Comments on: Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang: Twitter is way over hyped !?

By: Joe Hunkins

Joe Hunkins — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:02:37 +0000

Ed and Brian thank you for checking in with good comments. I’m well aware of the hype cycle but unless I’m very mistaken we’ve rarely if ever seen other applications with so many users and such buzz fizzle out.

Pointcast fizzled out, sure, but it never had this kind of usage level and was not a platform to intergrate as developers see fit (Twitters *killer* advantage over alternative systems). Unless I’m mistaken we have only seen this type of massive growth continue AFTER the initial first millions of users for aps that wound up becoming hugely successful. Myspace, Facebook, Google, Yahoo all exploded onto the scene over a few years and now are key players.

Twitter won’t take over the world, but it’ll become even more of a household name and I’d estimate will top 100,000,000 users by the end of next year.

Yes, I’ll bet some good money on that.

By: Brian Hayashi

Brian Hayashi — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:41:53 +0000

Remember CB radio? CD-ROM? Or, more recently, Pointcast? All had fanatical followings in their day and at the moment, there was certainly ample evidence if you went by mass adoption numbers alone.

Is Twitter a remarkable tool that has singlehandedly led the way in new opportunities in crowdsourcing, discovery and more? Absolutely. But while Twitter is making smart investments in its ability to scale, its example has not gone unnoticed and has led the way for a number of unheralded infrastructure plays such as gnip, aws, vark and more.

In the mid-90s there was a burgeoning movement towards what were called “tele-action” services, services that relied not on fat pipes, but the fast delivery of small messages. From SMS and real-time energy prices to smart home automation and 311 city services, there were a number of practical tele-action business cases that are just beginning to see the light of day fifteen years later, thanks to Twitter’s halo.

We are in the early innings of what promises to be a long and very interesting game – stay tuned!!

By: Ed Lee

Ed Lee — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:16:00 +0000

i completely agree with jeremiah on this one. the gartner hype cycle is a pretty proven methodology that shows how technology after technology is launched with mass attention and evangelists telling each other that it is going to change the world. months later, it is just another footnote in the ongoing technology story. even when people are told that this happens, and shown research supporting it, they say “but this technology is different” and repeat the cycle.

the bigger trends are certainly mobile as a maturing platform (finally) and real-time search. whether twitter wins or another brighter star eclipses it is, ultimately irrelevant.

By: What Brands Want From A Twitter Client « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing

Sun, 31 May 2009 20:33:35 +0000

[...] on trends, and that Twitter is overhyped, I said the same thing at my 140TC keynote last week, Joe has the details. Should be [...]

By: admin

admin — Sat, 30 May 2009 23:13:43 +0000

It will be very interesting to see how developers and the community at large process the shift to social and “community driven” websites and experiences. I see Twitter and Facebook as brand identities playing the *key* roles as social integrators of the online world. Not so much because you can’t do what they do without them (you can), but because developers, users, and the businesses will want that kind of familiarity and association when they use social tools.

By: Jeremiah owyang

Jeremiah owyang — Sat, 30 May 2009 15:15:44 +0000

We are planning to measure some of this in our next Technographics survey to consumers.

To me, it’s not just about measuring “do you use Twitter” but also “do you text, do you do status updates from sites like Facebook”

Even Socialtext, and community platform vendors are starting to integrate “what are you doing” features like Twitter.

My job is to track behaviors and trends –not just point technologies.

By: FokusLop

FokusLop — Sat, 30 May 2009 03:32:59 +0000

Good article, Thanks. my name Philip.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:16:49 +0000

Thanks Jeremiah, I really do appreciate your follow up detail. Need to think more about your notion that trends much more than point technologies are driving the bus to the future. The data I’d really like to see is hard to find: Twitter active subscribers, total sign ups, rate of growth, and perhaps most importantly their intentions wrt large scale development with their messaging platform. My gut says they are the first major company to really get developer transparency and open API architecture “right”, and that they will be rewarded very handsomely for doing just that.

By: FridrihLop

FridrihLop — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Good article, the advertisment is sold?

By: Jeremiah owyang

Jeremiah owyang — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:51:09 +0000

Me stir the pot? nah.

My opening slides said something to the point of: “Twitter doesn’t matter” the second slide said “what matters is the web is now real time, mobile, and global”

I’m going to look at the trends and impacts, not focus solely on the technologies. Taking a look around the web, it’s not just twitter that represents these features, Facebook, friendfeed, and how Gen Y uses text messaging is part of this.

How about a global look: Tencent QQ in China has a very large social network (200 million users I think?) that makes twitter look like a pygmy. It’s primary feature is real time chat and IM. Same with South Korea’s Cyworld, a virtual world with lots of interaction, much in real time.

I’m looking at trends –not point technologies. Twitter doesn’t matter, what matters is the web is real time, mobile and global.

(no need for an apology, thanks for following up)