Unlimited texting: It’s not just for teens. It’s for Twits!
Twitter may be doing more to drive unlimited texting plans than pre-teens. It’s a 9am on a typical day and I’ve already received 15 text messages.
Ironically, one text message is from Shiv Singh from Razorfish, describing his Twitter-related conundrum: “I automatically follow anyone who follows me (on Twitter) as a courtesy but my stream is getting unwieldy now,” Shiv said. ”I’ll need another solution.”
While 140-characters messages may not seem burdensome at a glance, being an active member of the Twitter community comes at a price. Twitter offers an all-or-nothing, flip-switch ability to communicate. When I send a Twitter, it goes to everyone who follows me on Twitter — no matter the relationship, subject or time of day.
As a sender, I’m not able to “nest” my contacts into groups that allow me to target messages to a subset of my followers. And, I’m unable to send messages with different priorities so that some are sent to my followers via text message and others can be targeted to their daily/weekly email digest or free-form, web-based Twitter stream.
As a recipient, I’m not able to adapt my behavior for receiving messages based on topics, time of day, or priority. I can get EVERY message from a user via text message or I can get drop EVERY message from a user into my web-based twitter stream.
Fifty Tweets a day at .25 per Tweet? $12.50 per day. $375 per month. $4,500 per year. It requires more than an unlimited texting plan to manage 1,500 text messages per month (18,000 Twitters per year).
It requires more options! For receipients, the following functionality would be ideal:
- The ability to receive tweets by stream, mobile text or email;
- The ability to receive emails in three ways: real time, daily digest or weekly digest;
- The abilility to define digests on the fly by topic, user and specify delivery times; and
- The ability to define thresholds for receiving text messages based on volume and time of day.
For senders, the following functionality would be ideal:
- The ability to receive prioritize messages and escalate delivery for recipients based on priority;
- The ability to ‘nest’ followers into groups and to send tweets to specific groups;
Twitter use has climbed phenomenally over past months. In January, 2009, it ranked #3 among all social networks (distantly behind Facebook and MySpace) with more than 54 million users. Not long ago, Twitter ranked 22nd.
As use of Twitter continues to climb, the ability to manage Tweets effectively will be essential. In the end, it will also ensure the long-term viability of Twitter as a mobile communication platform.
Credits: Cartoon from Geek & Poke. You’ll see more of these. I love them. Visit the site. You can get them on a T-Shirt.
Twitter was a heavy factor in making the jump to the text plan for me. That and Google Calendar. Love it.