Tired of explaining Twitter to people who can’t really understand why it’s useful?
I think that’s grounded in the “benefits architecture” built into Twitter.
There’s no single benefit Twitter gives me that’s important enough alone to make me use it. But there are lots of different smaller benefits. Combined, they make me a happy and enthusiastic Twitter user. Examples:
- It’s a news feed. Interesting news, I wouldn’t necessarily find in my RSS feeds, finds me. Automatically. Thanks to the people I choose to follow.
But: I still read RSS feeds. - It’s a search engine. I can find stuff. Especially stuff that’s hot right now.
But: I still use Google. - It’s a recommendation engine. Which technology is better? Which product should I buy? I can ask my followers for help.
But: I still ask other people as well. - It’s a social network. I can stay in touch with those I was able to talk into it. And I can easily start conversations with people I never met before.
But: I still use other networks. - It’s a messaging system. Drop me a line. Send a short note to a friend. Quick and easy. No need to start my email client.
But: I still read and send emails. - It shares my links. Have you seen this? If you’re interested in the same things I am, just follow me, and you will receive interesting links.
But: I still occasionally forward interesting links to friends. - It organizes my bookmarks. I tweet an interesting link, and it’s saved for reference. With a good description and hashtags, I can easily find it again later.
But: I still have quite a big local bookmarks collection. - It’s a micro blog. It’s so easy to put a tweet out into the net. Especially if I’m on the move.
But: I still have a blog which allows me to be 140+.
So, yes, everything I do with Twitter, I can do with other services.
And probably even better with them.
If Twitter would give me only one of these features alone, I wouldn’t use it.
And I probably wouldn’t get it, why other people rave about it.
But it gives me all of them. Combined. That’s why it’s useful to me.
Most people look for the one clear benefit that alone makes using a service valuable. If you find it, you can replace something good with something better. Easy decision.
But that’s not the way Twitter works. Twitter is not better in any of the use cases I listed. Twitter is better in combining all these use cases into a single service.
And that’s a completely different dimension of benefit.