Twitter: A Secret Society Unleashed

In the last few months, the entire face of web has changed rapidly in terms of how its audience engage themselves and communicate with each other. Information has become conversations, visitors have become followers and what used to be generally an email exchange now has become a tweet. Whether we call it human network or something else, the simple old concept of society, culture and it’s existence has based it’s home in the world of web. So did this all happen in just 2 days or it took years? well there were many front runners in social media and networking for the past few years. Even though the evolution has been gradual but nothing compares to the shift in paradigm that we have seen in the last 6-8 months especially due to Twitter and it’s growing popularity.

It’s almost like a secret society that existed with very few members trying to spread its word in literally 140 characters almost got a heavy doze of Red Bull and soared to a level in such a short time that is anything less than worth talking about. I read in a CNET article by Neilsen that Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 users in Feb 2008 to almost 7 Million in Feb 2009 making it the fastest growing site in the members community sites over a month. These are some staggering numbers folks including it’s usage through mobile phones (735,000 message sin Jan 2009) and the age group of users (35-49 making 42% of it’s population). Beyond all the usage growth, Twitter’s real influence is in it’s popularity growth and the wide spread attention it has received globally. Here are some other areas one must look into to understand Twitter’s magnetism.

• Tools Available: From Mobile applications, analyzers to Widgets, the number of tools have increased tremendously since Oct 2008 by 60%. Entrepreneurs are gluing their eyes to Twitter and finding ways to be creative and innovative.
• Networks/Exhibitions: More groups are embracing the Twitter phenomenon that is putting much needed spotlight to social economy. SXSW is a prime example.
• Websites/Blogs: When was the last time you ran a search on WordPress or even Google. The staggering amount of articles one can find on Twitter is unbelievable. Here’s another one from me.
• Media Attention: Twitter has gotten more media attention that any of the Internet moguls have. Twitters popularity among celebrities like Ashton and Demi Kutcher, P Diddy, Justin Timberlake to name few is another example and I even heard about it on Golf Channel thanks to Stewart Cink.
• Domain Names: Actually, this one is my favorite research. I recently tried to register a domain name of some of my Social Media work and it was amazing to see the names run out so quickly. I am sure the Domain registrars made a good run with Twitter mania.
• Marketing Gurus: For every 7 followers you can see 1 Twitter marketing expert from what I have seen. Twitter’s demand is making marketers expand quickly.

I am myself  a huge Twitter fan and have connected to so many amazing people and hopefully my followers list grows organically through interest rather than robots. But I do wonder with such a rapid growth, is there a concern of short life-span. I hope Twitter is not living in dog years and lasts longer than doctcom boom. Regardless, Twitter phenomenon is a breath of fresh air especially in hard economic times and it’s secret society life gone public where every user is a stock holder. I am certainly enjoying it and glad to be a part of the revolution.

My efforts and contributions can be found at my Blog and some of my abstract observations can be seen at Social Media Expressions.

I welcome you to follow me at Twitter and allow me to share my thoughts and ideas with you.