There is no denying that more and more people are on Twitter, and at first it seemed to be an extension of Facebook’s pointless profile updates, where you discovered the delights of what people were eating that morning, how hung over they were or what their cat was doing. It got a bit irritating to be honest.
Now it is practically mainstream, Twitter has found its way into our lives and is proving itself to be very useful and potentially essential. In its primary form of micro-blogging, the sharing of knowledge, links and user-driven news is invaluable. From knowing what model of printer to buy to saving your lumpy custard to latest job listings – Twitter holds the key to it all.
Yes, we have seen some little experiments in the past; the invention of a house plant watering warning system, Botanicalls, that sends you a tweet when your plant is too dry or an office chair that tweets when it detects natural human gas. But what about something really important or interesting? As the first flakes of snowfall fell this winter, people were not looking at the weather reports for what may or may not happen in their area of the country, instead referring to a live plot of snowfall in the UK where people could send a tweet with part of their postcode and a score of snowfall which was then plotted on a map. Is it the future of weather reporting? The Albion Café in London have installed a Baker Tweet which alerts followers when a tray of their favourite goodies have just come out of the oven. This could be useful for any business that relies on real-time information, such as stock levels, latest offers and new products. Maybe not groundbreaking in these subtle uses, but I think it shows the beginnings of something bigger and better.
This year I’ve noticed a shift in seeing Twitter in use away from our screens and around our environment. Standing at my bus stop I noticed I could get an update for the next three buses due at the stop, and I thought what a great use that was for it. Looking into it, Twitter’s future is set to be more mobile and location specific than ever before with the introduction of Geotagging and the start of deals between Twitter and mobile telephone companies.
These mobile and location specific aspects could benefit and help us immensely. I would love to see users on Twitter offering restaurant reviews, available property to rent, local transport times and routes, tourist tips and where to get aunt Judith a green silk scarf in the middle of Swansea, in real-time to other readers on the ground.
Search is another feather in Twitter’s cap. Google now offers real-time search listings for tweets. This means that being on Twitter is actually important for businesses in jostling for better search rankings.
Twitter is currently free to use, but talks for fee payment for more in depth information like Twitter campaign analytics is looking likely. The amount of information generated on Twitter is vast and methods on how to analyse and collate specific information will be useful for many different sectors of businesses and individuals.
2010 could really see Twitter take off in a new direction.