Is it time to give up on Twitter?

(Cross-posted at Beautiful Marketing)

Will Twitter EVER be stable? I ask because Twitter's issues relating to scalability and stability are nothing new. And yet, very few seem to have abandoned Twitter for one of the many similar services out there - Pownce, Jaiku, Plurk, et al.

Why? I think you can give credit to the incredibly simple interface and the numerous apps and services that riff off of Twitter. And probably Scoble too.

Still, at what point do people decide enough's enough? I think it's coming soon. Twhirl has been nightmarish - I see "limit exceeded, paused 5 min" more than 75% of the time - and the Twitter web site is not much better.What do you think? Is it time to give up on Twitter?

What It's Become...

I have been thinking about Twitter a lot lately (have you noticed?), and realized that I'm so enamored with it because of what it's become for me.

Let me explain. When I first started using Twitter, I would write these random and completely unimportant Tweets: "I think I might go grab a cup of coffee," or "Just heard club remix of O Fortuna. Don't know whether to hate it or dance to it". I dipped my toe in the water with these fairly inocuous posts because I was curious more than anything.

But then I started to follow people and a strange thing happened: they started to follow me too. Now I don't have 20,000 followers like @scobleizer (nor would I want to, I think) but now that people read what I have to say...and I read what they have to say...we can have conversations (as long as they we use fewer than 140 words per message).

The point is, Twitter is not the speed dating version of the blog. It's so much more. Blogging is a uni-directional medium, for the most part. Twitter actually allows and encourages dialogues between people and is witness to conversations involving hundreds perhaps even thousands.

Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit and perhaps I'll be sick of Twitter in another six months. But what really stands out for me right now is that through Twitter I am exposed to so many different and interesting people (@newmediajim, for one) who are doing and saying tremendous things. If I weren't on Twitter, watching...listening, I wouldn't be nearly as caught up on social media trends, new tools and interesting (and real-time) stories.

Zappos

If you don't have a Twitter account or aren't sure what it is (hint: micro-blogging), visit www.twitter.com and sign-up today. And, if you don't follow @zappos on Twitter yet, you should because this online shoe retailer has embraced the medium more than any other company out there (sorry Jet Blue).

All Twitter posts (called Tweets) are written by the CEO himself, Tony Hsieh, who is doing some very interesting things to engage his followers:

Yesterday, Tony held a contest in which he gave away a FREE pair of shoes to an @zappos follower and ten of his/her friends. @rotkapchen won the prize (despite my direct pleas). Today, Tony upped the anty by offering two round-trip tickets to Vegas plus two-nights' stay, a tour of the Zappos office and lunch with him. How cool is that?

So what can companies learn from Tony? Social media outlets like Twitter are yet another way companies can connect with customers. The fact that I know Tony is currently at a wedding eating corn nuts is insane, but in a weird way gives me a better sense of the Zappos culture and makes me want to engage more.

After spending four days at the Forrester Marketing Forum, I am pleased to see some companies embracing and really leveraging social media. We'll see if Tony continues to Tweet - I mean, after all, he *does* have a company to run - but if he does, I'll be following.

Hello Tweeple!

So I think the front row folks at the Forrester Marketing Forum really put the Twitter app to the test. There were five or six of us furiously twittering throughout the conference - a much more efficient way to record activities, share random thoughts and document key points made by speakers.

What I'm not sure about is whether there's value in turning those Tweets into blog posts. Are they more valuable as individual thoughts? Or do I grab all similarly tagged tweets and organize them into a cohesive blog post for this site? I hate to say it, but that sounds like too much work...
And I think there's something *pure* about the Twitter posts as they are. They're in the moment. Blog posts are generally (well) thought-out or planned entries. Tweets are random and in the moment.

I plan to blog as much as I can. But know this, I *will* Twitter often. So if you want to learn more about me - what I think and do - follow me on Twitter @michellebb