The Evolution of Social Media: from email forwards to microblogging
Mon, Mar 30, 2009 by Dan Barnhardt
Remember in the mid 1990s when email really shot to widespread use? This was the first opportunity that people had to engage their social networks whenever they wanted to and say, “Hey, I found this really interesting, take a look.” The majority of this was forwarding an email sent initially by someone else, usually a joke, or a story. There were so many of these, and often you’d receive the same ones over and over again. Frankly, it was quite annoying, and it didn’t take very long before everything that started with “FW:” got sent directly to my deleted items. That was quite a while ago, and I very rarely get any of these messages anymore – and when I do, they typically come from my parents, not the most internet savvy people.
The “email forward” has gone out of widespread practice, but the concept behind them lives on. People still want to engage their networks and draw attention to items they find interesting, they just go about it in a different way. Today, the email forward has evolved and millions participate every day in the form of the “microblog,” which is the practice of sending a brief update to one’s social network.
Twitter is the service most commonly associated with microblogging, but with its new layout, Facebook has stepped up its ability to allow users to engage each other in the same way. Microblogging capabilities enable users to share a thought about something interesting and provide a link to others for further information or insight.
The microblog is a much improved way to accomplish the same goals as email forwarding, but much less intrusive. By opting to follow certain people on Twitter, or ignoring or filtering posts in Facebook feeds, people have a choice in whether or not to read the information that is passed along based on the sender and the thought or description shared in the microblog. I believe this is one of the main reasons social networking sites and blogs have surpassed personal email to be the fourth most popular online activity.
There’s no telling if the current model is the best, or if further evolution will create more exciting, engaging ways to share interesting things with your social network. One thing is for certain, however – I don’t miss email forwards!
Tags: Facebook, Social Networking, Twitter
Interesting post, Dan. And speaking of the 1990s, do you remember “push” technology (http://www.jdlasica.com/articles/pushsider.html)? In many ways, Twitter is the ultimate push technology.
Unfortunately Facebook has become just as annoying with all the stupid “What song/movie/80s star etc” quizzes. I look for people who post original comments. That’s most interesting. But they are overrun by people forwarding stupid crap. So I guess part of this is human nature. As in, “Look, I can’t be funny on my own but I can look funny by passing along this quiz/idea/video/whatever.” When you post original comments or jokes there is a tendency on some people’s part to think you’re being uppity, superior or cynical. Kind of a weird twist in social media dynamics. Guess we all better stick to videos of pelicans eating pigeons.
Twitter and Facebook are useful tools if they are used properly, problem is…I find that most people use these tools for pointless banter back and forth…rather then limiting it to useful information. ie: There should be something that “prompts you on Twitter before you tweet” stating “do you want to share this with everyone or just he person with whom you are having the conversation with at the present time” or an automatic filter.
The fundamental difference that I see with Micro blogging vs E-mail forwards of the past, is that I am being forwarded every meaningless exchange of a third party conversation, and not just what might interesting to your network.
If comparing apples-to-apples I would have to say “NO”. Just look at some of the potential of what you can do with Twitter. In terms of the distant future, I think you will see hybrid apps that definitely incorporate both. It would just not be fair to say that Twitter and other social media is email in evolution I think.
Some examples:
* Apps like Adjix (http://www.adjix.com/) are allowing Twitter users to embed ads to their Tweets (scheduled and real-time) allowing for PPC with your posts.
* Twitter users have followers which create a viral network to spread your message.
* Tweets can be subscribed to as news feeds by followers.
* Tweets are indexed by Google, which will help SEO for your blogs, sites, etc…
* Apps, apps, apps… There are so many Twitter apps these days that my head starts to spin. Twitter is a true, rich media, PR Tool that email could never accomplish in any generation. You may be able to quickly exchange email on your iPhone and Blackberry… but when you compare those features with all the iPhone and Blackberry apps that support social media (i.e. TwitterBerry; you are truly able to collaborate play-by-play with an endless viral network. Afterall, in today’s world… Twitter sometimes the news faster then CNN).
* Email does not really give you a real-time visual dialogue of your address book so-to-speak, nor any kind of analytics to track it… (Although, future apps like Microsoft Social Views of Email will incorporate social media features into a visual-based email system with analytics: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/socialviewsofemail/).
These are just 6 examples to get some dialogue started… The list truly goes much, much further…
Great post though! I can definitely see how some would question these areas. Which when answered, only further validates the true potential social media as a whole and how we have not yet seen the true impact it will make on all of us.
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I agree that Twitter is much more than email forwarding, which is why I believe the concept has naturally evolved to the microblog. In essence, the tools available to share insight and thoughts with one’s social network have developed gradually from the email forward to Twitter and the like. Twitter, and to a large degree Facebook, make it more tolerable than the classic “forward” by presenting people’s thoughts in a way that is easy to ignore if one so chooses. It is correct that Twitter can lead to viral spread of a message through re-tweets to followers own networks, but this concept already existed by simply forwarding an email on to your own network if you found it interesting.
The point is that we’ve got new and improved tools than the email forward available now, and there are creative and exciting ways to use this to deliver messages to an audience.
Needless to say, I think there will be a next generation Twitter. Someone/some entity will take the concept to the next level – but the basic principle will be the same. The tools evolve, but it is still sharing information and insight with one’s network.
I’m basically putting the same commentary here I left on the thread you started. Lots of great comments left on here already, and great post.
Hey there before I read your post, which I definitely plan to do I just wanted to comment here as well in case anyone was following the thread.
There is definitely no doubt that there is a lot of forwarding of messages going across the Twitter stream, and for those that abuse the ability, there is no doubt a frustration on the user side.
I’ve found that those that believe that Twitter is simply a broadcasting system, are those that give the actual application a bad name. For a real return on investment within the community, I’ve always followed the 90% value, 10% pimp. Basically be a real human being and sell your brand through your interaction as opposed to spamming the community or constant retweeting of messages that provides little insight on who the actual user is.
I don’t mind retweeting, I do it myself, but like anything else, it’s all in moderation. Sometimes retweeting can provide value to others who perhaps may not have seen it in their stream, but all in all, forwarding chain letters have provided no value as far as I can tell.
As a media strategist, when I work with clients training on Twitter, while simple in form, can be a strain in terms of function for those that ONLY see it as a marketing tool to spam their information on.
I would like to add that Facebook is notorious for spamming, perhaps more than Twitter only because I can’t ignore it, the count just keeps going up on my page and I wish there was an “ignore all.”