Did you know you are already using Twitter?

Posted on April 10, 2009 by Dave J.

Okay, I played the Twitter game for a while, then got tired. It’s a fire-hose of status updates and pushes of information you never knew you needed. It’s hard to tell if anyone is listening to anything you share, too.

People say Twitter is hard to explain. But you are already using a pre-cursor of Twitter.

I just realized this yesterday. Let me explain:

Inbox Twitter:
There are dozens of email newsletters I subscribe to. Well, some I didn’t ask for. Trade pub. newsletters, marketing services, vendors, new product updates, webinars, skills & training offers, etc.

I’m sure you get a lot of the same.

I delete most after just reading the subject line, without opening (or even previewing). Don’t you?

So why don’t I unsubscribe?

These emails serve as a continual feed of information of what the outside world is doing as it relates to the scope of my job.

A continual feed of information? Hmmm, just like … Twitter!

So what does this mean:
That all said, I’d say email marketers should maybe reconsider how they write their subject lines, to help feed Twitter-like bits of information to their subscribers who don’t open their messages.

Sample:

  • Current subject line: “Amazon.com: Top 10 Deals in Electronics”
  • My suggested subject line: “Amazon.com: Canon A123 enters top 10 deals in electronics”

Some may call this ‘the scent of information’. Always a good thing, but if you realize your readers are using Inbox Twitter, all the more important.

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  • Jennifer

    “It’s a fire-hose of status updates and pushes of information you never knew you needed. It’s hard to tell if anyone is listening to anything you share, too.”* snort * Made me laugh my coffee out my nose! That’s just how I feel about it. How useful is Twitter? How necessary is it to be Tweeting? Is it going to become (or has it already become) as ubiquitous as Facebook and MySpace? aaaaagh! It just seems like noise right now….

  • Jennifer

    “It’s a fire-hose of status updates and pushes of information you never knew you needed. It’s hard to tell if anyone is listening to anything you share, too.”* snort * Made me laugh my coffee out my nose! That’s just how I feel about it. How useful is Twitter? How necessary is it to be Tweeting? Is it going to become (or has it already become) as ubiquitous as Facebook and MySpace? aaaaagh! It just seems like noise right now….

  • Dave J.

    Sorry about the coffee thru the nose!Yes others have written about the signal-to-noise ratio of Twitter. I think it will not become as ubiquitous as FB & MS. Its just too noisy.

  • Dave J.

    Sorry about the coffee thru the nose!Yes others have written about the signal-to-noise ratio of Twitter. I think it will not become as ubiquitous as FB & MS. Its just too noisy.

  • Christoph Schmaltz

    I tend to disagree, Dave. Twitter and any other microblogging service (Jaiku, Identica, Yammer) have evolved from pure status updates to conversations. And more than that, I use it as a social filter, because people in my field (enterprise 2.0) post interesting links. By following them I learn quite a lot of new things and at the same time have interesting conversations. I filter the stream of messages using groups and persistent searches (you should install Tweetdeck). I have a column for all the people I work with, people in my topic of interest and searches for my company and other key terms. I don’t receive much spam on Twitter, because I control who I follow. With email anyone can simply send you things. In that case it doesn’t matter how catchy the subject line is written, I will ignore it. Also, FB and Twitter are very different. FB is all about the people you already know, Twitter about people that you want to learn more about. FB is asynchronous interaction, whereas Twitter is pretty much real-time conversations.

  • Christoph Schmaltz

    I tend to disagree, Dave. Twitter and any other microblogging service (Jaiku, Identica, Yammer) have evolved from pure status updates to conversations. And more than that, I use it as a social filter, because people in my field (enterprise 2.0) post interesting links. By following them I learn quite a lot of new things and at the same time have interesting conversations. I filter the stream of messages using groups and persistent searches (you should install Tweetdeck). I have a column for all the people I work with, people in my topic of interest and searches for my company and other key terms. I don’t receive much spam on Twitter, because I control who I follow. With email anyone can simply send you things. In that case it doesn’t matter how catchy the subject line is written, I will ignore it. Also, FB and Twitter are very different. FB is all about the people you already know, Twitter about people that you want to learn more about. FB is asynchronous interaction, whereas Twitter is pretty much real-time conversations.

  • LEADS

    Good research….I had no idea about it. Twitter is really good and I will not complain if I am using it being unaware that I am using it.

  • LEADS

    Good research….I had no idea about it. Twitter is really good and I will not complain if I am using it being unaware that I am using it.

  • home business leads

    Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. While the service costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.some of those twitter messages can help us to explore more in the world wide web, but some also can irritate to us, most especially like scum messages.

  • home business leads

    Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. While the service costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.

    some of those twitter messages can help us to explore more in the world wide web, but some also can irritate to us, most especially like scum messages.