Hold on to your hats, we're heading for Twitter

By Alex Manchester, Editor, The Internal Comms Hub (Australia), Melcrum

So, you may or may not have heard of Twitter – the instant messenger, micro blogging, internet-noise-enhancing social software application that's set to get a lot of press this year. It's the Facebook of 2008.

Twitter is a web-based service that allows you to publish updates, messages, links and so on, directly to the web. The only condition is that each "post" or message be less than 140 characters. (Of course, you can get round this by writing multiple messages but don't worry too much about that.)

When it first launched, I read that Twitter was "all about your network" and this, it turns out, is true. It's about who you know that also uses the service, it's also about who you start following for information and status updates. You can follow whoever you want providing their updates or Twitter "feed" are not protected.

It seems a complete waste of time pithy at first. Why would you care what people are doing (Twitter's tagline being, "What are you doing right now?"). But, in an increasingly fragmented world, where the people you know or work with may be hundreds or thousands of miles away, it's a very cool, unobtrusive way of keeping in touch, however subtly.

Why on earth is this relevant to internal communicators? Well, it's as relevant as much as any potentially collaborative and communications-enhacing application is these days. IM, blogs, wikis, social networks etc. All stuff that internal comms people are currently very inquisitive about (along with most other professions).

There are already corporate implementations, too. IBM is testing an internal version of Twitter called BlueTwit. I wrote recently about Pharma company Janssen-Cilag launching an internal version called "Jitter" to go with their wiki-based intranet (who said Aussie firms were behind?).

Now we've launched a Melcrum Twitter feed and we're looking forward to seeing how it works out.

We sure won't be following any individuals, because the idea of an "organization" following me gives me the creeps. There are a few Melcrum people on Twitter already, and we follow a few people so that will do in that respect.

What we will be doing with this Melcrum Twitter feed is updating it with the latest links to articles, news stories, case study publications, new reports, event updates, blog posts and more from across the Melcrum network. We'll have round the clock coverage too, with our various offices contributing. Rest assured, though, that we won't be overdoing it. You can see what it looks like on the left-hand side of this blog.

To sign up for a Twitter account head to Twitter.com, then (if you can), download a widget that lets you read updates and write your own messages direct from your desktop. There are plenty available for Mac + PC and it makes using the service extremely simple.

Twitter, or the concept behind it, is going to be big. Very big.

Why not see what all the fuss is about?

Comments

[Sam G]

Hi Alex and team, I'm already finding your Twitter stream useful as a snapshot of the latest news from Melcrum. It's easy to scan through your tweets and link quickly to items of interest from here. Thanks for setting this up. Great idea.

[Alex Manchester]

Hi Sam,

Great to hear you've found it useful already. It will be interesting to see how it pans out. I can only see usage increasing in the next few months.

[Annie Heckenberger]

If you aren't following any people in twitter, you're missing the point of the community. Twitter isn't about flat profile pages like FB or MySpace, we are real people, communicating with each other. If you're looking to linkspam us, just promote your RSS feed.

[Alex Manchester]

Hi Annie,

We are following individuals on Twitter. There are a few of us on there with separate accounts. Having the Melcrum feed has actually introduced us to different people than we would have known/met within our own networks.

It's a fair point about using RSS more. Although Twitter seems to be far more usable than an RSS feed - for both the updater and the follower - making RSS more widely available and quick to administer is something we're working on. With Twitter, we're watching the take-up of the feed it's proving to be of use for those that want it (and it's just five or six updates a day - nothing too drastic).

Plus, our move here isn't unprecedented. Lots of organizations are using Twitter like this - be it the BBC or software developers such as the guys at Twitteriffic. At this stage I don't believe there's much foundation for trying to define and confine how it can be used.

[Annie Waite]

I agree with Sam G - it really is a useful snapshot of some of our new content and comments. I'm scared about getting too involved with twitter tho - looks like it might have addictive tendencies...

[Alex Manchester]

Annie W,

I think there is a chance for it to become addictive, if not only for the ease of use of updating via the desktop apps. It's seriously easy to use.

However, some good articles are also out there today about Twitter and the business case, it's value in networking etc. Some links are below:

Talking about the Twitter Village (via Shel Israel)

The World is Smaller than you think (Via Jack Vinson)

[Annie Heckenberger]

Hey there: Thanks for responding. You are correct, there are no "rules" for twitter and I'm one of the community members advocating it remain that way, so I should listen to my own sermon. It's just that I've gained such an enormous fountain of knowledge by opening myself up to an increasing growing group of following and followers that it's a struggle for me not to tell everyone to do the same.

If it's a company/internal group you want, try this: http://grouptweet.com/.

Best of luck!