Small Business Susan

Science and technology march forward – CNN.com:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/12/26/yir.scitech/index.html

Some of the comments regarding twitter have been interesting to read.

“Twitter tells us what we are doing right NOW”.  Is it really important that I know what you are doing right NOW?  I think I need a life if I’m that into you that I need to know what you are doing every waking moment.  Or better yet, you need to be concerned that I’m stalking you and want to know what you are doing.  I really don’t want to know what you are doing every moment especially if it includes parts of your life that shouldn’t be public. 

“But companies use it to track users interactions with their products”  And that’s exactly where I think it makes the least amount of sense.  It’s a one to one support model in 140 characters or less.  Support has to be scalable.  It also has to be findable.  Right now if you want to keep an eye on potentially trending items in the tech support world there are….

• Partner managed newsgroups – some are 1 day turn around, others are 8 hour turnaround, others are 4 hour turnaround.  (There’s like at least 4 forums for each product, or so it seems like)
• Public newsgroups (where today the web interface is messed up).
• Blogs
• Third party forums
• Web sites
• and yes Twitter and tweetscans where you can set up an email alert to topics — http://www.tweetscan.com/index.php?s=sbs+2008

And when in the tweetscan there is a person doing a tweet that needs help from resources that are only in a support channel, tweeting about it is not the most efficient way of getting support.  It’s a one rant to hopefully someone will read it and reach out channel.  That’s doesn’t scale.  It can get missed in all of the tons of areas that Companies need to keep their eyes on.  So I’d argue that as a user of the service, your better resources for support are elsewhere.

Does it make sense from a business microblogging standpoint?    Arguably, the existing corporate blog can be adjusted to have similar results.

All I’m saying is that don’t jump on the bandwagon just because the buzz brigade out of San Jose thinks it’s cool.  They’ve thought a lot of products have been cool in the past and have gone on to the next cool thing.  As with any platform of communication, whether corporate or personal, does it make sense for you and your audience?  If it doesn’t, don’t do “it” just because someone else is.  What is your existing audience or your intended audience’s mode of communication?  Does it make sense FOR YOU.

And finally, the end of the day Twitter needs to find a business viability plan otherwise it will be not long for this business world.  Technology for technology’s sake only works for a while, and then if it’s not making the bottom line, investors don’t care if it’s cool, they want their investment back.

The dirty truth about technology is that supposedly “cool” technology doesn’t always win.  It’s the stuff that the beancounters in the budget department approve of.  What pays the bills is what’s important.