Last night in Toronto, Shel Israel appeared at Third Tuesday to talk about his new book, Twitterville, which is focused on how people and businesses are using Twitter.
I don’t have a copy of the book so I can’t provide an opinion of whether it’s worth buying but one thing that struck me is how Twitter is still a relatively small community. The people in attendance last night are, in general, enthusiastic Twitter users so Israel was preaching to the converted. The stories he told were stories that most people already knew about, so the evening was more of a networking event than something that provided people with great insight.
That said, the people in the room last night are also in the minority so Twitterville is not really a book for them. Instead, it’s a book for people not using Twitter but perhaps interested in why Twitter is so hyped and how it’s being used.
One of the things that people within the high-tech community forget is how we’re at the bleeding or leading edge of things. Meanwhile, mainstream adoption is far off in the horizon. So while the digiterati are actively looking next new thing, the mainstream is just starting to climb on the bandwagon.
A good example is Facebook, which was the talk of the town in 2007. In 2008, Twitter came along and stole Facebook’s thunder. But a funny thing happened to Facebook: instead of losing its momentum, Facebook continued to see tremendous growth as it moved into the mainstream beyond its original audience of college students.
Yesterday, Facebook said it has now has more than 300 million registered users, a 300% increase from a year ago. If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth-most populated in the world behind China, India and the U.S.
The lesson here is it’s easy to dismiss books such as Twitterville has yesterday’s news but the reality is that Twitterville is focused on new territory for the vast majority of Internet users.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Twitter’s Still a Village
I don’t have a copy of the book so I can’t provide an opinion of whether it’s worth buying but one thing that struck me is how Twitter is still a relatively small community. The people in attendance last night are, in general, enthusiastic Twitter users so Israel was preaching to the converted. The stories he told were stories that most people already knew about, so the evening was more of a networking event than something that provided people with great insight.
That said, the people in the room last night are also in the minority so Twitterville is not really a book for them. Instead, it’s a book for people not using Twitter but perhaps interested in why Twitter is so hyped and how it’s being used.
One of the things that people within the high-tech community forget is how we’re at the bleeding or leading edge of things. Meanwhile, mainstream adoption is far off in the horizon. So while the digiterati are actively looking next new thing, the mainstream is just starting to climb on the bandwagon.
A good example is Facebook, which was the talk of the town in 2007. In 2008, Twitter came along and stole Facebook’s thunder. But a funny thing happened to Facebook: instead of losing its momentum, Facebook continued to see tremendous growth as it moved into the mainstream beyond its original audience of college students.
Yesterday, Facebook said it has now has more than 300 million registered users, a 300% increase from a year ago. If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth-most populated in the world behind China, India and the U.S.
The lesson here is it’s easy to dismiss books such as Twitterville has yesterday’s news but the reality is that Twitterville is focused on new territory for the vast majority of Internet users.