The Rising Popularity of Twitter

Most of us are familiar with Twitter, which allows users to communicate via posts that go up to 140 characters at a time. This new trend of communicating has become extremely popular and it’s boldly going where no social networking site has gone before. Many people are finding this site useful to update friends and family about daily occurrences and celebrities are using it to communicate to their fan base about concert tours.

An article in the New York Post goes into extensive details about the various times and places that people are Twittering as well as the etiquette associated with posting. People have proposed marriage via Twitter, jurors have posted Tweets during trials and journalists have been sent to cover funerals in real time via Twitter. So where are people going to draw the line?

Anna Post, etiquette author and spokeswoman for the Emily Post Institute, is loath to pass judgment on what events are and are not OK to Twitter about, except in the case of trials ("We are citizens, there are duties, and it's not just about you") and probably death. (In September, the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News suffered massive public backlash after it sent a reporter to cover a 3-year-old's funeral in real time, via Twitter.) Otherwise, she says, it's situational. "There's nothing inherently wrong with Twittering [big events] as long as everyone's comfortable," she says. "I think the danger, though, is in how incredibly banal it is."

I can understand why celebrities would use Twitter as it a fast way to reach their fan base who are likely hungry for the behind-the-scenes scoop. Similarly, I can understand if someone is in the hospital waiting for the birth of their child or caring for a sick family member. It is an efficient use of someone’s time if they’re tied up at the hospital and can’t take numerous phone calls from family and friends asking about a status update. If family and friends are directed to Twitter or a blog, they can keep up with daily events and even respond so that their loved one knows they are reading. However, sending a reporter to cover a funeral via Twitter and jurors posting Tweets about trials and murder weapons is taking it too far.

Although Twitter is only 3-years-old, it is estimated to have between 4 and 5 million users, with 55 million unique visitors per month. As more people sign up for Twitter and see how easy it is to communicate with others, it is likely that the number will increase and the type of instances that people Tweet about will change. We’ve already seen how powerful Twitter has been with real world-breaking news such as the Bombay attacks, the earthquake in China and the Hudson River plane landing. All of these occurrences were first reported by citizens via Twitter. But what makes me wonder is whether people will realize that there are certain times when it’s just not appropriate to Tweet, or if any life event or a passing thought is game for the site. It will be interesting to see how corporations, judges, bloggers and everyday citizens feel about the site going forward.

Facebook upsets its users. But are the users forgiving them again?

If you logged into Facebook today, it was hard to miss the “Terms of use update” on the homepage. What is even harder to avoid is the multiple requests I got from friends to join the “People Against the new Terms of Service (TOS).” I figured it was in my best interest and duty to learn what the ruckus was about. An article on TechCrunch had an interesting spin on the whole issue and has been following this “news.”

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, and team revised Facebook’s term of use hoping to clarify various parts for its users. They had received countless questions and comments about the changes and what they meant for people and their information. Mark told his follwers that it’s a language thing and they did a poor job in explaining the changes. He indicated that those changes will still be coming in the next few weeks, which will inlcude the Facebook user community to make sure it jives with everyone. On Facebook, he says “ Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.” Additionally, the company polled some of its users in news feeds asking them if they should go back to their previous TOS.

Today, Mark invites users to share their thoughts on what should be in the new term in the group called Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilties. By the end of Wednesday, this group had 56,517 members who were complaining about all sorts of issues, such as privacy rights, the nature of social apps, legal issues and so on.

This is not the first time Facebook has upset its users. Users definitely recall the Beacon incident which didn’t happen too long ago. Followers of the network seem to forgive the company and use it again and again. Perhaps it is because the company has noted their misakes and are communicating with their audience. Mark and team say they are dedicated to finding a solution to this problem and they intend on leveraging their users to help them get there. Not only does the company have a dialogue with the users, they plan to use that information to proceed. According to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff in their book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, Facebook is on target with their thinking and actions. Their strategy is the wave of the future for other companies that are looking to succeed with social networks. Facebook is reaching out to their customers, asking for their input, listening to the concerns and then, promising to deliver. These are the successful steps in building a relationship with consumer that are connected on the web with social networks.