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Just listened to a great podcast (as always) from Social Media Today with Maggie Fox on Twitter for business use.

I’ve posted about the different ways some people are using Twitter, which the group in this podcast also covered, but with more of an enterprise perspective.

HEADLINES

eg. breaking news, feeds, links

ANNOUNCEMENT

As a new media to get communications to people straight away using SMS
eg. the recent High School killings in Virgina could of benefited with an SMS broadcast or swarm over email…same as a hurricane or any emergency that requires an immediacy of communication.
Same goes with an emergency in the enterprise, after all the enterprise is a world of its own.

NETWORK

In the podcast it was mentioned that people dismiss the idea of Tweets about what your doing eg. “eating chocolate icecream, got it all over my face”.

But Luis states that this is a point of social connection, and especially relevant if your network are your family and close friends. Personally I love sharing and hearing about these moments in life…we don’t have to be engaged in a conversation, we are getting briefings as if we are always together.

And of course there are the benefits of locations updates, although there are many other mobile web or SMS services geared to this feature.

How many times have I wanted to ring my brother when something funny happens to share the moment, I rarely do, and ringing is synchronous, whereas I’d like to just share those briefings as they happen.

When I do get round to ringing him I have lots of stuff I want to share but can’t recall, plus if I do the fun of the moment as passed anyway.
I could just SMS him as it happens, but what Twitter does is augment this into an SMS network, where whoever is plugged in is informed, post to one spot and it gets distibuted to people who want to know about you.

Check out musings on Twitter for an observational take on the ways or personas of Twitter.

Luis mentions that Twitter and blogging don’t clash, as their structure and form induce a different type of content and delivery. He mentions he looks at his Twitter feed before his blog feeds, because we can know what’s immediately happening.
Blogging is more authored published pieces, where as micro-blogging is spontaneous and brief and is delivered to you intimately (phone in your pocket).
Twitter also has the tendancy to be more personal than blogging (I suppose there a lots of blog diaries), and we try to get to know each other more with blogs with blog tag memes. So I think Twitter is just another unique piece in the web 2.0 pie that expresses who we are and assists us in our knowledge sharing and productivity…just like blogs,bookmarks, photo’s, videos, etc…

COMMUNAL

People at an event sharing a Twitter space; following this will help you netwok with people, find locations, basically know what’s going on according to attendees, you can be informed of happenings all over the place.
Imagine a big music event, friends could be sharing a Twitter space or just use it as the ususal network and be notified of stuff that’s happening, no need to talk, that’s committment, we just want to tell everyone where it’s at with one SMS.
NOTE: you could use a broadcast SMS, this is costly and is no different to email, we all know the richness of sharing content on a social network.

COMMENTATOR

Perfect for an event again, micro-blogging stuff as it happens, more intitmate than TV coverage at an awards ceremony.

GROUP

Similar to a communal Twitter space, and similar to your Twitter network, but more just a closed groups of members (your own little world), great for team communications, being connected on the road, etc…also see Loopnote, Jyngle, Swarm It and others.

BUSINESS USE

Apply the above scenarios to the enterprise; blogging is about announcing, communicating, sharing, productivity, there is lots about how this benefits the enterprise. Twitter is a micro-blogging network, so it’s a bit different has you can only share brief content, so it’s more about location, presence, status, updates…
I see this as very useful especially for business travel or for people who are never at their desk, or I suppose for geographically spread teams.

The mobile nature makes it more pervasive and immediate, I can use it in a cramped train as long as I can reach in my pocket for my phone, whether by SMS, mobile email or mobile web…its power is in connectivity, really our phones have become an extension of ourselves.

PRESENCE

How many times do you want to know where someone is, or how many times do you want to inform others about your status, or the latest business communication. Post once, many can tap in makes this information so easy to reach.

Twitter presence relies on you publishing a post about your status/presence, and others can pull it to themselves, so all you are doing is posting, you are not actually pushing it, people subscribe for it to be pushed to them.
Otherwise you can look at the mobile version to see the latest presence post of a work colleague.

But how can it be more like an IM presence, see Hictu which is an IM presence social network, which of late have also included micro-blogging.

Twitter presence is detailed as you are leaving a post, whereas a presence indicator can be a colour or a couple of words indicating your status…you are not posting but just clicking a setting. Others could be notified by SMS each time you change your indicator status, or just get on the mobile web as see your profile.
Both The Swarm and Talk-now have this idea, even the idea of a calendar social network, as a calendar also may signify presence or status.

What I’d like to see for a presence social network is:
- micro publishing and direct messages
- location (plazes)
- status indicator
- contacts
- calendar

Luis Suarez also has a post on Twitter for the enterprise, he has an inclusion of Q&A.

Related:
Identity triad : status, presence and content