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The success of Twitter, Google and of a few social media

Entrepreneurship is about how to leverage successes and failures. Entrepreneurship is often a difficult undertaking, as a vast majority of new businesses and projects fail. So in this sort of schizophrenic economic downturn a lot of things are affecting common perception and use of Web 2.0 tools. In this scenario a lot of questions and reflections must be done about the next steps of social networking and its success.

market share twitter

Twitter, (the web performance is impressive)  and of a few social media success lays in its capacity of enabling collaboration and participation. Twitter has reached the delta when early adopter interest meets mainstream attention. The popular microblogging service, had for the first time surpassed the market share of visits of the hit content aggregation site, Digg. According to clever ReadWriteWeb research, 44 percent of all Twitter posts come from sources other than the Web site. To ad this Twitter is an unique project among social platforms in its reliance on APIs and non-Web access to its service. But as more Web 2.0 services open up and as developers start to build better interfaces for them, the story of Twitter’s multiple access methods will become in a near future a standard.

One must remind that are billions of pages out there and not all of them succeeding. Web 2.0 technologies in business are growing but the truth is that this is still almost a no man’s land. There are a lot of ways to go until there and the scenario is still 100% not secure. There is still a lack to control the powerful ways of getting the data of the crowd. Also there is also a lack of a completely way to measure and track from a business perspective social media. There is indeed a long way to make sure that all Web 2.0 is the unique or effective ultimately way to go. These goes both from a user perspective and from a business perspective. I think the interesting of the present status of the internet growth is its mixture of different velocities all together walking hands in hands. From the 1.0 Net, the heavily IT systems of the plumbers to the Web 2.0 of the poets and singers to something somewhat described as the Semantic Web or the web 3.0 there is still a long way to go.

But what is then the power of Wikipedia, Google, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and now the astonishing results of of Twitter? The answer is one and only – it serves the user, and it serves the crowd. Internet is about participation and serving people. It is not about trends of fashions. The new paradigms are then the same that have guide the most successful stories in the net, and I would dare to say even of outside the internet. The projects, brands that survive are the ones that ad something of useful or of intelligence for users, and ultimately for the people.

Take this example. Part of the present failure of Yahoo is that it lost the capacity to server people with a simple and common product. I mean an effective product that people respect and understand. Also it fail to get focus and it is something that it is everything and at the same time nothing. With the goal, I would say obsessive to get value to shareholders and to get ROI Yahoo forgot the basic. It has to be genuinely good to use and it has to be simple and effective. That is why Google is still growing, even with all the products going on the core busines is search and people feel safe using that. People are not let down when they search.

Internet business is about how to monitor the public feed and capture data about performance = web analytics. The development of products such as twhirl, a desktop client for social software such as Twitter, Friendfeed, identi.ca, or seesmic (Seesmic is a video blogging web application in alpha stage being developed by French entrepreneur and web guru Loic Le Meur) proves the new directions in how the flows of Internet are moving. The need for measurement to track real service usage in web 2.0 is then becoming critical.

Web 2.0 tools present a vast array of opportunities — for companies that know how to use them

That is why we are now watching the astonishing success of Twitter at a so fast pace. Twitter with its simplicity and effectiveness manage to take collaboration and participation calls for new level. Twitter has developed in a small time one of the fastest growing application ecosystems of any web service outside of Facebook. Its velocity of communication and focus in simplicity approaches break with the methods used by most of other tools and websites 2.0 in the internet. It succeeds with the important server the user and the crowd without fooling around. And it is effective in a way that only probably Google manage to do similar. In an internet landscape of excess of information of data and of disorganized powerful sources to get one source that is simple, direct is a must. That is what Twitter managed to create such a powerful platform to communicate without trying to know everything about you (the error of Facebook). Also something that a lot of people criticise the lack of revenue (for the moment) is at the same time a statement about independence and service to user / crowd. Alsoit is a platform that does not overloads with ads and so forth. Also the technologic simplicity of Twitter that is result of a lot of intelligence and synthesis is a must. It first supports the users and their current practices. Once they feel comfortable within they want to stay. And that is why it is the new tipping point or the word of mouth chain reaction of Internet.

One other thing people are not completing getting which is funny eneough is the viral and marketing potential of Twitter.  Even Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google when expressed the curious statement  about Twitter (to say less) “I view all of these as sort of poor man’s email systems” is taking it much more seriously that the statement suggests. The viral and the SEO potencial of an instrument and website such as Twitter that runs quickly and effectively both in the web and the mobile supports is for sure an accomplishment.

There is a level of controlled disruption in landscape of the world at the moment, and of course the Internet industry.  With the potential of the computering clouds that secures most of the data that we search and re-search online new possibilities emerge. Most of us are overloaded by data and information. So that is why projects such as Twitter are precious. Even with all the fashion and moment going on the fact is that they proved something that works. Just think about how politics used the Twitter during the US ellections and mainly the Obama campaign proved that. This project and some similar conducts us through the chaos and excess of data = pixel in a simple way. Also these projects are the new participatory tools of web 2.0, social media and their strengths are laying in the fact that they lead us through the fireworks. Always forget the fashions, what is indeed important is the product and the way it serves the user, customer, business and ultimatelly the crowd. It gives the user the ability to see more light in the end of the tunnel. Ultimately to have some voice and probably some fun in the way. And also important it does not take itself too serious; it is just about “what are you doing?“.

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