Recipe for the next Twitter

As Twitter becomes less and less conversational and more and more "one-way broadcasting" we think the time is nigh for a next Twitter to barge into the scene.

If you don't agree with me that Twitter is becoming pretty one-way broadcasting in nature, rather than what it is at its best, a two-way conversational tool, consider the latest big Twitter stories that were covered in mainstream press:

-Iran conflict - citizen journalism to get the word out when 'real' journalism was stifled - one way broadcasting

-MJ death - yeah, sure, a lot of people Tweeted about it. A blog still broke the news, just like what would have happened with a big news event 8 years ago

-Habitat's horrendous attempt at a social media advertising campaign, highjacking stories of human suffering to push furniture - one way broadcasting on crack

-Ashton Kutcher's one million followers tirade - if he thinks it proves that he wants to converse with a million fans, rather than just broadcast to the world how 'special' he is, his ego has damaged his ability to reason

Finally, maybe it's just the people I follow, but I find that about half the Tweets coming up on my list are one-way thoughts rather than conversation starters or links to interesting stuff. And more importantly, when an interesting two-way conversation does come up between two of my followers, I have to click into one or both profiles to see what they said first, then click back for the next comment, then so on. I get lost and distracted while trying to trace a conversation.

A lot of early Twitterers were worried that as Twitter became more mainstream, it would somehow 'get worse.' I'm starting to believe it is getting worse. But I don't think the primary reason is that it's becoming mainstream.

The thing Twitter is doing wrong is not improving and evolving its UI to amplify the two-way conversational tools and steer it away from the one-way broadcasting direction. I still think Twitter is a breakthrough tool and I'm still a fan. And some of the one-way broadcasting, like the Iran conflict, is hugely important. But in some ways the UI is clunky and lacking basic functionality - especially for people who use it primarily as a two-way conversational tool. The stats are unclear about how many Twitterers use only the web UI and no other applications like Tweetdeck, but it seems to be at least half, if not the overwhelming majority. [Source for statistics: Hubspot, thanks to @handlewithcare, and Nick Burcher's blog, thanks to @crispyducks] Sorry to be harsh Twitter, but you are one of the most talked about technologies on the market today and your UI still needs a Tweetdeck for people who want more? Houston, we have a problem.

In my opinion, by not evolving the UI, Twitter has allowed a door to open for the next big thing to stir things up.

Here is our recipe for The Next Twitter - a groundbreaking conversation tool. If we had time to develop this ourselves, we would, but given how many proverbial pies we have our fingers in at the moment I'll give it to you as a freebie so someone brilliant can get it done:

1. Take the easiest web interface you can find, and make it interoperable with mobile (similar to what Twitter has done - we applaud them for their mastery of simplicity)

2. Shamelessly copy the follow / unfollow brilliance of Twitter. It's subtle and it works

3. Make search absolutely central to the tool. Don't confuse 'simple UI' with 'featureless' and don't kid yourself that any feature is more important than search. Twitter got this wrong in the beginning, and it still hasn't righted itself completely

4. Combine microblogging with elements of old-fashioned message boards, being the best of both, minus the annoying elements. Give people the ability to see entire conversations in a single glance on one screen, using plus/minus buttons so you can dig further into the conversations you want to see, and minus out of the ones you don't care about - all without having to navigate to a new screen. This seems technically hard to do, but I saw some truly innovative declarative UI programming technologies recently at our client Nokia Qt Software, and I have faith that techie geeks know how to do it and fit it all tidily on one screen

5. Initially, focus on convincing people how they can use it for their jobs and hobbies - Facebook's already got the masses' personal lives in the can

6. Excite and engage the media and PR scenes (much like what Twitter has done) to get the word out most quickly

7. Shamelessly market yourself as the thing that will unseat Twitter. The technology business world needs to take more lessons from athletes when it comes to bold, brash, super competitive statements

8. Be really strict with bots and spammers to keep them firmly out

9. Shake up the above ingredients, don't stir. Stick it in the oven and watch the world take notice

Do you agree with our recipe? Have other points to add? Let us know. We are dying to see this mystery tool be developed as we want to start using it now.

Don't forget about the Facebook land grab

Facebook's 'vanity URLs' became available on Friday and the land rush ensued. Facebook has taken measures to keep poaching at bay, however. You can only reserve one bit of 'URL real estate' per registered Facebook user and it's only available for accounts that have been running since May. So you can't create an account to grab space. And if you want to grab your company's name, well, you have to link it to an individual and since I use Facebook for both personal and business use, that didn't seem realistic. So Facebook has really put the kibash on any sort of branding possibilities, in my opinion. Or maybe I'm just being shortsighted with that observation.

I clicked on the right place (here) to create my vanity URL today. Facebook puts on the pressure by informing you that once you select your URL, you cannot change it. This is always the moment where I feel least creative - under pressure!

After trying several iterations of my name to no avail (there are apparently a lot of digitally-savvy Emily's out there) I finally settled on emily.live. I thought it sounded better than my boring, samey samey name. It's kind of corny, but then again, so am I. Good luck coming up with your vanity URLs - and report back what you've chosen! :-)

PR for free? A big resounding no.

The best business advice anyone ever gave me was, "never give something away for free that you're good at." Taking it further, you should know to price it well, if you're good at it.

In these credit crunchy times, people and companies get desperate. We've had a couple recent incidents where we've lost a pitch at the hands of a PR whose price was "Free." Yes, free. In these cases even the prospect found the situation a little ridiculous. And I never mince words when I tell a prospect that I do not respect that model, no matter what the supposed 'rewards' are at the end of it.

Is this starting to become an even bigger problem in the PR industry? it completely devalues our work. And you're smoking something if you think people in the industry are convinced you are going to pick up the phone and pitch a company to the press (well), and do a good writing, tracking, measurement and reporting job, all for free. That's like offering to go to jail when you haven't committed a crime. It won't help a struggling PR's career and it definitely won't dig you out of the rut you'd have to be stuck in to even consider something so crazy.

A colleague pointed out that it seems very '2001' when companies were digging themselves out of the dotcom bust. I think it's downright toxic to our industry (which you've probably picked up on). PR planning takes an incredible amount of business creativity, the execution is hard work and it is very specialised work. No matter what the situation, unless you are doing your best friend a HUGE favour, should a business service like that be given away completely free.

NB: Some type of compensation model based upon performance is a different story, and we'd agree that it can often be the right pricing model. This post is purely about proposals given for zero, nada, nothin.'

So - I'm really interested to hear if other PR's have faced this situation and what your thoughts are.

To newsletter or not to newsletter

A lot of companies are keen to jump on the 'company newsletter' bandwagon as an outlet for talking to their market and current customer base. It's nuthin' new - the newsletter has been around since the dawn of business - it's just easier to distribute now through digital channels.

I am signed up to several, and read them mainly because I'm always asking myself, "Can and should we do a good newsletter for Hatch?"

The word good is pretty key in that sentence. The vast majority of company newsletters that I receive are almost entirely self-serving - they mainly involve the company banging on about how smart it is, how great it is, how great its employees are, and how great its customers are. And, they are almost always about the company's core business, which if you're aware of the company already, you really don't need to know more about.

Honestly? Even if I'm your number one biggest fan, a newsletter like that is a) not interesting and b) actually off-putting. It undermines the very purpose of the newsletter itself - to build brand reputation.

If your newsletter is gossipy, funny, or says something completely new (such as putting our monthly statistics that only you could publish) then fair enough. Or if you put out a newsletter with interesting material that has very little direct relevance to your brand, that can work too. An example would be highlighting the work of local up-and-coming artists or local free Wifi cafes - it obviously depends on what industry you're in. But if you look at your newsletter and find that it's just a bunch of self-serving goop, directly related to the work you are doing, spare yourself the trouble as it often does very little for your brand.

The reality is that putting together a good company newsletter takes a lot of time, even more creativity, and can't just be an activity crammed into a full schedule at the end of the week. If it's going to be a key communications vehicle, it needs a fair amount of resource put against it - not just the summer intern's activity. And before hitting 'send', someone in the organisation really needs to take a critical eye to put the kibash on any parts that sound like your company is collectively patting itself on the back.

I can only think of a handful of newsletters that meet these criteria and they are all really professionally done, and clearly take some time to put together. And I don't roll my eyes when I read them.

Twitter a PR love-in, says Hitwise

Hitwise posted a picture today of the news sites that receive traffic direct from Twitter. And oh, oh yes, these numbers are sweet.

Twitter delivered a staggering 9.7 per cent of all its traffic to sites in the 'news and media' category in April 2009.

Why do we love this? It is the best PR tool since sliced press releases. It proves that the Tweetvolution was largely thanks to PR people and journalists championing it. It goes further to show the power of PR. And finally, one could even extrapolate that this means PR people do, indeed 'get it,' and understand how to utilise the digital medium.

It's also super interesting to see which news sites are using Twitter the best. Although The Guardian will always front itself as top of the pops in this regard, even Sky News, who some Guardian journalists guffawed for appointing the media industry's first 'Twitter' correspondent earlier this year, is attracting more traffic from Twitter. She's doing a great job and props to Sky for the foresight as it's obviously not done them any harm.

We like this very much. Thank you, Hitwise.