Yesterday I got the Fail Whale, and today I get this;



Can Twitter not handle it's 50 million Tweets per day?

A blog post from Twitter today stated that there are 50 million tweets worldwide per day. If you think this number is staggering, check out the graph they posted with it, which shows an almost exponential increase in Tweets since Twitter's inception


If Twitter is 50 million tweets a day, that means 600 per second. According to SearchEngineLand the Facebook comparator is 700 status updates per second.

If Facebook is considered a social media 'establishment', then it is fair to say that with 600 tweets per second compared to 700 status updates per second, it wouldn't be unfair for Twitter to consider itself part of the establishment as well.

(Meanwhile, according to the same article in SearchEngineLand, there are only 55 Buzzes (that's Google speak for status update/tweet) per second...which to be honest is a lot more than I would expect from Google Buzz. )

Facebook is benefiting from it's huge following through a good smattering of advertisements down the right sidebar, Google Buzz has the Google search network, why is Twitter still not monetising it's huge audience?

It's not like there is no way to, they could do it in a number of ways;

1. Display advertising, like Google and Facebook
2. New paid services (I doubt making existing service paid would go down well)
3. Selling off of data to businesses

Surely their venture capitalist supporters are getting a bit antsy?

Among the millions of stories going on on Twitter over the last week, one of the most popular was regarding Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines. Kevin Smith (the director of Clerks, etc.) used a combination of Twitter and podcasts (through SModcast)  to rant and spread the news about his bad treatment at the hands of Southwest Airlines flight policy.

This is an obvious nightmare for the unlucky PR and customer service people at Southwest Airlines, and they responded in a variety of ways, including a voucher to him, a carefully crafted post on their corporate blog (wittily named 'Not So Silent Bob') and, of course, Twitter.

The person manning the Twitter account for SWA should get a medal - she must have felt like the whole internet hated her.

What could SouthWest Airlines have done to prevent the Twitter-wrath of Kevin Smith?

Nothing. They have a policy in place which is highly contentious, and it has been in place (apparently) for a long time.

What they did right.

They have a Twitter account, which is fairly cutting edge of them, and the fact that they were monitoring it even better. Lots of  companies don't do this.

After a public apology, they tried to move the conversation off Twitter and into a private sphere, which Kevin Smith took against, but that is the professional way to go, and if Kevin wanted to continue in public, then so be it.

They wrote an apology on their blog so they could explain the matter in more than 140 character chunks.

I think their blog posts and Twitter replies were fair enough. They were unemotional, professional and attempted to state the facts.

What could they have done better?

However, they should have stuck more firmly to their one story. They should have reiterated their rules and directed people to a permanent information source they have which outlines the rules and the reasons behind them.

They could be a bit more responsive to the large amount of people against this policy - this doesn't mean changing their policies, but perhaps just being a bit more considerate in the way they are communicated.  Social media is about listening and responding, whereas SWA was a bit more about using social media to send out their press releases.

So what?

The good thing for individuals - perhaps service will improve as companies have no idea who has a giant online following behind them!

The bad thing for companies - perhaps a person with a giant online following might be the recipient of a slip up of your company, and you will have to deal with the fall out.  Learn from SWA and never think it couldn't happen to you.

Unfortunately, I didn't, so I don't.

Yesterday there were a few stories circulating the web hinting that today Google would release a new feature for Gmail which was touted as being either a Twitter-killer, or a Facebook-killer, depending on which one you read.

I held off writing a piece about that, because until an official press release comes out you never know who to trust, and there were no reliable sources discussing it anyway.

Today, the Gmail blog (and Google blog) both published an article announcing Google Buzz, an add-on to Gmail, which is being rolled out over the next couple of days.

Yesterday I was sceptical, because to be honest, I don't like Gmail all that much. Other Google products in the social sphere have also been disappointing, like Orkut (only big in Brazil) and Wave (which is not yet out of beta, and which I also dislike anyway).

The big obstacle in the way of Buzz being a Twitter killer is that it is integrated into Gmail, which puts it behind the 8ball because gmail is such a user-unfriendly interface, whereas Twitter is so simple.  I suspect it would have been better to introduce a new, simple product with a nice interface rather than try to staple something on to Gmail.

What is Buzz?
Buzz, which you can kind of get from the name, is Google's next attempt at entering the social media sphere. It uses your current social network (i.e. your Gmail contacts) with new functionality to help you ' talk with them about things that are interesting you at the time'. Google is touting it as a new way to organise the social web.

It seems to be using a bit of the Google Wave technology, where you can easily share photo's, video's and links with a group, and any responses to things you post will get sent to your email where they are not 'static emails'  but rather ' live conversations' (like they tried to do with Google Wave).

You can also make things 'available to the whole world' if you want, by opening up your privacy settings.

Like Twitter you can follow people and find out what they are doing and sharing online, and like Twitter it uses @replies.


Why Did Google Do It?
Google is basically built on ad sales, and with more people spending time on non-Google social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, this is reducing their ability to advertise.  With this new tool they hope to get a piece of the addictive-pie that is social media, and therefore be able to sell more ads on Gmail.

It is integratable with Twitter and Flickr already, with other sites likely to be introduced in the future, so basically it is hoping that you will stay on a Google site to view all your other social media information.

Interesting Features
Their mobile version is not just the small screen friendly version of the normal site, but also has an addition to the "what are you doing now"  status update, you can add a ' Where were you when you said that'  kind of thing. That is awesome if you are a Facebook stalker, you can take it to a whole new level.

My prediction
This is not a Twitter or Facebook killer.

Etsy is an online portal helping sellers world-wide sell their handmade or antique goods on the internet. I love it because it is full of original handicrafts, and is also a really fantastically maintained site with easy usability.

Etsy is a great example of ecommerce and social media. Apart from their own website and blog, they also appear in social media (e.g. Twitter and Facebook), and actually make good use of those mediums by highlighting specials or featured items.

Their blog had a fantastic post the other day, cautioning their users on 'social media etiquette'. Basically, the Etsy blogs often feature sellers stories, the comment sections of which are often becoming full of 'I also sell' links.

These comments are also finding themselves on the wider web, on blogs mentioning Etsy, and it is making the Etsy founders uncomfortable because it doesn't fit in with their vision of their 'community'.

The whole concept is very interesting - trying to prescribe marketing behaviour in a community filled with users who want to market their products.

The post is called How Not To Spam While Being Active Online, and is a great article for any online community. They had a great simile for people who randomly comment on blog posts trying to sell their own goods...

You're at a gallery opening, discussing the paintings with the artists and other attendees. Someone bursts into the room shouting, "I MAKE PAINTINGS TOO!" and tosses a fistful of flyers on the floor and leaves.

It is obvious to any PR, marketing or sales person that that is not the way to sell your paintings. Instead, you might want to mingle, admire the art on display, get the names of interested people, and drop very subtle comments or distribute your card to a few key people. Doing this online, on a blog post or forum for example, requires you to read the actual posts, other peoples comments, and leave something insightful yourself. Becoming a useful member of the community first, and selling much later, will ensure that you are welcomed back to that blog again and again, and avoids alienating potential customers.

This 'netiquette' (i dislike that word) is a problem for the wider web, and I assume as people start to delete or ignore spam, those sites who have 'nicer' communities may become more popular than those who don't.