What is the next Twitter?

July 9, 2009
by Simon Whittick

So, as Moore’s idea diffusion curve dictates Twitter is reaching the early and late majorities. Like Bebo, Myspace, YouTube and Facebook before them Twitter is reaching its maturity. We see the celebrity and mass market adoption of the media booming. However, like I did Facebook, I judge a social network’s maturity by when my parents sign up, and yes my dad has just joined Twitter.

I have been reading Seth Godin’s book “Purple Cow” recently and it has led me to the questions: What is the next Purple Cow in social media? Where are the innovators and early adopters going to find their next online social media fix? And can Twitter evade its inevitable maturity?

Candidate 1, Qik – Real-time is the future

Qik is to YouTube what Twitter was to Facebook. It streams live video in real-time, like Twitter streamed real-time conversations. Twitter taught us that in our consumer world which demands immediacy of information real-time is the future. If you look at how media has historically developed text comes first (newspapers), then audio (the wireless or radio), and finally motion picture (television) and Qik is the real-time motion picture. A footnote here is audioBoo which brought us real-time audio, however, in the fast moving world we live in audio will most likely be quickly eclipsed by video.

Qik has been around for a while, in fact our COO, Richard Gregory, was Qiking (The new googling?) our attendance at ad:tech last year. However, there have been blockers to the growth, mostly Apple’s iPhone. At the end of 2008 the iPhone was in the hands of 1 million UK mobile users. I would speculate that amongst these 1 million users were the vast majority of the UK’s social media innovators and early adopters who drive uptake of new ideas.

The iPhone’s inexplicable inability to record video has potentially hampered the growth of Qik. However, the latest iPhone release incorporates video recording. No doubt Qik are fast developing their iPhone app for this, and it could accelerate the adoption of Qik. Investors have clearly noted this recent development with Qik receiving $5.5m of investment yesterday.

Candidate 2, Google Latitude – It’s all about location

Yes, our biggest supplier stole our name. Google, as they often do, took a completely new angle on social media by introducing Google Latitude which, through your phone, showed you where your friends were and allowed you to communicate with them. This is potentially a powerful tool for users and as Alex Hoye previously explained it has great potential for advertisers due to Google’s ability to gather vast amounts of data.

However, uptake has not been huge and there are, in my mind, two reasons for this. Firstly people have an increasing fear of how much data Google have about them. I saw a big brother is watching you programme recently which profiled Google’s data gathering, and despite working in the industry I was scared how much they had. Secondly they do not have an established base of millions of social network users already interacting.

That brings me onto my next point….

Candidate 3, Twitter – What next for the original real-time social network?

The murmurings of the big Google Twitter marriage continue. When you look at it, it makes sense. Google Latitude hasn’t flown, but if you were to integrate that with the current darling of the social networking world and their huge user base Google Latitude can realise its power.

Secondly, real-time search is the current hot topic in the search world. Bing has recently tried to integrate Twitter’s real-time search into their results with mixed reviews. However, Google is still king in the search world and purely real-time results will never give the perfect search user experience. If Google could really get their hands on that Twitter search API and integrate it into their solid historical search results, they would be truly unrivalled in the search engine world.

Thirdly, social networks have struggled to really monetise. Facebook has come closest with their CPC advertising but MySpace, Bebo and, as Google well know, YouTube before them struggled. Twitter search has the most potential to monetise social using a search engine style PPC model. If Google can use their search experience to show Twitter search the way, then we could see the first real monetisation of a social network.

If Google make the move, and use their YouTube acquisition lessons, Twoogle will more than likely be the next Twitter. However, not many people saw Twitter coming and, if Twoogle doesn’t happen, there could be an unheard of newcomer waiting in the wings or Apple could have finally unleashed Qik and their new investors to the masses.

I know where I’m going to be for a while though. @Whitestick

13 Comments

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At 15:20

James Lowery

Twitter’s immediacy is its greatest asset. The ability to share in real time is attractive to users and marketers, and the number of services that tie into it such as twitpic make it very attractive, but ultimately, it is a niche product that deals in text.
There is a big argument for specialisation – I use Flickr for photos, Youtube for videos, Last.FM, and Spotify for music, Digg (occasionally) for news, and Sphinn.
My own feelings are that with established properties that are fit for purpose, any new service will have to offer something completely new and unique and do it really well – which inevitably makes it hard to predict, or offer users the ability to effectively aggregate their online presence and keep people up to date with all their interests.
And that’s what Friendfeed does.

At 10:38

Claire Le Grange

I’d like to see how developments like TweetROI will affect the lifespan of Twitter. If it gets rapidly adopted or worse, exploited, it may seriously degrade the value of Twitterers’ voices by being paid to tweet.

At 14:34

Nathan Jenkins

I think if Twitter can develop or partner with a legitimate mobile augmented reality browser, then it will secure its place as leader for the next three years. Real time doesn’t happen on a box on your desk, on your lap or in your hands.

At 14:34

Yoshimi

I can’t see either Qik or AudioBoo being anything other than things to use alongside twitter/ the next twitter, they are not private enough, people are going to be reluctant to video or voice blog what they are thinking, despite being happy to twitter it (especially at work). I’m not sure latitude is a service people really want either, it’s invasive, there is a rish that you might forget to log out and I think few people will see any real benifit to it (other than tracking errant spouses and children)

Personally I think Google are more likely to do something with Wave that will replace twitter, all the types of communication we love in one place.

At 15:12

Simon Whittick

Thanks for your comments, there are certainly a lot of thoughts about where social media is heading, hopefully this made people stop and think about where we are all heading in social media.

This post started out as me genuinely thinking about what the next Twitter is, then I went off on a bit of a tangent when I realised how well the Twitter and Google assets would be matched if they were to come together. There must be some other good matches for Twitter out there though?

Of other “contenders” that have been mentioned FriendFeed has certainly seen a lot of the big names in digital or “innovators” and “early adopters” moving over there. I know this week I was reading about Danny Sullivan spending a bit of time over there. Google Wave is certainly going to be a really interesting development to watch. I personally see it more as a platform to pull all of my social interactions into one place. However, that is essentially what Twitter is doing for the likes of Qik, AudioBoo, Twitpic et al. I think Twitter may still exist within Google Wave though.

All in all, I don’t think Twitter is dead I just think it only has a certain amount more people that will join, the rest will be laggards who have only just joined Facebook. The ways they can grow will be to encourage inactive users to increase interaction or for a major move like the Google acquisition.

At 19:29

Dennis Jenders

I’m curious about how the commercialization of Twitter will eventually affect it.

I think they have a better chance to make something work than Facebook.

I still look forward to Google Latitude…I think there is something there especially if it’s adopted on the iPhone.

http://blog.jenders.com/2009/07/10/google-latitude-when-will-it-catch-on/

At 04:23

Brandon Mendelson

A social network on your mobile device that is location based and allows you to interact with your friends through video. Anything else will not catch Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed.

At 11:40

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At 11:51

Mathias

I think Posterous deserve a look here.

At 21:58

Johanne

I think this discussion will find it’s natural end when Google Wave is launched…

Everything will be integrated, and no separate applications will be needed.

At 18:55

Noah

Definitely going to be Google Wave, though I must admit I have mixed feelings about that. They already have so much information about people at their disposal, it seems like Google Wave will put the finishing touches on everything they know, and then tie a pretty little bow on it (though better google than someone else, I suppose)

Sorry about the tangent.

At 15:47

Multi-B

I think if you want to find the next Twitter, you must look for a new concept in social networking. Most to all of the popular social networks now revolve around a profile, blogging, messaging, and apps. Create a site where these come secondary, and I think you might have something. A (very) new social network, JoinMyChain.com, has a different concept. JoinMyChain is a social interaction competition with an overall goal of linking the world together through the use of photos. It is basically using the idea of taking photos and turning it into a competition. Who will be the first to create 10 or 25 chains? Who will start the first chain to 100 or 500 people? Which country will have the first chain to 10,000? Which chain will be the first to link all 50 states? There are too many small competitions within the overall goal of trying to link everyone around the world into one chain. Although this is the goal, it cannot be reached. Everyday many people are becoming old enough to join the site, and this makes it impossible to actually link everyone. But it will be fun to try! The website is currently still in beta and in need of funding to help develop it further. If you have any questions about how the site works, please contact the founder at the website. Thanks.

At 08:54

no contract cellphones

i wonder how the old time publisher and advetiser anticipate this, this is the brand new media to express and-of course-as usual, sell and buying something. it’s interesting to see it in the next 3 years : 2012.

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