Debates Rage About Usefulness of Twitter

At one time, the phrase social media was synonymous with the blogosphere, since that was the first platform that enabled virtually any Web user the opportunity to easily take a message to the masses.

Since that time, however, there have been a lot of new entrants, including twitter, which is basically a Web-based instant messaging tool that allows any twitter user to follow another, with both having the ability to share updates on what they're doing at the moment.

I started checking out twitter after some technology consultants on a listserv sponsored by a professional organization to which I belong asked others if they were using twitter for business development purposes. At the time, it amazed me that twitter would even be considered something that an attorney or legal marketer would use to reach current and prospective clients, although some in the discussion took up the view that every emerging platform generally has an uphill battle to climb in terms of both adoption and acceptance.

Then today, I was spending some time on MyRagan, a social media platform for communications professionals, and noticed a community member there had penned a blog entry also questioning the value of twitter. Add to that, most of the comments on twitter echoed the view that at this point, most of the "buzz" about twitter consists of stories about its usefulness, or lack thereof, and not much about how anyone's using it in the course of their overall communications strategies.

While that's true, the same could be said about the blogosphere in the beginning and it's certainly evolved to be a useful tool in PR programs, especially when it comes to companies that sell directly to consumers. It will be interesting to follow twitter's evolution and see whether it emerges to become much more than a "new fangled" instant messaging platform or something truly beneficial to business.