“17 Things we Used to Do” : Andrew McAfee’s Blog

it seemed like the right time to discuss this technology/service/phenomenon/whatever-it-is in my MBA course

Highlighted by raydacteur

Monolithic. There are a huge number of email systems, bulletin boards, chatrooms, discussion groups, etc. in the world. And many of them are closed to outsiders, making them mutually inaccessible walled gardens. This fragmentation means that all these environments don’t “add up to anything;” they can’t be queried as a whole by any single user, and the beneficial interactions in one have difficulty spilling over into others. Twitter, in sharp contrast, is a single pool of digital content. It’s generated by a legion of people using a cohort of devices, but it all winds up in one place.

Highlighted by lukest

These are Twitter use cases; things we’re doing with Twitter that we used to do (and still do) with other technologies:

• Chat
• Discussion boards
• Email
• Identifying trending topics
• Broadcasting breaking news
• Marketing and brand building
• Mining consumer sentiment
• Providing status updates to friends and family
• Communicating location, activity, mood, and other personal information
• Engaging in customer service
• Finding information on topics of interest
• Finding people who share an interest

Highlighted by lukest

These are Twitter use cases; things we’re doing with Twitter that we used to do (and still do) with other technologies:

Highlighted by raydacteur

Identifying trending topics

Highlighted by raydacteur

hat

Discussion boards

Email

Identifying trending topics

Broadcasting breaking news

Marketing and brand building

Mining consumer sentiment

Providing status updates to friends and family

Communicating location, activity, mood, and other personal information

Engaging in customer service

Finding information on topics of interest

Finding people who share an interest

Highlighted by ignitesrini

Broadcasting breaking news

Highlighted by raydacteur

One last thought on the topic. Because Twitter is so open and frictionless, it has greatly lowered the barrier to contribution; people can and do fire off a tweet in a matter of seconds.

Highlighted by lukest

My point with this story is not just to bust on GM, but also to highlight that I got 16 shots of altruism from people, most of whom I didn’t know, at a time when I could really use them.

They were willing to help me out not because I’m such a good friend of theirs (not the case) or such an obviously great guy (depends heavily on who you talk to), but because we humans like being altruistic, and Twitter makes altruism the work of a few seconds. The help I got cost each each sender virtually nothing, yet added up to a highly valuable resource for me. I think it’s important not to lose sight of that, and to keep in mind that not all exchanges are governed by incentives, mutual benefit, or economic rationality. Sometimes they’re governed by simple neighborliness, and Twitter is an awfully big neighborhood.

Highlighted by lukest

because we humans like being altruistic, and Twitter makes altruism the work of a few seconds.

Highlighted by gkaefer

Twitter is an awfully big neighborhood.

Highlighted by gkaefer

Twitter is an awfully big neighborhood

Highlighted by raydacteur