I’m a huge fan of Malcolm Gladwell and both his books; the Tipping Point and Blink. Based on reading the tipping point, and the principles behind the concept
But first; what is the meaning: Tipping points are “the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable.” Gladwell defines a tipping point as a sociological term: “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.” The book seeks to explain and describe the “mysterious” sociological changes that mark everyday life. As Gladwell states, “Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses do.” The examples of such changes in his book include the rise in popularity and sales of Hush Puppies shoes in the mid-1990s and the precipitous drop in the New York City crime rate after 1990.
Twitter has been around since 2006 and has become a popular way of connection and communication between people. But the fact of the matter is that it has mainly been used by people in the communication, technology, advertising and music industry – and people defined as early adopters.
The last month there has been a change in that and I’m not sure it can be defined as a tipping point, but it kinda is. when Ashton Kutcher announced his competition with CNN on the race to reach 1 mill followers, and when he in the aftermath appeared on the Oprah show to teach and help her on twitter – something happened. More and more average joe’s became a part of the community and suddenly everybody wants to join in.
The evidence is quite clear:
Share of US Internet visits to Twitter increased 24% on Friday, April 17, the day of Oprah’s first Tweet. Comparing visits with the previous Friday, visits were up 43%.
Hitwise clickstream data reveals that on April 17, 37% of visits to Twitter.com were new visitors (as opposed to returning). The service typically has a high ratio of new visitors as it is still very much in a growth phase. However, the percentage of new visitors was 5% higher on Friday than the previous day and the average for March. To give a benchmark, Facebook’s ratio of new visitors was 8% in March.
Is it a positive thing?
From a marketing and business point of view – I belive it to be a good thing. Twitter is becoming a representative of all walks of live and all kinds of people – which in turn will make the service more easy to moneytize. Will it affect us “early adoptors”? Why should it. The reason I’m on twitter is to listen, engage, share, have conversations with new and old connections. It’s an amazing tool, if you choose to be a part of it – and I belive the principle “the more – the merrier” is suitable.
Wait, what’s the catch?
The problem is that the celebrities as the likes of Oprah, Ashton Kutcher, and others is that they really don’t use it the right way. Simon Dumenco wrote an interesting post for Advertising Age, where he pointed out the following:
Kutcher’s win was symbolic of a paradigm shift: the replacement of centralized, concentrated media power with a democratized two-way dialogue — after all, that’s what “following” and having “followers” is all about.
As of this writing, Kutcher has 1,356,058 followers and is following 95 Twitter feeds. – I rest my case.As a New York commenter who goes by Stevewax wrote, “Seems to me what’s useful with Twitter is creating a small, two-way community with people who aren’t busy running a Twitter team and who have time to SHARE ideas. Rather than broadcast them.” Amen.
This is the flip-side. It’s not about the numbers game – it’s about being authentic, be a part of the conversation and give, listen and learn from others. The important thing for us to do in this eco-system, is to help the new ones to learn to crawl before they get up and start running. In this way we can all enjoy the diversity and the beauty of the vast and large community we’re all connected to and a part of.
Do you think that @aplusk and @oprah presence is the tipping point for twitter in terms of making it avaliable, accepted and used by everyone?
- arnt
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree that the more people using Twitter and indeed any other social networking platform is a good thing from a business and marketing perspective on the basis that we are all consumers of goods and services. So, any event or person(s) that drive more human traffic to Twitter and the like is a definitely a plus (less the ” k ”
Okay, so there are many people who joined Twitter directly as a result of the media coverage given to @aplusk and @oprah being on it etc, but I do not think this is the tipping point for Twitter.
I believe the tipping point will come through the growing band of Twitter users such as you and I, who openly acknowledge what an amazing tool Twitter is for communicating, sharing, listening, learning, doing business, making new friends, chatting with existing friends and so on and our getting this message across to non-Twitterers. Reaching this critical mass could take some time, however, as there are many who are completely resistant to Twitter and view it as a complete waste of time. I know several such individuals and was, until a few months ago, one of them
. Now that I “get” Twitter (at least I hope I do), I talk about it with almost evangelical zeal to friends, family and colleagues who don’t. In time, I think being on Twitter will become as much a part of every day life for most people as using the InterNet. In order for that to happen, however, Twitter will have to continue evolving and adapting to meet user needs and demands, just as the InterNet has since its early years.
I agree the celebrities on twitter did help in making twitter more appealing to more people. I noticed a surge in new followers.. but i noticed too that a lot tend to not know what’s really happening and how to really use twitter. It has truly evolved in the short time that i myself have become active. it’s the sharing and interaction and the learning which is important to me and not just getting many followers. In my own experience in using Twitter, I have gained so much knowledge and have gotten a lot of support from my now Twitter friends. I just hope the new ones joining Twitter will experience it and learn the same way we have over time. Thank you for sharing your insight. Great post
my answer is maybe. we’ve seen a lot of people start using twitter and we have definitely seen the user rate explode, however we still dont know how many users are actually active, this is where the numbers come in; which we dont know yet.