Red Zen Marketing

You really begin to see how you've tormented your audiences for years upon watching this.

Yes, there is a reason I've loved Guy Kawasaki's recommendation to limit text on slides to 10 words or less, but this makes the point with so much more humor!!

Enjoy. (and think twice next time, eh?)

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Compete.com chart of Twitter.com's growth over past year

Can Twitter Survive?

The combination of a few recent occurrences has gotten me thinking. One was the recent Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) vs. CNN Twitter follower race to 1 Million. The other was some dialogue I had via Twitter with Guy Kawasaki related to his use of his Twitter account (@guykawasaki) which played out partly over at his HolyCow.com (Posterous-hosted) blog. Another was the pace at which Oprah Winfrey (@oprah) gained followers for her recent foray into the Twitter universe this past week upon interviewing Ashton after his 'win' over CNN and all that resulted from that on the Tweetscape.

As I consider the growth curve above -- which terminates well before all recent shenanigans this past week--and the increasing mainstream press coverage of Twitter (witness the mention of Twitter in the clever new Sprint ads - see past post), I can't help but wonder if the quickening pace of user adoption of Twitter will lead to the following cascade of events:

1. Increasing number of 'friends' on each of our Following and Followers lists - as Twitter adoption accelerates
   
2. Similar to the Facebook effect, as more and more of our friends and colleagues embrace the new communications channel, the number of status updates/posts will see a corresponding increase
3. Increased use of mobile access/posts, driven by smartphone adoption and integration of Twitpic, further driving up volume of traffic
4. Numerous software business startups to help manage tweet volume, with varying degrees of success achieved -
   
5. Increased business use of Twitter - as more and more companies jump on the bandwagon, following consumers onto the platform, further driving up traffic; "Tweet guidelines and retention policies" become topic of discussion within businesses (grin)
6. Second wave of Twitter use refinement - 'on message' business Tweeting via multiple Twitter accounts comes into it's own, facilitated by Twitter infrastructure
7. Widespread "unfollow" campaigns as a reaction against: volume of gross tweets received, distraction impact of gross numbers of those Following
8. Business awakening - as businesses realize that the ration of time & resource allocation to Twitter has not reaped corresponding outcomes
9. Twitter barely survives through a classic Silicon Valley rise and fall -- glory days behind it, it limps on with 5-8MM users - a mix of technophile loyalists paying a modest subscription fee and personal-tweeters who never moved beyond the simple 'what are you doing now' mantra of use
   

What do you think?

--
Mike Compeau
mike.compeau@compeau.net
724-734-1624

www.twitter.com/mikecompeau
www.linkedin.com/in/mcompeau

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