Black Widow

Astute observation from Dustin Curtis:

Outside of the direct value from its graph, Twitter is in an extremely unusual position for a social service. While it is ostensibly a sharing service, it is actually a broadcasting medium. People use Twitter more like they use TV; they follow accounts they are interested in, namely celebrities and companies, and then they consume the content as a form of entertainment. Normal people have very little incentive to use Twitter except to communicate unidirectionally with their interests. This is why it has been shown that the vast majority of Twitter users who sign up never tweet, even though a huge number of those people view their feed often.

Where by “TV”, he means traditional TV, where people watch what’s on right now, not the time-shifting or on-demand style of TV that many of us are now accustomed to. That’s why advertisers are so intrigued, perhaps — it brings back some control over not just what viewers see, but when they see it.

★ Thursday, 23 August 2012