Dell and twitter - they aren't doing it for the money...

Why is it perpetually reported that because Dell makes money from Twitter everyone else can?

Dell is a multi-billion dollar enterprise. As a proportion of revenue - their Twitter income is farting in a thunderstorm. If you took that ratio and applied it to a "normal" - sub £100m business - it wouldn't be worth getting out of bed for - certainly wouldn't provide any sort of return on capital.

Twitter is the best PR tool Dell ever had - but that's all it is....

failing to succeed....

I'm beginning to wonder whether the less than perfect technical record of Twitter isn't in fact as asset.

The whole falling over every couple of days "thing" seems to do the service little harm.

Constant talk of the fail whale "meme" keeps the brand in the consciousness of a competitive market and in many ways, the lack of stability only reinforces non corporate, home spun, local, community credentials - key brand values in a networked world.

Being way below average as a way to garner online love...

twitter and linked data....

after figuring out a really clever way to use twitter to drive an application we're hoping to build for axa - and having just read a post from tim o'reilly about how twitter saves him time here - I'm starting to get my head around some of the root causes of its popularity - I've never been an early adopter - I'm only half a geek - I like to see which things appeal to my "normal" side before I dive in usually

I spend 2 hours a day, reading blogs, pulling ideas out of the web and figuring out how brands can use them. for people immersed in the online world - keeping up with the sheer array of people who might be interesting / useful / interested is one of the major challenges - I now get how twitter has helped force the condensation of these conversations to a manageable length

but its the data that we're able to pull from its API which might still make me a real fan. I'm a linked data cheerleader - and to be able to sample such a rich stream of sentiment from across the world so easily I've realised is massively powerful - yeah you can do it from traditional social media platforms - but the simplicity of 140 characters makes it so seductively easy...

twitter....we reap what we sow

Twitter makes perfect sense when viewed against a backdrop of a society that elevates an ignorant racist to the role of People's Princess #2 (aka Jade Goody)

Instead of leading lives of breathtaking new experience, friendship and fun - discovering all that is wonderful and interesting about themselves and the world - a generation gazes up its own twittering backside as it becomes increasingly detached from the natural world and "reality".

Billions of sad, lonely voices shouting into the darkness of cyberspace desperately hoping some strangers will emerge from the digital shadows to engage with them and validate what is left of their lives.

90% of what we think of as "social media" will be deemed an irrelevant fad in 5 years time. Douglas put it best....here

the worst idea I've seen this year http://be-a-magpie.com/

Sending adverts through your twitter account - in other words asking users to exploit their mates for material gain.

Who, with even the most rudimentary knowledge of the post advertising world would think this is a good idea?


Or am i missing something?