Aaron made the case FOR Twitter... I'm going suggest why I think it's still too far out on the bleeding edge for most. Who knows, by the end of this post I may convince myself to get back on Twitter after a six month hiatus (http://twitter.com/jstorerj).
Since the Red Sox are playing game one of the World Series right now, I'll use a familiar convention to work my way through this post. Strike #1 against Twitter is that...
A stream of micro posts is interesting at best. I (like Aaron) have been posting a handful of status updates on Facebook each day. I even took the time to use it to micro-blog from the stands during game seven of the ALCS. This may have been mildly entertaining to those who followed it, but it was hardly revolutionary. I have the same issue with everyone who posts updates to my network on Facebook... it's fun and interesting, but not really helping me do my job better and/or succeed in my career. David Berkowitz drives this point home in a recent post (with interesting comments). Go ahead, put together a strong network of like-minded individuals and you might see highly relevant, interesting, helpful posts, but that leads to strike #2...
Who has time to be interrupted that many times a day? Most people have a hard enough time getting through everything they need to without updating or responding to Twitter 20 times a day. Most of us already maintain 5+ communication channels already (f2f, phone, email, IM, Facebook, a couple of communities...), is it realistic to think mainstream business users can adopt another and not have it negatively impact their overall productivity? It seems to me that "micro-blogging" might be useful to a very small percentage of business users - primarily thought leaders or independent consultants who want to maintain persistent presence with their clients - IF they stay on topic and ask questions/give answers...and that leads to strike #3...
How can you possibly stay on topic? We all lead very varied lives and to Twitter means to share that, each piece of it, with your network. That's just the nature of the medium at this point in time. I may love to see read (and respond to) Aaron's micro-posts about the future of social media, but don't really care about his experiences at a Tool concert (sorry Aaron). This is what makes blogging so attractive - you can subscribe to channels (blogs) and they essentially stay on topic. We may see people develop very specific topical Twitter channels over time, but it's still early for most.
There are certainly interesting business applications for Twitter and related technologies (listen to this podcast by Jeremiah Owyang and David Berkowitz for some ideas). One that I competely embrace is using Twitter to facilitate collaboration and networking at an event or conference, which Jeremiah mentions in the podcast.
What do you think? Twitter or no Twitter? Maybe it's not so black and white? I look forward to your comments.
ps... The Red Sox are leading the Rockies 13-1 in the top of the eighth inning at the moment. Good times!
Cross Posted on sharedinsights.com