Take It Face To Face

I’m tired of talking about it in every blog post I write, but it’s unavoidable.  Twitter is everywhere and still growing.

This time, Twitter has struck the Los Angeles area though the world’s first “viral restaurant.”  Kogi Korean is a mobile Korean taco restaurant made up of two trucks, and they use Twitter to announce the trucks’ destinations for the evening.

Shortly following each Tweet, hundreds of people gather outside popular bars, clubs and other locations in the Los Angeles area to eat Kogi’s griddled tortillas.  With reasonable prices ($2-$7), and top chefs, Kogi’s popularity continues to grow.

Despite his impressive resume as a chef (including time spent as chef de cuisine at the Beverly Hilton), Kogi creator Roy Choi acknowledges Twitter’s impact on his business, calling it “word-of-mouth times a million.”

With his simple model, Choi may have started a movement in the restaurant industry.  He also hopes he can duplicate his model.  Do you think the “Twitter Model” would work for other restaurants?  If so, which ones?  Do you check Twitter for discounts/deals at restaurants?

Ever since Twitter joined the social media club its usefulness has been a topic for debate. For those who argue against it, this post is for you.

Sockington, the Twittering Cat with over 500,000 followers

Every time I begin to think I understand Twitter’s purpose, an article like this comes along and I’m back to square one. More than 500,000 people are currently following “Sockington”, a cat that Twitters. Really? Of all the people in the world that Twitter, one of the most popular is a 38 year old man that Twitters as his cat?

Jason Scott, Sockington’s owner, believes Sockington is a “21st Century Garfield” and is actually selling t-shirts with famous Sockington one-liners on them. I really find it hard to believe Stockington’s popularity will continue to grow, but I also thought Twitter was going to fade after a couple months.

While it offers marketers and companies an opportunity to interact directly with consumers, what is the draw for other people? Twitter has been described by many as a “Facebook status, without the rest of Facebook” and undoubtedly leaves the majority of individuals asking “so what?”

Maybe I don’t get it because my personal Twitter page is dominated by NFL Agent Drew Rosenhaus’ minute-by-minute updates of his clients, but I know I’m not alone. Do you Twitter? What do you like/dislike about it? Do you find it useful or do you think its popularity will pass?

How many distinct uses are there for Twitter?

On the most basic level, you can keep tabs on your friends, stalk celebrities, and read up on blogs and news feeds of interest.

But beyond these most common utilities, Twitter can serve as a tool for connecting with others with similar interests. The day after I wrote a post debating whether to enroll in a Gay and Lesbian Documentary course, “LogoChannel” (whose biography describes it as “a television channel for the LGBT community), began following my tweets. Side note: Though I did enroll in the class, I must say that the content of my posts has likely been disappointingly irrelevant since.

Beyond personal ventures, however, Twitter has inevitably evolved into a powerful direct marketing tool. Case in point: last week, my coworker Anthony tweeted that he was, “hanging shelves tonight.” Shortly thereafter, he received a direct reply from another Twitter account stating, “dont forget to use [brand name] anchor to hang up your friends shelf. Go to [company’s web address] use coupon code twitter1 for 10% off.”

Well, there you have it. Who can be more effectively convinced to buy shelf hanging products (at a discount, no less!) than a person who has just admitted they’ll be performing that very activity in the near future? Probably no one.

A glance at the latest string of tweets from this user demonstrates that the account exists for the sole purpose of direct marketing. And because a Twitter account is free, this targeted coupon distribution costs only the manpower (or computer program power, as the case may be) to hunt down these relevant entries and fire a pre-written pitch in their direction.

The effectiveness of this technique, in both cost and reach, will likely lead to its widespread promulgation. As of now, a user’s only real defense against such marketers is to make their updates private. Doing so, however, has the simultaneous effect of cutting off much of Twitter’s utility as a networking service. What is the unhappily targeted consumer to do?

After its initial growth spurt, Facebook began a policy of forcibly shutting down fictional profiles, particularly those created in the name of celebrities and fictional characters (though this did have the unfortunate side effect of barring from the site all the real life Yodas and Batmans of the world). Perhaps a policy of monitoring Twitter accounts for similar dissenters is not far off.

As a consumer, do you find this marketing approach desirable because of the relevant discount offers that it’s likely to include, or is it just pesky and intrusive? How would you feel if Twitter implemented a policy that forbade accounts designed solely for marketing purposes? Tell us your thoughts.

I suppose this is the way of things. With the exception of the enigmatically instantaneous growth of one FMyLife.com (see last week’s post) it’s normal for a website to take a little while to get its footing. Right?

That being said, the unparalleled amount of attention Twitter has received in the last two weeks alone is frankly a little irritating. My feelings likely spring from the fact that I’m not used to being ahead of the crowd. I am not a technological trendsetter, nor do I want to be. But even I’ve been using this site regularly for the past seven months. Where have you people been?

Some sort of strange snowball effect has taken place. The number of people following my posts has quadrupled since the beginning of March, and I have a pretty strong hunch why. One friend’s recent first post reads, “joined twitter because jimmy fallon said to on the tv.” Another, whose account has lain dormant since its creation in October, wrote last week, “I have decided I might start using this thing…but only b/c Ashton and Demi did first…” Oh, the appeal of celebrity.

A friend of mine raised an excellent point yesterday, one which I had completely failed to notice. Facebook’s newest format, which debuted last week, is virtually identical to the layout of Twitter. This includes a revamping of the status function in a way that encourages users to submit a running feed of their thoughts. Think for a second about how huge that is. Even Facebook, the site that’s monopolized the social networking market for years, is starting to sweat over Twitter’s recent boom.

I should probably be happy that Twitter, which has served me well for over half a year, is getting widespread exposure and credit. But really, this is a classic case of too much of a good thing. At the risk of offending a lot of people, it feels as if the whole character of the thing is beginning to change for the worse.

To make a gross over-generalization, the users that joined in the introductory phase of Twitter’s product life cycle were savvy internet users, prone to insightful, creative posts. But now that it’s approaching maturity, I fear that Twitter could become a rather trite forum for people to give mindless play-by-plays of their boring afternoon agenda, or to tell me silly things I already know.

So what to do? I’ve had to revamp my Twitter strategy, that’s what. To avoid being bogged down by drivel, my approach must be markedly unlike Facebook, where knowing a person merits keeping tabs on his or her activity. No, in the dog eat dog world that Twitter has just become, I’ve just “unfollowed” a handful of users that don’t quite get it.  For those of you that remain, I have only one piece of advice: make sure that you’re interesting, or you just might be next.

Twitter has worked itself into the mainstream recently, becoming a favorite pastime for people around the globe to report their every move. Increasingly, this has allowed twitter to be the most cutting-edge, current source of unadulterated, up-to-the-minute news. Case in point…  

With that in mind, I’m going to highlight day-to-day the most timely and topical tweeters in cyberspace who are at the forefront of the news cycle.

Today’s Twitter to watch:

http://twitter.com/jimmyfallon

Just hours before his debut as host of the popular Late Show, Fallon’s twitter is buzzing with self encouragement, sneak peeks, and wishes well from celebrities and other cyber patrons. Jimmy notes that he’ll try to tweet during his first taping since “it only happens once.”