You need to use social services to understand them

I don’t know if Malcolm Gladwell is right when he claims “the revolution will not be tweeted,” but I can say with certainty that the Twitter he describes is not the Twitter I know. Gladwell’s central argument is that Twitter creates weak ties but social movements require strong ties. I’ve made more strong ties through Twitter (and blogging) than I have through any communications medium I’ve ever used before. The relationships start off weak – a retweet, @ reply, or blog comment – but often strengthen through further discussions and eventually become new friendships and business relationships.

I can see why Gladwell gets this wrong – he doesn’t seem to really use Twitter (he does blog occasionally). I barely tweeted or blogged for a long time too. I read blogs basically since their advent, but social services are fundamentally participatory: reading blogs/tweets is to social services as watching TV is to a real life conversations. I finally relented at the insistence of Caterina, who had the foresight to insist that everyone at Hunch blog, tweet, contribute to open source projects, etc. I now get some of my best ideas from responses to tweets and blog posts, and have developed dozens of strong relationships through the experience.

I made some jokes on Twitter the past few days about Kleiner Perkins’ new social fund. These were meant to be lighthearted: I only know one person at KP and from everything I’ve seen they seem to be smart, friendly people. But underneath the jokes lies a real issue: the partners there don’t seem to really participate in social services (something they only underscored by announcing their new fund at a press conference that targeted traditional media outlets).

I’d love to engage in a debate with smart people like Gladwell about the impact of the social web on culture, politics, activism and so on. I also think it’s great to see savvy investors like KP allocate significant resources to the next wave of social web innovation. But it’s hard for me to take them seriously when they don’t seem to take their subject matter seriously.

http://reecepacheco.com reecepacheco

Absolutely true.

AVC.com is a great example. You get more out of it by participating in the comment thread (via Disqus).

So long as you don’t let them become a time-suck, social services are invaluable and like you say, you can build real relationships through the consistent engagement.

http://srcasm.com Jesse Middleton

You bring up an important point. Not letting them be a time suck (or making sure that they are valuable to you) is a very valid point. Think of the investors in CollegeOnly. I would never question why they aren’t using the site (seeing as they can’t) but I would question if they weren’t engaging in other types of social networks for their particular demographic.

http://reecepacheco.com reecepacheco

great example.

http://avc.com fredwilson

that last line is the challenge reece

http://reecepacheco.com reecepacheco

well, you do an awesome job with engagement (via Disqus at least) and still seem to find time for Gotham Gal’s cookies, so i’d say you’re doing all right.

muratcannoyan

Thats the thing right? Social tools are another way to engage people/organizations but if you want to build a relationship with an individual or community you have to invest time. And if Twitter is a new type of matchmaker people are just going to need time to figure out how to use it but when they do it should be invaluable.

http://twitter.com/L1AD LIAD

by not eating their own dog food the most they can offer is anecdotal information.

It’s like these people on high still view social with disdain and whilst they think social tools may be good for the masses (and will earn them cash), they would never lower themselves to use such things

seems a case of – do as i say not as i do

– not cool

Anonymous

Chris- I love this post. So often do I hear from brands and clients that they don’t use twitter because “its just a bunch of mindless chatter” or they just dont get it. No matter how much we explain the importance of networking, connecting, starting a dialogue within the industry and the community it doesn’t resonate.Our business has grown 10x since my my sister (co-founder) and I started using it in 2007, in fact 45% of all new client inquiries come from twitter and another 40% from our blog. I think it is imperative to start using the services available to truly understand the power. Watching football from the sidelines is entirely different then getting down and dirty on the field.

I always wonder will these brands/clients become late adopters and finally catch on or if they will simply lose out to the competition? I guess we’ll find out!

Pingback: Tweets that mention cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog / You need to use social services to understand them -- Topsy.com
http://twitter.com/peterthulson Peter Thulson

Like all other communication channels, social services have a learning curve and their utility (generally) increases as you become more comfortable / efficient with them. Have to imagine email, phone, written letters, etc were far from efficient for early adopters, or for that matter everyone when they first started using them. Many friends question Twitter et al. To me it’s simple: a killer platform + knowing how to efficiently use it + other smart people to interact with = powerful communication.
http://jonathanmarcus.tumblr.com jonathanmarcus

Isn’t Ron Conway your idol? http://vator.tv/news/2009-05-22-ron-conway-not-on-twitter-or-facebook

BF: How many followers do you have on Twitter and how many friends do you have on Facebook?

RC: I use none of the above. I invest and add value. I don’t spend a lot of time using these services.

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

Yes, but he has 1) colleagues/partners who are extremely heavy users of
social media 2) a strategy of investing primarily in people and he is
incredibly good at assessing people (both innately and through his network).

http://portal.eqentia.com William Mougayar

I don’t need to defend KPCB, but are you implying that they don’t?
VC’s can recognize market opportunities and invest in them without necessarily being mad users.
I don’t think that part is a handicap for them. But I do see a risk in that their approach will create more hype than necessary in social media related opportunities.

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

they can do late stage momentum rounds like they did with Zynga but I doubt they’ll find the next Twitter/FB/Zynga early stage without a deep understanding of the medium. but I guess time will tell…

http://technbiz.blogspot.com paramendra

“I doubt they’ll find the next Twitter/FB/Zynga early stage without a deep understanding of the medium.” You are so absolutely right. By the time those hot startups make mainstream news, they have become too big. All the early stage heat is captured by social media. I mean, every startup has a blog, a Twitter account.
Bgordon

When you say “the medium”, do you exclude Facebook or iPhone? Or do you constrain your definition to assymetrical com channels? P.S. I would not consider Zynga to have been “late stage” in june 2008, and certainly not in January 2008, before Mark moved onto MySpace and virtual goods.

http://jonathanmarcus.tumblr.com jonathanmarcus

Interestingly enough, in the 20+ meetings I’ve had with VCs recently, nary one has paid any particular attention to the people on our team. Of all the questions I’ve been asked, none have ever been about the people. And, I have never been told no because of the quality of our team. According to Don Valentine of Sequioa, only the market opportunity matters: http://gigaom.com/2010/10/14/lessons-from-silicon-valley-vc-legend-don-valentine/

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

Never heard of a VC not caring a lot about team. Maybe they are already
sold on your team based on backgrounds or have done diligence in
backchannels.
http://avc.com fredwilson

jonathan – just because they don’t talk or ask much about the team doesn’t mean they aren’t evaluating them

a meeting is like a date. people are checking each other out

http://twitter.com/mbeckett Miles Beckett

I totally agree with this, and it’s exactly why traditional media companies have failed to do a good job at utilizing social services. Most of the senior executives don’t use social media and can’t think about how to incorporate it organically into their entertainment properties.

It was the most frustrating thing we had to deal with when we worked with CBS on Harpers Globe. Everyone wanted to “make it work” but it was incredibly challenging getting the seamless integration with the TV show that we wanted to build an interactive experience because of corporate inertia, union rules, and things like that.

http://technbiz.blogspot.com paramendra

Like that CBS story.

Pingback: The Towing Services Is Always Needed | Live in NYC for cheap
http://www.wac6.typepad.com William Carleton

Chris, the Twitter Gladwell describes is not the Twitter I know or actually I should say the Twitter I remember, but the business choices Twitter’s making risk trivializing Twitter (making it more a tool of passive media-consumption culture) and so I fear Gladwell may actually be, unwittingly, accurately describing the Twitter around the corner. The problem is with the advertising model. Those in charge of Twitter appear to have picked a business model that sells Twitter short.

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

I worry about the same thing.

http://technbiz.blogspot.com paramendra

Please elaborate in a future post.

http://avc.com fredwilson

i’m very interested in what you are saying william

can you elaborate on why the business model sells twitter short?

http://www.wac6.typepad.com William Carleton

Fred, you bet. I’m making some guesses about the business model, based on the Twitter iPad app and by postings I read on the Twitter blog, as well as the character of my experience on Twitter day to day via my phone. I’d be happy to be wrong about Twitter’s shift to the service of advertisers and if I am I trust you’ll tell me so (I’m assuming you are still on Twitter’s board of directors).

I love Twitter and in the heady days when the experience of using it and meeting people, not through offline means or other methods confined by geography or symmetry, but by how people expressed themselves and the subjects on which they reflected, it was intellectually very exciting.

It was also radical. At the level of consumer culture (which of course Twitter as an open platform also reflected), it threatened the very premise of advertising (a business model based on inefficiencies in information access which were once presumed to be inherent in mass media). If honest “brand experiences” were out there to be shared and surveyed, if eventually all real time experiences with products and services and those who distributed them could be surfaced with no trouble or inefficiency, then the role of brand owners in social networking might be that of equally-situated participants, and advertising might be replaced altogether by engagement with consumers that might end up looking more like a process of channeling customer feedback into products and business processes.

Some of the comments here on Chris’s posts reflect some of the same dismissive attitude about Twitter’s import that Gladwell expressed in his New Yorker piece, with “weak ties” becoming a characterization newer Twitter users might accept as apt. Nobody who used Twitter prior to the rather recent commitment to brand media-consumption would have said such things. Dismissive comments in the past were only made by people who were non-users and mistook things like Ashton Kutcher or other celebrity/fan activity on Twitter as indicative of its purpose, missing its latent intellectual and cultural power.

Twitter changed my life. Twitter empowered me to pursue an intellectual life as part of how I work and live every day. It made the fork in the road between being an academic and being in the world a “false fork.” In point of fact it’s not exactly easy to find people on Twitter worthy of following (I don’t mean that in an absolute sense, I mean it in a relative sense – it’s not easy for a given individual to find people that are worthy of that particular individual to follow), but the returns on the investment of one’s genuine engagement (not consumption, but engagement) on Twitter remain high, even now.

Money is a good thing and money is a necessary thing and money, or the way it can empower people, is even (probably) necessary for people to be free and determine their own destinies. Money is also information! But money is not speech. That’s a mistake the Supreme Court has made in our political life, and it’s a mistake social networks are making as they attempt to find ways to monetize what they’ve built. In fora where money is permitted to participate as speech, real speech, authentic content, is threatened.

I don’t know the right business model but my instinct tells me that, long term, the right business model will put at the center, not advertisers, but the content creators, the crowdsourced, the participants. Value is in the system or network for sure but mostly it is created by participants. I say “sold short” because my intuition is what’s happening now is simply returning us to the old order where money buys message and consumers are told in various ways that it is normative to pay attention, behave and consume. The content will be brought and served to you, just like you (ought to, always have, must) like it.

I’ve blogged about this a lot lately, including a post that reflects on advertising and the unwitting timeliness of Gladwell’s critique, http://www.wac6.com/wac6/2010/09/lamenting-the-twitter-that-did-not-become.html

http://twitter.com/jameshrh James Harradence

William – I could not disagree more with your characterization of the typical consumer. Media sets the agenda, nothing more. Online media creates access, nothing more. People do what they do.

The revolutionary power of Twitter & Facebook is the ability to publish directly to your audience. That Facebook & Twitter copy Google’s revenue models is the mistake. Ads do not improve an opt-in, direct publishing platform like they improve search. And, paid trending flies in the face of the authenticity that is the bedrock of these services.

The answer seems simile, from the outside. The members with the largest followings and the power tweeters should carry the freight in the Twitter freemium model – they receive the most value from the service.

http://www.wac6.typepad.com William Carleton

Interesting, thank you. So you’re saying ads are corrosive to social media in a way they are not with search?

http://twitter.com/jameshrh James Harradence

William – corrosive is not the word I would choose.
Ads are a trade-off, nothing more. Ads create financial capital, but they reduce brand capital. Facebook ads do not chew up much brand capital (but some of their revenue programs have done so).
In my prior reply, I was suggesting that a well designed revenue program can keep brand capital whole.
To paraphrase Peter Drucker (wildly;-), all organizations need customers; not all organizations need revenue. The Twitter you describe is not one I experience; I have always seen it as a business: an organization that needed customers & revenue.
I assume that Fred has always seen it as a business, too! For him, I think, the question is: do Twitter’s current revenue programs undermine the customer experience to a point that they either threaten the company’s growth or create a competitive weakness that could be exploited by a new entrant.

http://www.wac6.typepad.com William Carleton

James, you’re giving me good thoughts to chew on. Thanks again. I’m not sure I’m suggesting that Twitter isn’t a business. Certainly it is Twitter’s prerogative to chose an ad model and maybe experience will prove that they were able to do so without alienating a robust user base (even if that user base begins to look like plain ol’ consumers). Maybe I’m simply saying that there is a place, a user base, a business yet to be realized, for a Twitter-like service that would be user content-centric AND would be transparent and freely searchable.

http://twitter.com/jameshrh James Harradence

Sorry William, iPad typing sent that last post before it was complete! The amazing thing about search is that paid links increased brand capital and financial capital. The user is searching for any help on a topic, so all help is welcome. Not at all the case in social media.

http://twitter.com/hari_arul Hari Arul

interesting point regarding KP, but have you heard Bing Gordon (who is one of the main guys leading their social efforts) talk about how he and his whole family plays Zynga games? So I don’t know if I would fully agree with the fact that ‘they don’t really participate in social services’ though

on another note, i just started using twitter, and even still, i can totally understand how it’s a great starting point for relationships based on connections which were ‘very weak,’ but then grow over time as people begin to e-mail, meet up, etc – awesome post
http://www.binpress.com Eran Galperin

Chris, I partially agree – investors can’t really understand a market without participating in it. I think it’s practically impossible for investors to have indepth understanding of all the ideas brought to them by would-be entrepreneurs. Their decisions are based more on their impression of the team, the potential of the venture and normal risk-assessment methods.

In this respect, this social-fund is not very different from most investors – only they chose to target a specific venture segment.
http://pikiquiz.com David Semeria

There is merit in your argument, Chris, but just as the winners get to write the history, they also get to make the rules.

The most interesting comment so far is the one that mentions Ron Conway.

As long as he keeps rolling sixes, no-one cares if he doesn’t tweet.

In other words, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

[fatal error: metaphor overflow, line 7]

http://twitter.com/cdixon chris dixon

Again, Ron Conway has a team of a partners who are super heavy users of social media and basically all their prospective and existing investments. If Doerr had a team like that then the analogy would hold.

http://pikiquiz.com David Semeria

I’m not disagreeing with you.

But you don’t have to blog to understand blogging…

Smart guys can fill in the dots for themselves.

http://technbiz.blogspot.com paramendra

“….you don’t have to blog to understand blogging….” Disagreed.
http://avc.com fredwilson

i think you are wrong david

you have to use social media to understand it and invest in it well

http://pikiquiz.com David Semeria

I’m just saying that since Ron doesn’t tweet it doesn’t necessarily imply he doesn’t use or understand Twitter.

http://avc.com fredwilson

i beg to differ

http://twitter.com/jameshrh James Harradence

Fred – there is a motto for teaching surgeons: ‘to fully understand a procedure, you have to see it, do it and then show it (to another surgreon)’. Could it be that you see investing like a surgeon ( you feel competent when you have seen it, done it and shown it) but Ron invests like, well, Ron (I.e., see it, see founders who do it & show it, know founders – as a category of humans – inside and out, feels competent)?
And, philosophically, would it not be fair to say that comparing you to Ron is not apples to apples, in that Ron does not truly believe that investment due diligence of the idea really affects returns? And that you are more concerned about returns than Ron?
I have read how passionate Ron is about helping his investees, when they need big help, but isn’t the point, as an investor and a founder, to not need big help?

http://avc.com fredwilson

ron is among the very best at providing help. that’s why you want him
in your deal.

but i don’t think he understands why these services work

http://bradendouglass.com Braden

I completely agree with …none of this. These mediums aren’t something you can do a little research here and there about and truly understand the gist of it. It requires a heavy amount of time investment by either a team or a particular individual.

I continue to witness this day in and day out with friends (20 somethings, real sad) and colleagues. Everyone talks like they understand it and because no one does, they all are agreeing on points that aren’t true. Your quote on blogging gets filed under the “sad but true” state of most people (investors or not)

http://pikiquiz.com David Semeria

I think you’re confusing reading and writing.
For example, I love books; I understand why they can be so much mightier than the sword – yet I’ve never written one.
Just for the record, I’ll file your comment under “misguided generalizations” if that’s okay with you.

http://bradendouglass.com Braden

David, that is more then ok with me. The issue that pops immediately into my mind about your rebuttal is with the general use of the word “books.”. I believe, and call me out on it if I am wrong, that you like reading therefore you write?

Books are a afterthought, not the norm. I am not going to finish up this response and call my book agent about selling a book that is based on this exchange. What these ideas are, are high level, relatively simple concepts. One that come to mind is: “you wouldn’t want to be driven around by someone who has never had the experience (seen, heard, talked about, touched, fiddled with, etc) of being around a car.”

In the car reference, I am guessing you are the one who has never seen a car (blog) so you couldn’t actually have a very “scratch the surface” conversation with someone who has a previous driving record, yet might not be technical enough to change his/her’s own oil. Some experience is required to be successful (maybe not a lot of it) but when you add someone into the picture with no experience, you experience a spectacular fail.

http://www.twitter.com/cyruseslami Cyrus

I see what you’re saying, David, and it makes sense. Of course you can understand blogging without using it, to some extent.

But to precisely understand the ways a user’s experience can be improved — which roughly translate the ways in which you can increase value in your product — it is ideal to be a user yourself.

http://technbiz.blogspot.com paramendra

This Gladwell articles has been making the rounds. Biz Stone wrote an article in I believe The Atlantic countering the dude’s thesis. Chris Hughes took umbrage. You have taken a really personal tilt to what you have to say. That makes it pretty powerful. You are so right about blogging as a major social tool. I met you for the first time this past Wednesday. But having been a pretty regular reader of your blog for months before that really added meaning to that first meaning. I felt unhurried in my in person conversation.
Pingback: Tweets that mention cdixon.org – chris dixon's blog / You need to use social services to understand them -- Topsy.com
jameshrh

Every media platform has core users & a casual audience. It breaks 5-10% core, 90-95% casual. Twitter core is early adoptee oriented; Fb core is social status oriented. You can be outside the core and still get it, usually by listening to people who are in the core……..which is why we read your blog Chris!
http://www.jasonspalace.com/ jasonspalace

it seems everyones experience with social media differs per level of engagement. it’s it for you, else for me, and null for others. though the discussion of what it is and how to use it is being collectively understood, the opportunities in the space are expanding as the medium we consume and use to be part of it extends onto the screen and into the hand (and onto the walls and while we are mobile etc). do they fund a bubble we are not willing to pay for, or start solving the many problems with this opportunity at a global local social level. their model banks on the home runs.
Pingback: Social Media and SEO | Social Media Blog
http://cocreatr.typepad.com CoCreatr

Have you ever tried to explain what a telephone does to people who never used one? Did you get people interested in trying a new technology – without a demonstration, or without enough time to try it themselves?

Congratulations! I would like to learn from you.
Anonymous

This is one of those points that sounds like a no-brainer when read but you realize how often people miss this crucial connection.

As an entrepreneur I would present a new feature (or even a business pivot) to a board member who ‘got’ the idea being sharp as a tack. But since they didn’t participate actively in social media, they would have a hard time valuing it’s long term potential or its ability to shape the company’s future.
http://www.charleshudson.net chudson

Couldn’t agree more with the main thrust of this post. When I look at my own usage of Instagram and Quora, those are services that are hard to “get” until you start using them and have a positive experience. I don’t know you can invest in or debate the merits of these tools if you haven’t at least played with them and tried to figure out why you do or do not like them. Having an uninformed view is worse than having no opinion at all.

One thing I thought you’d touch on is that KP isn’t really that retail (for lack of a better word) – I have friends who work there, but they’re not out as visible in the startup community as many of the angels and even some of their peers. I wonder if this is also about changing the brand to feel more approachable to entrepreneurs, especially younger ones, who might not have the connections it takes to get to them.
Pingback: You need to use social services to understand them (Chris/cdixon.org) | Business Continuity Jobs
Pingback: You need to use social services to understand them | Techarama
http://twitter.com/TaosJohn John Hamilton Farr

I’ve read the post and most of these comments, and I still don’t see anyone addressing the statement that “the revolution will not be tweeted.”

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

I specifically said I have no idea about that implying I wasn’t going to address it or try to refute it.

http://twitter.com/TaosJohn John Hamilton Farr

Yes, I know. Perhaps I should reread the Gladwell piece. He may not have addressed it, either! We’re all sitting around firing off missiles into cyberspace and cheering at the vapor trails…

I’m a fan of Twitter myself, although after more than a year, I’m probably not using it right. I read people telling me not to “broadcast,” but build relationships, and in the next tweet they’re telling me about their lunch. But I’m on board. I just don’t know where the train is going, so I like to sit by the door.

http://twitter.com/weblivz Steven Livingstone

Totally agree … amazing how many people say they “use” twitter etc when they either read or broadcast (i.e. use it as a marketing platform).

It is all about conversation – having seen this a lot through @valebrity we’ve started to see some who did the broadcast only thing to actually start to get involved in the conversation. Then they get it.

In saying that, I met Malcolm and got his autograph in Glasgow last year – love reading his books and listening to him. Funny that a lot of the people i spoke to knew he was going to be in Glasgow through my tweets ….
http://jakerocheleau.com/ Jake Rocheleau

I found this out the hard way with Twitter and Foursquare. Initially they were just buzzwords and big Internet brands. Then I created an account…

well no going back now.
http://twitter.com/andyidsinga andyidsinga

Great post. I can’t tell you how many people (especially “decision makers”) who I talk to about the web and social oriented services, apis etc that don’t really understand them – and primarily because they just don’t use them. Their smart about technology and business but not saavy about its current state.

I had a twitter account for about a year (didn’t really use it much) before one I finally “got it”. Since that twitter epiphany, I’ve started trying a bunch of other things even when they don’t make a lot of sense …even for a year or more. Maybe that’s how the “slow hunch” works
Anonymous

I think Malcolm Gladwell is correct. The ties created through online social networks, especially ones as superficial as Twitter, are weak ties. That’s not to say that it is absolutely impossible to make a life long friend via Twitter or Facebook, but rather that is is not very likely for majority of the population. I suspect that if you surveyed everyone who uses Twitter and asked how many had made brand new friendships via Twitter that were every bit as strong as their traditional friendships, you would find the number to be very small. Ask yourself this, would you be willing to lend a large sum of money to one of the people you’ve met on Twitter? Or, would you be willing to drop everything you were doing, take off of work, and fly across the country just to see the newborn baby that your friend from Twitter just had? These are the types of things we do for our close friends, our strong ties. I would argue that friendships made via social networks (not already existing friendships that have been strengthened by them) are, for the overwhelming majority, strong acquaintances at best.

http://twitter.com/cdixon chris dixon

I wouldn’t be willing to lend a large sum of money to someone I only know from Twitter, but I have met people through Twitter who I then met in person which led to me investing in their startups (or becoming actual friends, etc).

Anonymous

I’m not trying to downplay the importance of weak ties, quite the contrary, the whole point of Granovetter’s paper is to point out just how important weak ties can be. In fact, often weak ties can be more important and advantageous to us than our strong ties. That said, I think I should clarify my earlier comment. I don’t think Gladwell is correct in his assumption that the revolution will not come from Twitter. Truth be told, I think technologies such as Twitter can have an immense impact on the general public’s ability to organize itself towards a common cause. What I do agree with though is Gladwell’s point that strong ties are, in general, not made through online social media such as Twitter. The relationship you’ve described is a very beneficial one, both to you and to the person in whose startup you’ve invested, but it sounds as if it is still a weak tie nonetheless.

http://twitter.com/rodmaz Rodrigo Mazzilli

Twitter can be the place to find new friends and as a filter, you have good chances to find people who match well. The importance Twitter had during the Iranian uprising and the recognition by the US State Dept of Twitter’s importance put this subject to rest in my opinion.
http://rendion.myopenid.com/ render

And the proof in the pudding is that you had to write this blog post to make your point. Twitter is useless.

http://twitter.com/cdixon chris dixon

Think of Twitter as a great way to publicize blog posts. Many people who read my blog find out about posts on Twitter, either because they follow me or relevant articles get retweeted to them. No one that I know is claiming Twitter is a replacement for blogs. If anything it just makes them better.

onemonkeysuncle

The essential “problem” with Twitter is exactly what makes it attractive to you: it’s an echo chamber of you, people like you that you know, and people like you that you wouldn’t mind getting to know. No one I know outside of the tech or consumer marketing businesses gives a damn about Twitter, because it doesn’t DO anything for us. It pushes crap at us, relentlessly, until we finally say, How about *I* control the rate at which I consume your crap, and we go back to reading your blogs or whatnot. It’s a technology in search of a problem, and the “rest of us” don’t have the aching, empty echo chamber longing Twitter devotees appear to have.

http://twitter.com/cdixon chris dixon

Most people I follow on Twitter primarily tweet links to interesting news articles and blog posts. I end up reading more long form content as a result. Maybe you are following the wrong people. (Find the right people to follow is a real problem Twitter needs to help Normals solve).
http://twitter.com/mediajunkie christian crumlish

How does Twitter push any thing at you? Everything you see on Twitter is from someone you’ve affirmatively chosen to follow. The whole “beauty part” of it is that you folk-curate your own feed on an incremental basis.
http://anyessays.com/ Essay help

Absolutely true! good opinion!

http://twitter.com/SteveWilhelm Steve Wilhelm

I have used Twitter off and on since 2007. I would say the ties I have on Twitter are more accurately characterized by Gladwell’s description of Twitter than Dixon’s.

For me, Twitter has become an RSS reader replacement. My strong personal ties have moved to Facebook and my professional network to LinkedIn.

In my opinion, Twitter is limited by the fact that most of the important information for building strong ties must be hosted elsewhere and referenced by short URLs in Twitter updates.

While short simple Twitter updates can contain useful information, it appears to me that the majority contain trivial, weak-tie enforcing content.

http://twitter.com/cdixon chris dixon

No doubt people use it in different ways. The fact that you actually use Twitter means to me that your self-example is a valid data point, vs people who have never seriously used it.

http://www.garysguide.org Gary | Garysguide

Gladwell is obviously wrong but his comments do inadvertently shed light on an issue Twitter is facing. That while it is easy to get started on Twitter, it can be hard to figure out how to unlock its real potential.

Its easy to be critical & dismissive of traditional media as not getting social. But I know plenty of smart tech savvy folks who said it took them a long time before they realized how to really engage on Twitter. Mainstream users probably don’t have that kind of patience. Its definitely something Twitter needs to work on.

http://twitter.com/cdixon chris dixon

I agree. I think they particularly need a better way for people starting out to find appropriate people to follow / interact with.

Sean

You seem to misunderstand what Gladwell means by “strong ties.” Perhaps that’s Gladwell’s fault and perhaps he didn’t explain the terminology clearly enough for those new to it; I’m not sure. In any case, have a look at Granovetter’s paper “The Strength of Weak Ties” to understand this concept.

Strong ties emerge and are maintained and nurtured primarily through face to face social activity. You probably don’t consider that a “communications medium.”

The name may seem to imply otherwise, but weak ties are extremely important, no less important or useful than strong ties. Their importance is the central point of Granovetter’s most influential work, and Gladwell doesn’t downplay their importance in his essay. He’s just pointing out that the purposes they best serve are different from the purposes best served by strong ties, and that coders who build new communications tech and many of the most enthusiastic users of that tech often misunderstand those differences.

Sean

http://twitter.com/cdixon chris dixon

I’ve actually read the paper as well as all of Gladwell’s books (which I generally quite like). I am just trying to make the point that people who use Twitter actively know it’s part of a larger set of interactions including in person interactions. Twitter in particular tends (at least for me and my friends) particularly good at getting me to discover/interact with new people. Some of these ties remain weak, some end up face to face and become strong.

http://twitter.com/DarrenNegraeff Darren Negraeff

Hey Chris – great post. No doubt that twitter is a larger set of interpersonal interactions (at least when used appropriately), but I think one aspect of the Granovetter paper that is relevant here to the argument is the difference between weak and strong ties with respect to common knowledge. The classic example is the job market. If two individuals are strongly connected, they will have the same information and opportunities to apply to, while weak ties will not have much overlap (and therefore can each apply to twice as many postings). This is how it seems to me with twitter. Yes, weak ties can become strong ties, but they often remain, in some sense, weaker ties, if only because the level of overlap (particularly in the offline world) tends to remain low. You might meet through twitter, become friends, even share a beer or two together with mutual friends, but in all likelihood you will still have large social networks that do not overlap.

Probably the best thing about twitter is that it acts as a catalyst for all types of relationships. You get a lot of de facto weak ties, but you also gain a lot of stronger ties more quickly.

Mike P.

We’re going to have a hard laugh in 10 years thinking about how in 2010 people thought “social media” was an awkward 140 character application with a silly name that didn’t make any money.
Pingback: You Need to Use Social Services to Understand Them | Chris Dixon | Voices | AllThingsD
Alfredo deAlmeida

I think that your argument here is evolving. Gladwell’s contention in his piece is that actual revolutionary actions, such as depicted in his story, require a hierarchical definition of roles and responsibilities that create the strong ties between people needed to combat an entrenched enemy (for lack of a better word). Twitter’s network centric, weak-tie connection does not easily translate into the hierarchical strong-tie structure.

I think here you misshaped the argument from ‘can actual revolutions begin and sustain themselves in a network centric, no-central leadership with low-ties between individuals?’ to an ad hominem attack. Which I found flawed as well. One does not need to be a user of Twitter to understand that twitters interaction model is built on this weak-tie network model. And that lends it self well to certain actions very well. And other actions not well enough.

That you were able to create lasting strong-tie relationships with Twitter does not argue against Gladwell’s essay. Of course you did. But was it hierarchical? Was it pointed in a specific direction focused on change in local, state or federal government? Was it a revolution? It is clear you made friends. Many of have. But they are most likely flat, friendly connections. Not the ones needed to start revolutions.

As for KP not capturing your acceptance of their strategy due to their poor track record with social media. You may be right. But I would bet that KP has a better chance of creating a hierarchical, strong-tied group of people that could.

Viva la revolución!
http://info-architecure.blogspot.com driessen

Wonderful post! This is exactly my experience and the reason I don’t go over the top to convince people to try social media. They have to experience it, to know. Then they can dismiss it if they like.
http://twitter.com/davidhhendricks Dave Hendricks

The problem with Twitter (full disclosure I am a heavy user and developer for it) is two-fold: first people do not wake up in the morning aching to ‘follow’ anybody. Secondly, and most important, peoples and especially most normals, do not have jobs where they can sit in front of tweet deck looking for interesting links.

For those of us who want to find great sources and who can spend the time to consume/parse them, Twitter is invaluable.
neilwils

I trust that many people posting here are smart, hard working, and successful in their chosen business.

However, this discussion seems like a microcosm of so many business discussions of the past 200 years. It is not unique to today’s world. What’s been said over and over by people who value social media is stuff like:

1. I make a lot of useful business connections through social media.
2. I learn from what other people are posting, tweeting, blogging, etc.
3. Other people are probably getting the same benefits back from me.
4. Most of this can’t be quantified, but like the emperor and his new clothes, trust me it really works! And the emperor’s robe is really sharp too!
5. Anyone who doesn’t use social media or doesn’t think it has great value just “doesn’t get it”!

How original are these 5 points? Not at all. They were said 15 years ago in the early days of the web.. They were said 25 years ago during the personal computer revolution. They were said 35 years ago about television and CB radio.

So much of the VC world today is just shuffling paper assets back and forth (mirroring the private equity firms, although most VCs and private equity firms vehemently deny they are just shuffling paper back and forth).

What I mean in the preceding paragraph is this:

Entrepreneur Team ABC starts XYZ Biz. They have some amount of VC funding. With some luck, they sell XYZ Biz to More Established Biz (which is also VC funded).

Team ABC and VCs in XYZ Biz get sore elbows from patting themselves on the back at having sold their company to More Established Biz. The dirty secret is that the same ultimate investors were in the fund that backed XYZ Biz and that backed More Established Biz. This means that the investors who put money up for XYZ Biz don’t get anything out of the deal, because they owned a piece of XYZ Biz and a piece of More Established Biz before More Established Biz bought XYZ bix. This example is a little over reductionist, but that’s the net effect in the system.

All that More Established Biz really got in buying XYZ Biz was an R&D project for which they probably overpaid.

Sure, there are plenty of success stories. But there are a lot more failures.

If there was something completely new with much greater value inherent to today’s world, then returns on VC funds would be something like 25% per year for the past 15 years. But they aren’t. VC returns are actually lower since 1995 on 5, 10 and 15 year measures than they were in the preceding 5, 10 and 15 year periods (which probably should correct, leaving returns roughly constant over time).
http://twitter.com/tomaltman Tom Altman

It’s like people who give opinions and reviews of books before (or having never) reading them – you cannot do it with any certainty. You just cannot understand something fully until you have experienced it.

neilwils

Tom Altman,

Who are you writing to? If you mean me (Neil Wils) then you are mistaken. I’ve used social media in one form or other going back to BBS pre-WWW, then Usenet, then web boards, then blogs, then sites such as Friendster, MySpace and Facebook, then Twitter, etc.

It’s interesting and entertaining. Good time sink sometimes. Sometimes they can help with new business leads, ideas and recruiting people. But the day hasn’t gotten longer with technology and a lot of social media is about people procrastinating and thinking they are doing work by reading and reading and reading instead of doing. It used to be some people read newspapers all days long. Now those people read blogs or tweets all day long. The more things change ….

http://www.twitter.com/stevenkane Steven Kane

I’m not smart enough to comment on the sFund one way or the other, but doesn’t anyone but me think John Doerr’s attire for the fund’s PR event is ridiculous? Doerr is a bona fide brilliant investor and practically a legend. Why the transparent hamfisted — completely silly — attempt to look like a 20-something year old hacker/slacker?

Yet another metaphor for so much of whats changed about tech investing these days. Too much Paris Hilton. Too little Conrad Hilton
Pingback: Some limits of social media | Omar's New Media Marketing Blog
dbv

As Dave Hendricks said, “most normals, do not have jobs where they can sit in front of tweet deck looking for interesting links.” These normals include executives, decision makers, rank and file and mere mortals. If Twitter disappeared tomorrow the majority won’t care. The same cannot be said of Google and probably for many, Facebook too and definitely Apple.

SMS is for the masses and continues to grow. Twitter (sort of SMS on steroids) is not for the masses and I would not be surprised if it reaches some equilibrium number of active users that is in the tens of millions of users and not the hundreds of millions.
Anonymous

Agree. The relevance of Twitter should never be based on the number of followers one has, but more aligned with the context of why and the value of being engaged. Next |Engagement within Twitter and other social media is only the first step. The difference between engagement and true connections lives within how you prepare, filter, respond and adapt.
Pingback: Getting off the Social Media Starting Blocks | NinaSimosko.com
Mandeep_ghuman

I just finished reading Gladwell’s article and there seems to be no real conflict between his assertion and that of Chris Dixon. Phrasing him in my words, he is merely saying that a revolution requires a high amount of ‘escape energy’ and that high ‘escape energy’ cannot be sourced through online networks. Chris Dixon’s ‘link sharing’ use of twitter is consistent with Gladwell’s view that Internet is a great enabler of information flow. But I want to add my own 2 cents on the nature and social impact of this information flow. As Nietzsche said, ‘one only reads a book that he already agrees with’, the tools of social web are fragmenting the world citizenry into harmless little corners. And those groups can sit cozy in those corners only as long as they decide that they wont step on the feet of those who have the ability to annihilate their existence. In other words, ‘real’ revolutions require stealth.
http://www.graduatetutor.com Senith @ Statistics tutor

Excellent point. This is another way of saying “Eat Your Own Dog Food”.
jimbo39

Spot on…it just show knowing how to use the services and products is not a requirement to making money off of them. I’m sure they do not know how to build a fiber channel but understood who did and where to invest….I’m guessing its the same with social they are to busy making money on it to participate in it.
Pingback: geldo.de – Weblog - Web und SEO, Jazz und Grüntee » Probieren geht über Studieren
http://www.socialcreeper.com/ Samsachie

A social media marketing plan also needs to incorporate profile building on profile and friend sites.
http://www.kloudsocial.com/ Marryaisha

A lot of experts in business say that a good marketing strategy is one of the secrets to a successful business because it bridges the gap between the company, the customer, and the end consumer.

Chris Dixon