Will Microblogging Take Off With Teens?
Posted by anastasia on 10-24-2008Yesterday, I posted a link in Essentials about Twitter being the fastest growing social network according to Nielsen. Ypulse reader Stephanie who is in her early twenties and runs Sweet Designs, an online teen magazine, wrote in and said:
A few months ago when I signed up for Twitter, I sent a message to the teens on my staff to add me. Many of them replied with "What's Twitter?". Only one of them signed up to add me. The rest apparently didn't have one and didn't care to sign up.
I got bored with Twitter really fast. I've personally found Plurk to be a lot more fun and addicting. I Plurk everyday, but have signed into Twitter maybe twice since I started on Plurk. Twitter must be growing among business professionals from what I'm seeing (through LinkedIn, etc).
Plurk is still fairly new – June 2008, so I don't think many know about the site yet. It seems like I've been able to find teens and young adults on Plurk quite a bit easier than with Twitter (and IMO Plurk is a lot more fun). I see a LOT of bloggers and business professionals on both of these (more flooding to Twitter than Plurk).
I'm also curious about how many teens are on Tumblr (my guess would be more creative/artistic teens sharing photos, etc.). My sense is that it's more early twentysomethings who are in media or technology using these services vs. mainstream youth right now. If you think about it, since teens' social networks are mostly comprised of friends they know in real life, and the majority are teens they go to school with, they sort of already know what their friends are up to at any given moment – usually via text messaging or a status message within MySpace or Facebook. Not sure what Twitter or Plurk offer to teens that they don't already have in the tools they already use. For adults/professionals/brands, it's more about offering our adult "friends" a glimpse into our personal lives, thought processes or sharing interesting links. Thoughts?
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Categorized under: Mobile, Web
October 24th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
All of these niche services will languish in the shadows until a standard for decentralized social networks becomes a standard.
People do get profile fatigue and while it's fun to fill out a few profiles it does eventually become a pain.
Right now the action is on Facebook or MySpace. Twitter is dumb if your friends are not all using it. Tumblr is nothing more then a blog service with a nice interface.
Twitter, Tumblr, Plurk and others will have a hard time getting any traction until it can tie in to whatever the dominate social network is at the time.
Facebook's API was a step in the right direction but is seems as if the use of those applications have died off since the profile redesign.
Until these smaller social networks can get tigher integration in to the larger ones users will be happy settling for what ever half ass attempt myspace does to copy the hot new feature of the moment.
Until decentralized social networks are easier to establish the largest online communities will always be large providers like myspace and facebook that offer a comprehensive solution to online socializing.
October 25th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I agree. I have been using Twitter off and on recently but haven't found how it's relevant. I think Facebook is the best at status updates and posting items. The only upside to Twitter, in my opinion, is that CNN has been using it lately to communicate with viewers and get their opinions instantly. I don't see Twitter sticking around much longer. I would bet that they'll get bought out just so another company, like Yahoo or Microsoft, can take get their users and somehow incorporate it into their platforms.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Some of my students use twittter. Many follow me, a few twitter regularly. I've found that most of them don't what Twitter, Plurk, or Tumblr are. Most of the time I am explaining to them what they are…
October 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am
I think the functionality of Twitter should appeal to teens, if only because the status feature is one of the most used/loved elements on Facebook, and I've seen how much people enjoy the dialogue of the 'comment on status' functionality.
But I agree that the 'real friends' factor is going to stop teens getting onto Twitter/Plurk. I love Twitter, but it has much more of an appeal for professionals/brands/networkers to add some colour to their online profile than to teens who already know their friends 'in real life'!
October 26th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
It's hard for me to accept that Twitter might not be youthy enough, because it feels like the first social networking tool I can really sink my teeth into.
Still, I think that a rapid growth curve makes it a reasonably good bet (if not a sure thing) to catch on with teens eventually. At one time, Japanese animation and the Internet hit an older demographic too.
Also note: you can update MySpace and Facebook THROUGH Twitter, and if you have accounts on both, that's one convenience that you can't get from either.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I imagine many more are using Tumblr than Twitter, but the real issue is that there are limitless ways to connect and interact and a limited amount of time, so the obvious result is that only the best of these tools will be widely used.