Giving into community pressure
Have you ever asked yourself why you belong to a particular service on the web? Perhaps you are the type of person that belongs to every single one, and so maybe a better question for you would be, why do you use one more than another?
I recently gave Pownce a spin for a few days and I really like it. Being that I do not use the SMS features on Twitter, I actually like Pownce much better than Twitter. I’m not going to dive into all of the reasons I like Pownce better because that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I am being forced to use Twitter over Pownce, sorta, because of “community pressure”.
Here is the breakdown of community pressure as I see it. There are a few reasons why we use services that, even though we like a different one, we still use the service.
- All of our friends are on the service.
- There is more activity on the service.
- Everyone uses the service.
All of our friends are on the service. This is a pretty compelling reason to use any service really. If everyone you “know” is using that particular service, you’re bound to check it out and be part of the action. If the only reason you use Twitter is to keep up with what your friends are doing, and not because you like it more than another service that offers the same features, then you fall into this particular facet of community pressure.
There is more activity on the service. Nearly everyone of my “friends” on Twitter has a Pownce account. Yet, they don’t use it. So, it isn’t a matter of them not knowing about Pownce, it is more about them not actually using the account they created. Why? Probably because everyone that has a Twitter account is using it right now. The activity is contagious and spurs more activity.
I have yet to meet anyone that says that Pownce doesn’t do something that they want it to, or, that it is inferior to Twitter in anyway. (With the exception of SMS, of course.) I believe that if everyone with a Pownce account shifted their daily activities from Twitter to Pownce at the same time, that the reverse could be said for Twitter that is being said now about Pownce, that it is a ghost town. It is all about the activity.
Everyone uses the service. This may not fit with the Twitter / Pownce scenario as well as it does with the YouTube / (everyone else) scenario. Here is a quote from a recent article by Ryan Carson of Carsonified that he wrote about using YouTube to promote your message.
“I’d rather use Vimeo because it’s beautiful, but the truth is there’s a lot more people on YouTube. If you compare 90 views on Vimeo to 10,367 on YouTube there’s just no comparison.” — How to use YouTube to get your message out
Ryan expresses that he actually likes Vimeo more than YouTube, but it doesn’t matter because his goal of reaching as many people as possible is better accomplished using YouTube. I like Pownce more than I do Twitter, but it doesn’t matter, if I want to be part of the conversation I am forced to use Twitter because that is where the conversation is happening.
I’m still not sure what the solution to community pressure is or even if there is one. You can’t fight trends. Being “first to market” is still one of the largest advantages in any industry, period. Even when teams like Pownce and Viddler innovate in ways that previous teams doing similar things have never done, they still end up with the same challenge of gaining market share by “stealing” it away from those that may have it simply because they were first, not because their the best.
Then again, these shifts usually happen over long periods of time. Fads don’t change in one year, but have patterns over decades. The Internet is a different beast, where it seems like these patterns have a much shorter wave-length, but they do change, and it is possible to find niches. I’m looking forward to the point where all services are so wide open, and applications are at the end-points, and which service you use no longer becomes as relevant. But that may yet be a little ways off.
Why do you use the services that you do?
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I completely agree. It sucks…but I agree.
Services like Vimeo are worlds more “fun” to use than YouTube and their community isn’t overrun with 9 year olds spouting profanities…but the sheer size of YouTube’s user base makes it hard to move away from it if you’re wanting your video to really get seen by others.
It’s the exact same thing with MySpace vs. Virb. Everyone on the planet will agree that MySpace is horribly designed and throws errors half the time…but since 50 bagillion people use it…you can’t really move away.
Sad.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
What you’ve got here is a case of finding the “social” in “social media”.
I don’t have a myspace account. I will never have a myspace account. But I keep hearing from friends that do have one, that the only reason that they continue to use it, is because it’s where their friends are. But it’s still not enough for me to join.
So how do you shift a group of people from one service to something else? By and large, you can’t. People are sheep, and will go to where all their friends (aka “popular people”) go. But that doesn’t mean that smaller sub-groups can’t exist alongside the large ones and sometimes those small groups become the majority over a long enough period of time. Co-existence is a completely acceptable reality, so there’s no reason to divide services up.
I’d be willing to bet that if the top 100 Twitter users switched to Pownce, you’d see a phenomenal waterfall effect in usage.
I’m at a point where I’ll use what I like, when I like, and find comfort in the fact that if people really want to reach me, they know where I can be found. So there!
In any case, I’m probably going to use Pownce more than I will Twitter, but I’ll likely still monitor both equally until I’m comfortable detaching myself from either. I’m pretty easy to find on both @anton.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I use Twitter because, once upon a time, when I was addicted to iJustine’s channel on Justin.tv, I asked her why people use Twitter, and she told me, and I was all like “Okay, iJustine, I will do your bidding and sign up.” I don’t actually know anyone in real life who uses Twitter, but it is a fun way to keep up with what’s going on with the people I’ve met on the Internet.
I suppose this means that I could switch over to Pownce fairly easily, but I think I stick with Twitter because A) I’m lazy; and B) There seems to be a lot more activity there.
As for why I use Viddler… well, I wanted to win a free iPhone last summer, but then I realized that it was much more of a community than YouTube, so I stuck around.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I prefer Twitter over Pownce for reasons of convenience:
(1) Twitterrific makes it possible to put my Twitter friends on my desktop and monitor activity while I work. The alternative for Pownce requires Air and frankly, I have enough Adobe crap on my computer already.
(2) I can post to Twitter from my cell phone using text messaging. Very easy, very quick, very cost effective. I don’t think I can do that with Pownce.
(3) I can follow my Twitter friends using the Web browser in my Treo. While I might be able to do that with Pownce, reasons (1) and (2) make it less likely that I’d want to follow anyone there.
I use Twitter because it meets my needs — not because I have friends there. When I came to Twitter, I had no Twitter friends at all and none of my friends were interested in it. I’ve MADE friends on Twitter. So it isn’t social networking peer pressure that brought me there or keeps me there. It just meets my needs.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Totally agree.
I want all social networks to be linked, so I can update something once and my GTalk status, AIM away message, Twitter, status, Pownce note, Facebook Status all read the same thing; so it won’t matter what I’m updating or who is on what, everyone will know the same information about it.
Sidenote: Pownce sucks.
But also, NONE of my IRL friends use Viddler, and I continue to, because I like the community. So that’s a case of my not caving to “community pressure”. Conversely, my MySpace account is out-of-date and hardly checked, because none of my IRL friends update theirs’. Also, MySpace is the worst website maybe since Geocities. (Like, when I see that home screen, I instantly get a headache.)
Anyhoo, you’re totally right. And it sucks when the “pressure” leads you to use a service you don’t like/that doesn’t fit your needs. All will be better when G-TwAIMownceBook is created.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Thanks to everyone that has commented to so far!
Anton: I’m with you on all of your points.
Chris Clark: Thanks for sticking around on Viddler, we like having you there.
Maria: While I used to agree with you on the Adobe “crap” comment, once I used Pownce’s AIR application, I really liked it. I don’t like AIR, but I like the application they’ve built using it. And if AIR makes it easier for their team to build a quick application, I’m all for it.
I don’t think you can use SMS with Pownce, but I could be wrong. I don’t use it for Twitter either, so I am not sure.
You can use mobile Pownce at http://m.pownce.com/
Although your method for getting friends may have been you first, them second, the fact remains that you are on Twitter now because they have the SMS feature, and because your friends (and their activity) is there. Perhaps community pressure didn’t bring you there, but it will certainly keep you there even if Pownce adds SMS.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Awesome topic. This is something I’ve been thinking about as well and it was triggered from the same experience. I looked in to Pownce after seeing your message about it on Twitter.
I agree with you completely on the community pressure issue. The majority of users are ultimately looking for activity/traffic. Additionally, while many of these users may be loosely defined as internet or technology savvy, there’s a wide range of ability that is covered in that statement. There are users, such as yourself, who’s background and experience allow them to make more credible and informed decisions about what services they choose. People who understand the technology they use, not just understand HOW to use it.
This type of user is looking for more than just traffic. We want functionality, compatibility, APIs, the types of things that really allow us to make the service work the way we want. These wants don’t preclude traffic for us though. This is exactly the dilemma you point out and at the end of it all, users like us who are looking for more, end up sacrificing what we find to be a better service for the one that can offer more traffic.
Then there are the users that just know how to use a service. I believe this type of user constitutes the majority of users out there. They know how to upload a video to YouTube, or create a profile on MySpace and most importantly, they know how to tell all their friends, “check this out!”
The twitter/pownce comparison is a great example of this. I agree with you that pownce is a better service. They offer a lot more to me as a user than twitter. But the update service that twitter offers is a huge selling point to many people, whether you get them by SMS or my preferred method, through Google Talk. And of course like you said, all of my friends are still using twitter.
So how do we shift momentum? In this case, I believe you have to find a group of major players that are willing to move to the service AND willing to put the effort in to communicating that move to everyone they talk to. The best example of this principle in recent times is the high def DVD market. Blu-Ray and HD DVD were comparatively similar in quality, but the major studios (Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios and Warner) were backing Blu-ray. Then Paramount put the final nail in Toshiba’s coffin by going to Blu-ray after this last Christmas season.
If you can get enough of the players to start backing a service, the masses will follow.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I think your reason #2 is reason #1 for me. While I tend to only follow people I have some connection with, I don’t consider all of them my friends. If my friends were on Pownce and everyone else stayed on Twitter, I’d be using both services.
One reason I do like Twitter better than Pownce is that Twitter is so simple. Pownce offers more, and even more if you are willing to pay, but you really have to invest. You have to decide what type of content you have to post. You have to upgrade to do what Twitter allows your to do for free. You have to wait for Pownce to deliver features because (see all the reasons on this post) the pickup on the API isn’t as expansive as Twitter.
I am comfortable with my events being on Upcoming. I am comfortable with hosting files on my site that I want to share with people. I am comfortable with being succinct on Twitter.
The opportunity to post more than 140 chars on Pownce makes me think it’s probably something I should be writing on my own site anyway, then simply linking people.
I think where Pownce could really kick ass is by allowing people to install it on their Intranets. Then it would become a behind-the-firewall Backpack.
Unless Pownce could prove stability with the level of activity Twitter has, and offer SMS access, I think Pownce will remain largely quiet in comparison.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Click to play this video.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
A couple things - first, the absence of features isn’t the only complaint possible when discussing the setup of a site. I think that Pownce has too much for what it’s for. I don’t want video, I don’t want the complications involved in Pownce’s features, I ENJOY the simplicity of Twitter. If I want to watch video, I do it on a video site or through your RSS feed, etc. Twitter is for BRIEF, for SIMPLE, for TO-THE-POINT, for no frivolous crap. I like the texting and mobile options of Twitter better, I like TWITTER better, before you even look at the community involvement.
I think your view of the issue is somewhat naive, especially since you’re trying to switch well after the real battle was won by Twitter. Pownce has only added more features to try and compete, and I don’t WANT more features. That’s not what Twitter is for, and it’s why Twitter retains the core user base. It’s simple, it has the users, it has the conversation.
You also can’t force the migration with a campaign like the one you tried last week. You are tiny, miniscule, insignificant in the face of that size of a community… it will happen on its own if Twitter ever drops the ball, and you’re only going to eventually irk people with pleas to move to Pownce ON TWITTER. It’s funny, really.
If you stand behind Pownce so strongly, then move there and give up Twitter, or simply update to both through any of several options for easily doing so and see what happens. The people on your friends list on Twitter are capable of making their own decisions without the ultimatum of “I’m leaving Twitter for the weekend, here I go… I’m leaving… who’s coming?… no one’s coming?… okay here I am back on Twitter again.”
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:39 pm
I’m not easily forced into using an inferior service because everyone I know uses it. I tell them where they can find me (blog or Viddler) if they want to know what I’m up to.
However, let me tell you, in all my infinite wisdom, what I think is wrong with Pownce. It doesn’t do anything that e-mail can’t do and it can’t do what Twitter can. I would gladly switch to Pownce because it has more features but the reality is, I can send files, links and events through e-mail and my friends don’t have to sign up for a service they may not understand. Also Twitter, like you said, has SMS and Pownce doesn’t. I use the SMS feature of Twitter constantly and I integrate it into my blog. I don’t know how to integrate Pownce into my blog and it doesn’t seem like it would be easy because of all the additional features that run through the service.
In addition, it relies so heavily on friends to do anything that without them the whole service breaks down. After I’ve convinced some friends to take on Twitter, I can’t ask them to move to Pownce, it’s not fair to them. However, I am not above using both services until one or the other adds the features the other one has. Until then though, Twitter is my home.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Also, great post from Alex (alexknowshtml), and I hope that previous comment didn’t come across as harshly as it might sound. My tone on the interwebz is sometimes very no-BS, which can be interpreted as harsh (maybe it is, but I just mean it to be honest).
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
[...] Giving into community pressure [...]
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
[...] started to write a comment to Colin Devroe’s post “Giving into community pressure” and while I was writing said comment I realized two things. 1) Man I should just blog about [...]
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Community pressure is undeniably real. Ask any teenager why they have a MySpace or Facebook profile. Hell, the same goes for many adults who have a Facebook profile.
I’m a youth pastor, all my students have a MySpace profile so I do too. Though, admittedly I check the crappy thing once a week at best. I also have a Facebook profile which I check even less regularly. Instead, I have a blog. I update it daily, I use it all the time, and it’s the “hub” of my Online persona. The community, I think, has very little to do with why I do what I do. I use the services I enjoy and don’t use the services that suck. That said, I do enjoy being able to instantly communicate with the blogging community via Twitter, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Regarding Pownce: I think that as long as Pownce (or its community of users) positions itself as a “Twitter alternative” it will fail. It’s not a Twitter alternative because it’s fundamentally different. In my eyes this seems more like a marketing problem than a features problem.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Twitter’s integration with SMS is the killer feature for me.
Up here in the People’s Republic of Canada, we don’t have always-on net like my lucky American cousins. Because of this I rely on SMS to keep in touch with my twitter peeps when I’m away from the computer.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Whoa, I’m going to try to keep up here.
Chris Runoff: Dividing things up by “type of user” is a pretty good example of the migration between several services, perhaps lending themselves to my community pressure facets #1 and #2. Once you begin to divide those people, the same type seem to follow.
But it doesn’t help define #3, where people make a choice based purely on popularity. Against all odds, people use a service that is popular. (some people)
Matthew Oliphant: When you begin to make decisions based on feature set, like you and Brandice bring up that Twitter is simple and does what you want it to do, that is when you are going outside of the community pressure. I’m really happy for both of you that Twitter is the right fit for your needs.
I think I’m talking specifically to those that, perhaps, Twitter doesn’t fit the best with but they continue to use it. In your case, and obviously in Brandice’s, my post does not apply.
Alex: Thanks for the video post! Perhaps this could be another facet of the community pressure “wrapper”? “Who is on the site?” There are some people that are definitely social “leaders” and massive crowds follow these people wherever they go. It is something that is rather unexplorable to me, since I’ve never really found myself following any one person, - but I can see how it happens.
Unfortunately for me, I do not have masses of people that do my “bidding” so getting people to switch to Pownce in droves is not something I am capable of.
JustJason: Your last paragraph, first sentence, is the kicker. “In addition, it relies so heavily on friends to do anything that without them the whole service breaks down.” Which is exactly my point. I find myself not being able to use Pownce, because it “breaks” without the community. This is the crux of Community Pressure.
Brandice: I know your all honest, but - you probably could choose to make your point a little bit differently.
To go through your thoughts though, I really believe you are talking beyond the issue at point here. I am specifically mentioning this because I am using Twitter, even though I don’t like it as much as Pownce. If you use Twitter because you like it, and you don’t like Pownce, this post has absolutely nothing to do with you. The same could be said for any other web service you use.
About me running a “campaign” to get people to go over to Pownce. That wasn’t my intent really. I wanted to see if anyone was over there, and there was some activity, would it be enough for me to switch from Twitter to Pownce. The answer to that, is yes. If the people I followed on Twitter would go to Pownce, I would use Pownce. But since they haven’t/won’t I will use Twitter to remain part of the micro-blogging community.
I didn’t mean to “spam” Twitter, but - the best feature about any of these web sites is that you can unsubscribe from noise. If you don’t want to hear me talk about Pownce, you can type ‘leave cdevroe’. Not something I want you to do, because we’re friends, but it is a choice that is available to you and anyone else on Twitter.
I really appreciate all of your responses regardless if you agree with me or not. That is what is so great about starting conversations like this.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I remember using Friendster for a few weeks, then a mass exodus of my friends occured and we all went to MySpace. This was back when myspace had several thousand users and was offering an uncensored and open social scene. Now it sucks, but I still have the account and have overall found/find it more useful than Facebook has been.
Twitter is a bit different. Its like a chat rooms revisited. Unfortunately the feature list is pretty low and there are better options, but like Facebook over myspace, it could be too much for what the majority is looking for.
Perhaps simple is better for the masses, sucks for the underdogs.
Regarding community sites, I still dig Viddler over many other sites. Heck if it wasn’t for Viddler i wouldn’t have gotten on Twitter or wordpress or any other next gen web sites that i frequent.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Just to add so the rest of the community can see. The only advantage I see Twitter having over Pownce is the SMS angle. Though I am now following almost too many people via SMS and I tend to turn it off if I’m at work since it’s a distraction to get a text every few minutes and I can use my computer if I’m office-bound that day.
Yes, I got onto Twitter from the Viddler friends. They were on it and not Pownce. So that is one main reason why I use it more than Pownce. But funny thing is that no one I personally know where I live was on either that I knew of until recently. And those two are on Twitter. So I kind of caved to the Community Pressure too.
I had gotten my invitation to join Pownce after a couple months of waiting. I like the interface. I like the whole file exchange thing, and now the API is opening up some cool looking things so far.
What turned me off of Pownce for a while is the desktop app kept crashing on me. I think it had something to do with AIR. Once they allowed anyone to join, I downloaded the newest version of AIR and it runs smooth. I think Pownce offers much more, but Twitter is simple, and sometimes that’s all people want.
I’m hoping that the hellotxt mobile app will allow me to post to both and the other sites I might be on. But I still would need to go to each site to see messages from what I can tell. It would be cool if it could collect the messages from Twitter, Pownce, etc. and list those and indicate which service it’s from. I did use the desktop version of hellotxt, but it didn’t seem to consistantly post to Twitter and Pownce. Maybe I need to try it again.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Nice post Colin. And I completely agree.
I have a bit of a business background (major was business information technology), and I was really into economics. Economists call what you’re talking about in this post a “network effect” or “network externality.” In this case it’s a positive network externality, which means that the more people who use a service, the more valuable it becomes to users.
This creates an obvious viscous cycle: people who do not initially value a product come to value it as the user base grows. Think of Facebook. I knew lots of people who refused to join early on, but as more of their friends joined it became more valuable to them. And eventually most of them gave in and joined as well.
Other common examples of products that exhibit network effects are the telephone and the QWERTY computer keyboard. The keyboard is an interesting one, because the QWERTY layout is not a particularly efficient layout. There’s a slightly different phenomenon here b/c the big impediment to change is the switching cost of adopting a new technology. But it’s still a very similar issue. There are also obvious network effects at work with popular software like Microsoft Word and Windows. Computer software and web sites seem particularly susceptible to network effects, and web 2.0/user-generated/community sites even more so.
It’s also interesting to note a common tactic I’ve seen marketers use to fight network effects: find a niche. It could be geographic/psychographic/whatever. The trick is to get a close community to adopt your technology and build a critical mass from there. Facebook managed to do this by targeting particular colleges when they started (though I don’t think this was an intentional strategy - I think they did it b/c they were worried about scaling). It’s also what happened with Twitter last year at SXSW. And I’m hoping it’ll happen with Pownce this year! Once the small community adopts the product the value starts growing and (hopefully) it will expand from there.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:42 pm
>>Brandice: I know your all honest, but - you probably could choose to make your point a little bit differently.
You and I discussed this part and hopefully we’re cool.
>> am specifically mentioning this because I am using Twitter, even though I don’t like it as much as Pownce. If you use Twitter because you like it, and you don’t like Pownce, this post has absolutely nothing to do with you. The same could be said for any other web service you use.
But, this conversation DOES have to do with me, because you actually said that you hadn’t spoken with a single person who actually had complaints about what is lacking about Pownce, and I personally think it lacks a simplicity that Twitter has (IMO) nearly perfected. I was addressing something you mentioned that I don’t think to be accurate, which is that the only reason people aren’t using Pownce is solely because of user base, and it’s not, since I am user who chooses to use Twitter for multiple reasons that include the site itself.
>>About me running a “campaign†to get people to go over to Pownce. That wasn’t my intent really. I wanted to see if anyone was over there, and there was some activity, would it be enough for me to switch from Twitter to Pownce. The answer to that, is yes.
I understand why you Twittered about it several times last week and what you were trying to do, I was just expressing the opinion that in a lot of ways, it’s somewhat futile (mainly b/c of the reasons Alex mentions about community). I know there are things that I Twitter about repeatedly and I know sometimes we get excited about something and we do that - I was simply expressing my perception.
>> If the people I followed on Twitter would go to Pownce, I would use Pownce. But since they haven’t/won’t I will use Twitter to remain part of the micro-blogging community.
My point in regards to this is that if you’re going to remain on Twitter, simply remain on Twitter and leave us to figure out where we want to be on our own. The occasional “hey, Pownce has new features!” tweet is cool, but have more faith that we can all decide and choose for ourselves. Who knows down the line, but for now, don’t cross that line of using the service we’ve all chosen to overly plug a rival service. (I don’t think you’re quite doing that right now, although you got close toward the end of last week, but it’s simply advice to keep in mind.)
>>I didn’t mean to “spam†Twitter, but - the best feature about any of these web sites is that you can unsubscribe from noise. If you don’t want to hear me talk about Pownce, you can type ‘leave cdevroe’. Not something I want you to do, because we’re friends, but it is a choice that is available to you and anyone else on Twitter.
This is 100% true, but keep in mind that in the same token, a few days of inundating people with information they don’t want to be inundated with will result in losing followers because of this very principle. I don’t follow some of my closest friends because my Twitter is trimmed down below 100 people whose Twitter content is valuable and interesting, and I don’t think twice about unfollowing, and the reverse of that is that I’m conscious of the etiquette and I try my best not to tip my own scales because of this very delicate balance and the ease with which a person can say goodbye to your micro-thoughts. I don’t plan on unfollowing you though, FYI… I’m just saying.
>>I really appreciate all of your responses regardless if you agree with me or not. That is what is so great about starting conversations like this.
I appreciate your thoughts too, and I think this is a good discussion, one that is better had here below a well thought out entry than on Twitter or Pownce (either one).
DISCLAIMER: If I said something that sounded mean, I am oblivious to it and none of it is intended that way.
Swear on my tea collection!
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Brandice: You said: “…and I personally think it lacks a simplicity that Twitter has (IMO) nearly perfected.”
This is an oversight on my part I suppose. What I meant when I said that I hadn’t heard any one complain about Pownce not having any features that Twitter has, I meant that literally. Besides SMS, which is a really big reason for some, I don’t know of a feature that I use that Pownce doesn’t have when compared to Twitter.
I know that a lack of features is sometimes a “feature” in and of itself, but - I was actually being very literal in that statement. I agree with you that Twitter is much more simple than Pownce, and I too like that about it.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
email
March 16th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Well put and I agree completely.
It’s why I have a freakin MySpace account. I never use the thing, but my ONLY two cousins both use it, and since neither seem to reply to email, it’s my only communications and seeing what they’re up to. I really wish they’d get blogs.
One thing I’ve found strange, again just for me, is that on Twitter I communicate with people I’ve never met in person. I either talk to them via their blogs, Flickr or just the design field in general.
Meanwhile on Pownce, I actually got my best friend on there, my husband does read it and I have connected with a few others right in my backyard here in Connecticut. But none of those people translate over to Twitter.
I’m still trying to figure out how to simplify and not feel like I need to update 5 different places that I just “bought a coffee at Starbucks and am heading to work for the day”.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 am
This reminds me of the day when you invited me to viddler. I first posted some videos but stayed on youtube because I didn’t want to loose my large audience…
But finally, I decided to switch to viddler and just keep my music videos on youtube because ultimately, it’s the quality and the features of viddler or vimeo that attracts me more and the people interested in me just followed me…
Of course it’s a little bit different with twitter and I never tried pownce because I’m a little slow on changing my habits and I’m not into multiple accounts in all the social services. What would take me out of twitter would really not be the fact that everybody leaves it, but more that I don’t like the service anymore. This is how I went from myspace to facebook. I still use myspace for music promotion, but my real communication is in facebook