Is Twitter another broadcast channel?

Is it broadcast media or is it social media?

I've been on the channel for over 18 months and I'm not sure ... most people I follow are more about broadcasting their message to others rather than entering into a dialogue. Sure, sometimes people I know and I will exchange banter ... but most of the larger names I follow are moreso pushing out a message to their followers - which strikes me as the '1 to many' push communication many frown upon.

I am not so close minded I don't think Twitter can be both social and broadcast - it's just maybe it's a lot more about broadcast and lot less about social.

Yes, the channel has potential ... but right now it's being hyped well beyond its current worth. And are the Social media flock any more influential than people not using these channels but socially active in a non digital (and less measurable but potentially as effective) sense. Measurability is great but lets not misconstue the ability to measure as 'more effective than channels we can't quantify as immediately'.

And can marketers actually use Twitter? Lets look at that point in the context of Australia. I don't know. It's tempting to want to utilise every single social channel available in a desperate effort to be looked at as progressive, but surely we have to look at resource versus reward.

Side note: I use Twitter but don't really look at it as anything more than a journal for my inane thoughts.

AFL on twitter

The AFL (the worlds greatest game in my opinion) has launched a Twitter feed for trade week.

http://afl.com.au/News/TradeTalk/Twitter/tabid/13323/Default.aspx

Will be interesting to see what happens when the trade action heats up.

Cool initiative and good to see the sporting giant using the platform.

Obama and Twitter

Much has been said in the tech blogs/journals about Barack Obama using Twitter as a campaigning tool. Most of it has been positive - here is a politician utilising an emerging digital media channel as a way of communicating with those following him.

You can view Obama's Twitter here - http://twitter.com/BarackObama

I think it's a good thing Obama is on Twitter. I do, however, think he could use it better.

Twitter, for those unfamiliar, is a "microblogging" platform. Users upload short, 140 odd character sentences up which show their followers (people who have opted in to receive updates) what they're doing. It could be as simple as 'At the pub' or 'queuing for an iphone' ... or it could be something with more depth.

Obama uses it to keep people aware of what he's doing ... 'Pleased with today's Supreme Court decision to bring terrorists to justice while also protecting our core values' and the like. It's benefit for him is it provides him with a way of delivering real time updates without the media adding their spin. Nice, simple, direct communication.

However, generally communication is a two way street.

Obama has been on Twitter since June 07 - and not once has he responded to any messages on there. For Obama, Twitter is a one way street ... not a 2 way dialogue. Twitter users generally preface direct messages with an @username ... and common courtesy is to respond to these.

I realise Obama is a busy guy - but he (or his campaigners) could at least respond to some direct messages.

I would really hope that eventually he starts to use it as a way of establishing a dialogue with people and getting an idea of their thoughts, concerns, ideas etc ... because right now it's just another channel to pump out a message AT people.

April Neilsen data is out

Netview has released its April data ... And it's interesting!

- Facebook have overtaken myspace (see - http://mimelbourne.blogspot.com/2008/05/facebook-passes-myspace-in-au-for-first.html)

- Yahoo!7 shed over 450k users in one month (almost 10% of their audience)

- ninemsn have shed over 330k users in April (compared to May)

- Twitter has 49,000 users (April is the first time I have seen Twitter on Netview)

- Google search is down 197k users

- Yahoo! search is down 114k users

- ninemsn search is down 329k users

- Ten.com.au is down 44k users in April. However, this figure for some reason does not factor in the bigbrother.com.au traffic - which is at 267,000 users for April (up 101k year on year)

The AU Internet universe sits at 11,229,000 ... which is down marginally from the 11,443,000 in May.