For the love of Twitter

Posted by Flick in Opinions on 11 15th, 2009 | no responses |

Two weeks ago Twitter revealed Twitter Lists. You can now create a list of people on Twitter and then share the list with the world. By following a list you are able to follow the status updates of those on the list without having to follow them individually. This is great way to track 140 character blips, and thus aid in the distribution of information and media.

I thought I would highlight eleven music blog lists that follow over 50 bloggers and writers, and I highly encourage you to follow them (and retweet):

For the love of Twitter

When the creators of Twitter unleashed their status-driven network, I’m curious if they had any suspicion that it would break into the top ten websites on the internet. It has been interesting to watch the site develop, and the hundreds of third party applications and websites that have spawned from this businesses that still has not unveiled a business plan.

Check out any major news site and you’re bound to see Twitter mentioned in the day’s top stories. So why would a social networking site that centers around status updates develop into such a massive website and attract more than 20,000,000 unique visits each month?

The answer is 140.

Twitter

140 characters is all you need to pass on a headline and a shortened link, or your reaction to the headline. It’s all you need to squeeze in a song title, a comment about the song, plus a shortened link. It’s all you need to sneak photos or images out of a political hotbed (think Iran).

140 is vox pop.

Twitter has become ‘vox pop,’ or the voice of the people. Journalists love to quote the man on the street, and Twitter has become the man on the street… the reaction of the common person. Journalists increasingly quote tweets as ‘vox pop,’ or citing the reaction on Twitter as they write about an event.

If you’re curious what people are talking about at a given moment, take a look at Trendsmap. It ties in trending Twitter topics with a Google Map. As I’m writing this article on a late Saturday night, North America is tweeting about sports. But when you look at the regions, you’ll find that the Midwest is talking about OSU going to the Rose Bowl, the East and West Coast talking about boxing, and Canadians talking about hockey.

140 is about quick distribution.

Twitter is great about distributing news stories, reactions to sports, response to things happening at a given moment (such as an earthquake). When someone influential tweets something, dozens of his followers retweet it, and the message spreads. You see this happen as people pass on a sensational news story… and the response in Twitter sometimes cycles back into the major news story coverage. You also find Twitter reacting to shows on television, turning it into a community experience.

140 and music

How could Twitter be used as a music distributor? Besides tweeting about artists you’re listening to, watching perform, or enjoying, Twitter can be a great way to share music. Whether you’re tweeting a song from Lala, or sharing a link to drop.io, if a person with enough Twitter influence retweets your music, you can maximize on Twitter as a quick distributor. It can also be a great way to distribute information about an artist. Set up your blog with ping.fm and you can automatically tweet your posts and keep track of the shortened ping.fm statistics to see how many your link is spreading virally on Twitter.

One thing to keep in mind when approaching Twitter as a quick distributor is to understand that everything on Twitter has a short life. Your hope should be that blogs pick up on the blip and write about it. Yet Twitter is ideal for initial exposure.

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