Twitter 2.0
Building something better than 9,860 characters hidden behind a “Read More” button at the end of a Tweet.
This article is based on a recent G+ thread by Ana Hoffman about Twitter, were I joined in and suggested something else than a 10,000 character limit as the way out of what I called the slow roasting of a bird in August 2015.
The Real-Time Dashboard concept
From a data point of view Twitter’s greatest weaknesses are probably search and clustering of content. I reckon that only masochists use the Twitter UI to search for tweets, hashtags and alike. Whatever the world tweets: One currently does need third party tools to get a chance to gain at least some idea what is running through the social network. So adding ‘something’ to the traditional 140 characters tweet makes sense.
Real-time Dashboards would aggregate and cluster the actual content. They would include Periscope broadcasts and might as well feature Vines or something not yet in Twitter’s arsenal: Podcasts, live audio or audio loops (Chris Kubbernus the other day did write about anchor.fm here on MEDIUM; if Twitter still got the cash it’s maybe a target for them).
Such Dashboards would have the role of a real-time situational awareness tool for all.
While under normal circumstances these would mostly be auto-built around popular or trending hashtags or topics of general interest within Tweets or Vines, sudden events from terrorist attacks like we saw in Mumbai to earthquakes or reactions to political announcements could make Twitter the one and major tool to rely upon to create situational awareness in real time based on content not analytics and stats (although the latter two could also be displayed)!
And with so much content being actually created with mobile devices the use of GPS-data would allow for going as far as creating a virtual theatre of an event by organizing these Dashboards around the geographical proximity of content producers/providers or capture the global reach of an event on such a Real-Time Dashboard. The idea of a virtual theatre could indeed turn quite real in later stages once 3D content is being provided.
Such Dashborads could well involve broadcasters getting financially rewarded directly through an online payment process, which itself could be part of a gamified process to encourage broadcasting and making it even more appealing to provide parallel content to ongoing live events or to contribute original content to Dashboards around certain hashtags or topics.
Monetizing the Real-Time Dashboard concept
The trouble with 10,000 character tweets idea simply is: Those do not monetize unless one embeds banner ads, video ads or other stuff within them or charges customers for the ability to tweet more than let’s say 320 characters, while charging in steps like a package delivery service charges for additional weight. This might add monthly recurring revenue if popular with customers.
With Real-Time Dashboards the revenue streams could be quite diverse!
Any public event getting organized for either commercial or political reasons is in need of an audience. And they need to also differentiate themselves from alike events and to add to the experience they provide — live, or later within in memories or to those opting for time-shifted consumption.
Selling real-time Twitter Dashboards to such events therefore opens a global market to both — event providers and Twitter. Any event streamed live on the web could be augmented with real-time Tweets, live videos made by the audience, by those following online (in whatever setting), vines, live audio or podcasts.
Aggregated content in “Real-Time Dashboards by Twitter” could build the bridge between TV and web-based applications plus all those mobile communication devices talked about for ages.
Whether a TV broadcast becomes the center of a Dashboard or elements of a Dashboard make it onto the TV screen (i.e. Periscope broadcasts made by spectators of a sports game) or get made available through interactive TV-sets or split-screen functions where spectator faces get shown along the home-run, touchdown or penalty kick or its replay: The technical platform for this could bundle and distribute any form of content if built well enough. Plus it could reward contributors and contributions.
Any owner of an event could buy or rent Dashboards from Twitter for a fee which would include a branded design of course. Fees would vary according to the content to be aggregated and shown there. Events could be actually anything from sports to classical music, from political rallies to speaches, TED Talks, trade fairs and congresses to new forms of events and interactive happenings designed for exclusive publication via Twitter Dashboards to whatever device.
And while I consider any online business-model based on advertising totally boring, I think adding space for ads to such Dashboards would make sense. If those got integrated wisely, I think banners in such Dashboards could well find much improved CTRs over those appearing in other environments. So there could even be a little bit of room for both sponsors and old-fashioned forms of online marketing. But they should be limited and probably come in the form of Pocketable Banners, an idea I just had while writing this!
Effects to be accounted for
I am well aware that events like political rallies from HongKong to Cairo to Istanbul may not only profit from people being globally aware about what happens on-site but that such information could also help any institution’s situational awareness, which may not always be in the interest of freedom of speech or the right to peacefully assemble. So Twitter would have to use such Dashboards in connection with public political activities with utmost care and responsibility, especially such occurring spontaneously!
Twitter is known to be the exact contrary of open when it comes to the “Twitterverse”. That policy would have to change completely with Real-Time Dashboards. Indeed Twitter would have to provide an environment where other people can monetize on its back in Uberpreneur-style.
While it currently would yet be another place where people could present themselves as content producers and providers the possibility to get rewarded both financially and through gamified elements would make it attractive to be there and to build reputation while promoting one’s work and subsequently the main events/content one has provided to. Successful influencers or highly knowledgeable participants subsequently could also get invited to certain events to provide content from there.
The big advantage of Twitter here is: They would start with a 300 million plus user-base when building itself into a situational awareness tool and virtual theatre around topics, trends and events!
On the other hand the current search and aggregation they seem to be able to deliver at max, in no way matches the value the company had by its IPO. Twitter seems to urgently need help with that no matter if it implements 10,000 character tweets (which would most likely add tons of searchable content-data and links) or choses the path of becoming a situational awareness tool and virtual theatre around topics, trends and events.
Last but not least also the financially more capable and more extensively staffed Facebook is out for more revenue and delivering new experiences of its relevance to its users.
They have live broadcasts now in timelines available and Instagram along with two Chat Apps plus 3D glasses in their portfolio. Their challenge — along with better search as well — would be to dump their algorithm for such Dashboards since those need to be based on timely delivery, not on their philosophy of a filtered timeline.
Still I think Twitter should go for Real-Time Dashboards! Else I would not have spent my time writing about this idea :-)
Please, hit on the green heart, if you feel your decision to read my text until the end was right. Thank You!
Feel free to read other contributions of mine about
Social Media Channels being Linkfarms (5 min read) or
The Anti-Social Face of Marketing in the Social Media Age (12 min read)
or give me a chance to contribute to your thinking regularly by following me here on MEDIUM. I’d surely feel privileged!
