The Twitter Difference

I don't need to spend countless characters explaining the potential power of Twitter from a business perspective. It's quite obvious isn't it? Networking, content, leads, the list can go on and on. In fact, we're working on a potential real estate investment project with another member of Twitter. Until Twitter, we never knew each other (more to come in future posts). Priceless marketing and lead generation for merely the cost of your time and efforts.

As with other social networking platforms such as Facebook or MySpace, more of our personalities actually come to life through our online virtual presence with these sites. With Twitter, these characteristic seem to be exemplified through the bite-sized conversational guidelines in which we are confined.

What's intriguing to me is that I actually feel like I'm getting to know people. Believe me, I know this is merely a glimpse but it's a good glimpse. We have an opportunity to see what people look like, get to read about their changing moods, where they're eating, what they're eating, where they're going, with whom they're interacting with, how they interact, their likes, dislikes, whether they're night owls, early risers, or both .... you name it, crudely speaking, we can actually begin to formulate a reasonable feel for what these people would be like in real life. Couple this with the nuggets of content that these individuals throw out from time to time, whether it be a news event or merely a topic of their interest or perhaps it's an article or video they're sharing on their blog or a TwitPic of where they're at or that of their children or that of a sunset or perhaps themselves, etc. Through my run-ons, I think you get the point.

Adding to the fascination, some people seem to change their picture daily. Some vacillate between avatars and actual pictures. Some people are festive and adorn themselves with holiday attire while others refuse to visibly partake in the holiday dress up. You have trend setters changing early into their costumes while you have procrastinators just now making the change.

Plug all of these detailed pieces of the puzzle together and you begin to get real perspective. Ultimately, video will bridge this online virtual divide by portraying us for who we are. It won't be exact as there will always be actors, but closer. Until then, Twitter's enabling us to get a much improved view and this view, in my opinion, is one of the more captivating attributes that keep us obsessively coming back for more. Now, we're actually putting a face to the name and 24-hour emotions behind our words. Real life unfolding 140 characters at a time. We may have never met but were certainly getting to know each other in a real way.