Kim Feraday

The value of Twitter versus enterprise microblogging

2009-12-15T16:15:15-08:00

Last week Chris Lynch wrote a piece on "Why enterprise microblogging has more practical use for everyday people than Twitter". This followed a piece he wrote the previous Friday on why Twitter would never enjoy mainstream adoption (Why no one owns the social stream (but Facebook does more than Twitter).

I agree with Lynch that enterprise microblogging (Socialcast, Yammer and Sociatext Signals) has significant value as another communication tool, I do take exception to his contention that it's more practical for everyday use than Twitter and that Twitter won't ever reach mainstream acceptance. I also take some exception to his reasons why enterprise microblogging is more valuable than private services like Twitter.

Twitter: Maybe not the Beatles but not Alien Ant Farm either

First let's look at the argument that Twitter won't ever enjoy the mainstream adoption that Facebook does. He relegates Twitter to the domain of technology and media types, not regular Joe's. That may be true now, but I believe it's too early for a final verdict. Lynch uses retention rates to support his argument. While 40% retention may prevent it from becoming as big as Facebook it still has the potential to continue to be a real success story.

On Wednesday eMarketer reported that Twitter will have about 18 million adult users in the United States by the end of 2009 and predicts that this will grow to 26 million by the end of 2010. That's a healthy 11% growth this year and over 15% next year. While it's not explosive growth, it is healthy growth (if my investment portfolio could match this I'd be ecstatic). If you look at web statistics, Twitter has about 3 million unique visitors per day and has been stalled there since July. Facebook on the other hand has 50 million visitors per day and has been flat for the entire year. But while this is an order of magnitude difference, if you compare it to other mainstream media sites Twitter stacks up favorably to BBC's 3.5 million visitors, CNN's 2 million and the NY Times 1.5 million.

And while you could quite rightly argue that the jury is still out as to whether mainstream media businesses are viable, Twitter's business model, which is still evolving, certainly opens itself to some interesting opportunities. According to eMarketer these include paid corporate accounts (which may put Twitter in head to head competition with enterprise microblogging offerings), celebrity authentication and temporal search. Search is an interesting opportunity. It layers value onto existing search capabilities in a way that Facebook doesn't and positions Twitter as a search service that enhances the value of microblogging. Increased use of metadata may also help here (the ubiquitous hashtag).

Twitter: More than another bookmarking service

As far as uses, I think Twitter's openness to the entire user community (which Lynch recognizes) is what makes it really compelling beyond the technology and media communities. New services like groups/lists (including services like Listorious) and broader mainstream adoption are helping users to figuring this out. For example the number one rated Twitter user on Listorious is Liverpool Supporters, a Twitter account run by and for Liverpool FC supporters (with the clever motto "you'll never tweet alone"). While it's 55K followers is dwarfed by the million plus on Liverpool FC's fan page it does demonstrate that Twitter users outside of tech and media users are getting it. As a road cyclist I'd also point out that some of the pro cycling teams Twitter presences have larger followings than on Facebook (Cervelo TestTeam and Garmin Transitions being two).

There are more practical examples as well, that show innovative use of Twitter by regular users. In March suite101.com published an article showing how new teachers were using Twitter to get professional development support and advice from more experienced teachers.I think this use case demonstrates the potential power of Twitter. Since it's much more open than Facebook, it's easier to discover other people with common interests and to begin collaborating with them. Twitter is increasingly used as a communications tool in politics as well. I'm sure there are other good examples and as more people become familiar with the medium more will arise (increasing user adoption).

And that leads to what Lynch feels makes enterprise microblogging tools so much more compelling than Twitter. Lynch give four main reasons: That in an enterprise you know the people so it will aid use and enable you to understand what they're saying; that the communication problem is more real at work; that privacy provides comfort to share; and that value becomes evident faster.

First to the argument that you know the people in the enterprise. If Lynch means this in the abstract then I'll concede that their profiles may give an idea of who they are. But if you're in an organization of larger than a couple of hundred people then you're not going to know them all personally. And if you work in a really large organization you'll only know a very few. In these situations if their profiles aren't completed then you won't get much of an idea of who they are from that information either.

When I worked at IBM, a company of 300,000 my little group in Software Group was about 3,000. Even given the fact that IBM is a highly matrixed organization, there's no way I'm going to know more than a handful of people in my own group and a microcosm of the entire IBM universe. But there are a lot of people with amazing industry knowledge, technical skills and general business skills that would be good for me to know about, as opportunities and challenges arise.

And here I'll agree with Lynch that the communication problem in organizations, particularly large ones, is significant. But the challenge (and opportunity) is in enabling communication to a much wider audience than the people I know. I want to be able to tap into a broader stream of knowledge beyond my limited universe to address challenges as the arise.

In this respect enterprise microblogging has the most value if I use it as a public communication tool that reaches far beyond the people I work with every day to the broader organization and beyond (partners etc.).

To accomplish this the service has to be as public and transparent as possible, while still adhering to organizational security requirements and communications policy. That's why capabilities like groups/lists, metadata and advanced search are required to maximize value in the service. And it's in reaching out beyond your immediate universe to discover individuals and communities of interest that can positively impact challenges that you face you that allows you to realize that value.

And sure it may be a bit overwhelming for newbies at first but I'll bet phone systems and email were too. But with some guidance most will adapt. The example of teachers using Twitter for professional development and advice shows a similar ability to adapt. And that the value of Twitter and enterprise microblogging is, in my mind, quite similar.

So maybe enterprise microblogging vendors should be looking to useful Twitter services like Listorious, metadata, and search and analytics to enhance their own offerings (to be fair it seems that Socialcast has, but I'm not sure about Socialtext). I can imagine that their customers, particularly the large ones, will thank them for it.

Twitter is Walter Cronkite? Not so much.

2009-12-07T11:23:21-08:00

Last week in the wake of the Tiger Woods story MG Siegler wrote a piece in TechCrunch claiming that "In the Age of Realtime, Twitter is Walter Cronkite". Devin Coldewey gave a thorough rebut of Siegler on CrunchGear (Real time, real discussion, real reporting: choose two) and I recommend that everyone read both. It's an interesting debate. The essence of Coldewey's piece is that journalists provide analysis, perspective and context that Twitter (at least right now) cannot.

I have a problem with this on a number of levels. The most obvious is that it's confusing a medium with a person. Reports from people come through the Twitter the medium. The credibility of the people reporting is what should be important not the delivery mechanism.

While you could argue that this is semantics I don't believe it's that trivial. Twitter's value is largely based on the speed with which information can be distributed but does nothing to guarantee the quality of the reporting. Siegler argues that mainstream media can't deliver on quality either. He uses Cronkite's reporting of John Kennedy's assassination to argue that velocity is more important than accuracy. But Cronkite brought more than just speed (it was fast for the time). He qualified the reports as unverified. More importantly Cronkite had worked long and hard to gain the trust of Americans. They knew that he was going to give them the most accurate news possible -- even if it meant viewers had to wait for it.

This trust is something that is very difficult to replicate through Twitter, other than following traditional news organizations or bloggers who have gained reputation and trust in the same way that Cronkite did -- demonstrating his passion for accuracy and the truth over time. To put it in Cronkite's words "journalism ought to be about telling people what they need to know not what they want to know". Much of Twitter, as demonstrated in the Woods story and others, tends to be more about the former than the latter.

In his TEDx talk, Mathew Ingram argues that what makes traditional media worth saving are the qualities of accuracy, independence and trust. He feels that what traditional media needs to adhere to some new ethics including interacting with media.

There is a real opportunity here for traditional media to play an important role as curator for reporting on new media like Twitter. It would bring traditional media (and here I'll include blogs that have established credibility) qualities to Twitter and give (or remove) credibility from those reporting there. Thoora is one solution that is beginning to provide deliver on some of these capabilities. It aggregates stories from top news sites and blogs along with real time commentary from Twitter. In addition to "curating" this information into a single space it provides a discussion facility. Cloud services like Superfeedr are emerging to offer real time feed aggregation and parsing.

Providing this kind of service would significantly improve the interactive capabilities of traditional media (as Ingram calls for). To accomplish this traditional media have to start thinking of themselves as hybrid organizations -- part news, part technology.

I believe there's a real opportunity here for traditional media and for new online news organizations. What are your thoughts?

Munk debate on climate change -- should environmentalists be worried?

2009-12-03T12:29:54-08:00

On Tuesday evening,I listened to the live stream of the most recent Munk Debate on climate change (you can view the entire two hour debate here). The resolution: be it resolved climate change is mankind’s defining crisis and demands a commensurate response.

Arguing the case for the resolution were Elizabeth May the leader of the Green Party and former Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada; and George Monbiot a journalist for the Guardian and author of several best-selling books including Heat: how to stop the planet burning. Arguing the case against the resolution were Bjørn Lomborg a professor at the Copenhagen Business School and author of best-selling books The Skeptical Environmentalist and the more recent Cool It; and Lord Nigel Lawson former British Chancellor of the Exchequer, a leading skeptic and author of Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming.

Prior to the debate the Munk Debates polled the attendees on the resolution -- 61% were in favour and 39% were opposed. Interestingly though 79% said they could be swayed to change their vote. So there was really opportunity for both sides of the issue.

In my opinion, Monbiot and May presented a strong case. May largely focused on scientific data which shows that not only is the planet warming (8 out of the 10 warmest years happened in this decade; and the effects of CO2 on acidifying the ocean, etc.). Monbiot tended to focus more on physical evidence that he had witnessed -- starvation and drought in sub-Saharan Africa and the loss of agricultural and water resources due to warming -- all of which result in death of millions of people.

Lawson, in my opinion, was the least effective. He trotted out factoids purpose built to suit his case (including the recent email scandal out of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia). Generally his argument sounded confused and drew on sources that have been discredited.

More problematic was Lomborg who took a different and highly effective approach. At the outset he conceded that global warming is real. But he argued that given the other pressing issues facing mankind -- starvation, poverty, overpopulation, education, etc.

He even draws on a Bushism -- because environmentalists argue that climate change is the defining crisis of mankind, they have turned it into a "for us or against us" issue. Either "you believe that global warming is the worst thing ever to befall mankind or you're an enemy of human kind". He then goes on to raise other issues: 3 billion people that live in poverty; 1 billion who are hungry; 3 billion people who don't have access to clean drinking water and sanitation; 15 million people will die this year from easily curable diseases.

Lomborg argues that if you want to do the most good for the world then dollars would be better spent on solutions to these problems rather than the significant amount that would have to be spent on climate change. In essence he is turning it into a zero sum game and turning the argument on it's head. If you're for significant action on climate change then you're an enemy of human kind.

While Monbiot tried to counter his argument by quite rightly pointing out that many of the problems cited by Lomborg would only get worse if climate change is not addressed. He also argued that it is not a zero sum game. The problem is that in co-opting climate change into a larger set of issues he managed to erode May and Monbiot's position. The final poll results demonstrated this clearly. Among the 1,100 attendees 53% of people agreed with the motion and 47% were against.

Should environmentalists be concerned? While it's only one data point, an 8 point shift amongst an audience that should have been receptive to the motion should at least raise some eyebrows. Establishing counter-arguments which include real personal examples of how climate change is causing the problems Lomborg uses to support his argument is essential. In fairness, Monbiot uses some of these arguments but the link needs to be made stronger and more compelling.