer service and not good enough in this day and age. In fact, in the spirit of the web 2.0 world, its an EPIC FAIL. Seesmic really needs to pickup their game in terms of customer service or risk bleeding Twhirl customers and destroying the product.

Is anyone listening…..

Update (23/08): As you can see from the comments below, Thomas Knoll from Seesmic has now acknowledged the issue and indicated that they are working on a resolution. I appreciate his acceptance that they should have provided some feedback regarding the issue earlier. If Seesmic had done this they could have saved a whole lot of customer frustration which really just didn’t need to happen. It is interesting to note Thomas’ comment re working smarter, not harder. Sounds like a good topic for another blog post…

Social networks as information sources

I use Twitter a lot while I am at work. I have been feeling a bit guilty about this, as in most large companies doing something like interacting with Twitter rather than focussing on “core” work activities would be viewed as time-wasting and unproductive.

However, what I have realised is that my Twitter network is actually becoming an essential part of my information-sourcing activities, which are critical to my role. Through Twitter I have been able to access many leading thinkers in areas of interest for me in my current role, as well as research reports, case studies and technical information, all of which I have utilised to a great extent, and to great effect to perform the “core” activities of my job.

Whilst there are definitely exceptions to the rule, as mentioned above many large companies are oblivious to the type of benefits that web 2.0 services like Twitter can provide to their employees. Note that I am not referring to Enterprise 2.0 types of services which are generally internally focussed, but open publicly available services like Twitter and Friendfeed. These open systems allow employees to draw on the social networks they have created in the same way they use traditional internal informal networks that are always so beneficial to those who know how to use them.

If only most companies realised the treasure trove of expertiseand information that their employees would be able to access if they encouraged the use of such services. Sadly, its only the enlightened few that do.

Do you say hello?

I am now a pretty addicted user of Twitter. I check my feed regularly during the day and post at least a Tweet or two every couple of hours if I can.

However, one thing I am really concerned about is breaking what seems to be the “unwritten protocols” of social networking and annoying either one, or all of my friends or followers. The fact is, try as I might, I don’t seem to be able to find any written record of how a user should, or shouldn’t interact with others on Twitter, or for that matter any other social network.

I had a bunch of “protocol” type questions when I first started using Twitter, most of which I still don’t have the definitive answer to. These include:

- Acknowledging followers: Are you meant to say hello to new followers?
- Unfollowing: Is it polite to tell someone when you unfollow them, or warn people you are about to unfollow someone?
- Linking to blog posts: If you tweet a link to a new self-written blog post, do you need to specify its a link to a blog post?
- Greetings: Is it rude to not say good morning and good night to those online, or is it over the top to do so?

The fact is, whilst these questions (and others) apply to Twitter, similar questions apply to all social networks. The problem is that most services do seem to have a social norm – in most cases unwritten – associated with their use. By not knowing how to behave new users can quickly alienate themselves from others on the service, thus ruining their experience before they even begin.

This would seem to suggest that publishing these “social network norms” should be something useful for administrators of the services to  do. However, this would go against what I would imagine is the philosophy of most of these companies/founders, that being that the services can be used however the users see fit (within reason and the law of course). This must be an interesting challenge for anyone maintaining a social network!!

Twitter is my sticky mobile application, what’s yours?

Working at a telco and before that an equipment vendor, I’ve had access to the mobile internet in one form or another for a long time. I started using it in the early days of WAP and have been a regular user ever since.

In all that time I’ve never really found a mobile application or service that I used continually day-in and day-out without fail. In fact, I’ve been sceptical that I would ever find an application that would make me want to use it that often on the mobile, both because of

1. the clunky interfaces of most mobiles, and
2. the lack of my coming across any really interesting services.

That has all changed. I now access a certain mobile application probably 4 to 5 times a day on my mobile, not just to passively read it, but also to input as well. It has become what is called a “sticky” application. That application is Twitter. Yes, it has only been a couple of weeks since I started using Twitter, but I cant see this behaviour changing anytime soon.

Why has this happened? There are three main reasons I can think of:

• Devices – Mobile handsets, and specifically “smartphones” are much more suited to mobile Internet usage than any devices have been in the past. I use a Samsung Blackjack which has  a nice screen and full text keyboard, as well as HSDPA access to the internet. Its a breeze to use in accessing the mobile Twitter site, scrolling pages and inputting text.
• Application providers - Companies like Twitter (amongst others) are a lot smarter these days in developing their mobile sites. Whereas in the past most companies tried to base their mobile sites on their traditioanl websites, in most cases without a great result, companies are now taking the time to consider what functions users would want to access on their mobile sites, and building the sites to cater for this. Whilst the Twitter mobile site is not brilliant, it certainly provides me with the functions I need.
• Social Networks – Most social networks encourage frequent access by users to update, view and interact iwth other users. Twitter is no different. When I am not in front of my PC I feel like I might be missing some interesting Tweets and want to see what’s going on in the stream of conversations in the service. It is for this reason I use the mobile to access the site, and keep doing it throughout the day.

All of this would be music to the ears of any mobile telco, all of which strive to encourage their customers to use the mobile internet as much as possible with the hope of charging them for this usage. Whilst I am somewhat of a special case in that I work for one, I can see mobile applications like Twitter significantly increasing mobile internet usage for all telcos, if they get their business models and charging regimes right!!!

Of course, I cant see Twitter being everyone’s sticky mobile application as it probably would only appeal to a certain part of the population. Instead, I foresee a range of mobile applications targetting different market segments being the ones that gain popularity and drive mobile internet usage.

What is your “sticky” mobile application? Do you have one yet?

Focussing on improving the right metrics

“You cant improve something if you cant measure it”. You might have heard this saying before, and might have even acted on it. But before taking it to heart, you need to ask one more question “Is this something worth measuring and improving?”.

There are many examples in any number of industries where something that is taken as granted as being really important to measure and improve actually has very little impact on the bottom line.

A good example of this can be found when thinking about what is important to measure and improve in a call centre. A typical measure used in many call-centres is “Grade of Service”, or the the percentage of calls answered in a certain time, usually 20 seconds or similar. Whilst it is great to set a target for answering a certain number of calls in a given timeframe, a better measure for a call centre might actually be the abandoned call rate (the number of calls that are not answered at all as the caller hangs up), given that if a call is answered, even if its after 15 mins, as long as the query is handled well the customer will most probably go away satisfied.

A Twitter conversation yesterday (thanks @docbaty) gave me another good example, customer satisfaction. It is almost taken for granted in most industries that improving customer satisfaction will improve the bottom line of the company. However, a number of studies have shown that this may not be the case. Instead, measuring other factors, such as the number of customers who would act as advocates for your product or service, might be a better pointer to success.

I’ve only listed a couple of examples here that are top of mind, and I’m sure there are many more. Add your examples to the Comments…

Impressions of Twitter from a newbie

Well its been a week since I started using Twitter , and I must say its been quite an experience.

Below are my impressions of the service so far:

* Its addictive – Before I started using Twitter I had heard about it a lot but thought I would have no use for it. After using it for a week, I’m pretty much addicted using it everyday, throughout the day. Which leads me to my next point….

* Its useful – I’ve already used Twitter to find out some info I needed for work, setup a coffee catch-up and generally learn more about latest thinking in a range of areas. I can also see how it could be used for so many more things which I haven’t even started doing yet. However….

* Its flaky - I cant believe how much Twitter is unavailable,  or at least crippled with half the features not working. Whilst I realise its going through massive growth surely they can do a bit better dealing with their users, who after all are what is making the service successful. In fact, on this point…..

* It has worshippers – There aren’t many products I know which fall over as much as Twitter does and yet still has so many users who just love it, and jump to its defense when its challenged. And, I’m not just talking about any old users, many of the power users of the service seem to simply love it. Just listen to TWIT any week and you’ll hear the glitterati of the web 2.0 world spending half the show discussing the service. Finally…

* It could do with some extra features – There seems to be a few obvious things that could be added to the service to make it even more useful. One prime example is a communities or groups function whereby you could subscribe to a group and message only that group at any time.  I’m sure there are many others that have been discussed in many others places as well.

Well that’s it. Overall a great first week. Lets see if I’m still using it this much in a month!!