I just caught Ann Handley’s latest post on Marketing Profs Daily Fix, in which she gives us several good links and a short video interview on Twitter as “An Enormous Opportunity.” This is important.
Among other things, Stephen Berlin Johnson–who did last week’s Time Magazine cover story on Twitter, says:
“We’re getting to invent what this new platform can do.”
What’s happening with Twitter, including the easy-to-poke-fun-at aspect of Twitter as trivial boring updates–an idea we get when the late-night comics take it on–is that it’s caught on with the early adapters and opinion leaders, whom Seth Godin calls the sneezers, people who tend to be communicators.
Although it’s a lesser example, it does remind me of what I saw (and lived through) about 25 years ago with the personal computer revolution; and again, about 15 years ago, when the business world caught onto the web.
It’s not as big as either of those, because there’s no fundamental change in technology. But the phenomenon of bandwagon is there, and in that sense it’s similar.
Why do you care? It’s not that you have to be at the bleeding edge to be an entrepreneur; you don’t have to. But it helps.
And believe me, it’s not just what people had for breakfast: It’s what they’re reading, watching and thinking.
My suggestion, concretely, is that if you’re reading this blog and you aren’t already on Twitter, go to twitter.com and join. Follow me and everybody else on Anita Campbell’s The Ultimate Small Business Twitter List, and just see how the ideas flow.
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
