This year's social networking phenomena has to be Twitter.
Ever since Janis Krums posted the first photo of the US Airways plane landing on the River Hudson on Twitter, everyone has been talking about it.
From its creation in 2006, it has now become a mainstream tool for blackberriers, mobilers and netters.
What's it all about and how does this relate to banks?
Well, I've blogged about Twitter and banking a little bit before, but I haven't talked about Twitter. What prompted me to do so today is that, after a wee bit of investigation, there's some really interesting stuff out there about it.
First, there is the transparent history of Twitter as demonstrated by founder Jack Dorsey's Flickr entry, where he posted his original sketch of how Twitter would work:
along with this description:
"On May 31st, 2000, I signed up with a new service called LiveJournal. I was user 4,136 which entitled me a permanent account and street cred in some alternate geeky universe which I have not yet visited. I was living in the Sunshine Biscuit Factory in Oakland California and starting a company to dispatch couriers, taxis, and emergency services from the web. One night in July of that year I had an idea to make a more 'live' LiveJournal. Real-time, up-to-date, from the road."
The idea became Twitter: a simple method of telling folks what you are up to in 140 characters or less, along with pointing to any URL on the internet using tinyurl's.
Another reason for mentioning Twitter today is that there's an interesting two-part interview with founder Jack Dorsey in the Los Angeles Times this week.
Part One talks about the origins of Twitter which is based upon vehicle dispatch control, as Jack mentions above on Flickr. The idea was based upon traffic controllers needing to know where everyone is at any moment in time, and what they are doing.
That's what Twitter is, but for you and your mates!
Part Two expands upon the themes of Twitter, and how "the mobile aspect of the service is really engaging, and you see that a lot in these 'massively shared experiences' that we've done well at: natural disasters, man-made disasters, events, conferences, presidential elections."
This partly explains the hockey stick moment of upward surge last year ...
... which was created by the US election, with everyone wanting to share news and views in real-time on the move, and that's what it's all about ... massively shared experiences.
A bit like the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMOPRG's - an industry in itself), Twitter is all about massive movements of people sharing and socialising.
This is why there is already an industry being created around Twitter. For example, there are a number of new Twitter services that add value, such as Betwittered and Filttr. These services filter and present tweets in different formats for you, if you don't like the original that is or if you have too many folks to follow.
Equally, for those netty people out there, there are lots of accessories for twitterizing the internet. For example, Firefox has some great Twitter add-on's such as Twitterfox and Twitter Toolbar (there's a few more good ones over here).
And the relevance to banking?
Well, bearing in mind that most banks haven't got a blog yet, using Twitter to communicate with customers in a micro-blog will be a stretch. That doesn't mean some don't do this, such as Bank of America, or that new players aren't leveraging Twitter, such as Wesabe and Mint. Equally, there are decent twitterers in areas of finance, such as Islamic Finance, who are worth keeping up with.
For mainstream banks however, Twitter is still a stretch too far.
Mind you, using Twitter to supplant mobile payments with advice, news, views and an enriched service from the bank to help the customer in forecasting, budgeting, allocating between credit and debit ... now there's a thought.
BTW, for more stats and facts on Twitter usage by country and demographic, Twitter Facts is a must.
yes we can www.twitter.com/ubank
Posted by: Gerd Schenkel | May 20, 2009 at 01:37 PM
Aha! If we want to get into that debate Gerd, here's a list stolen from my friend Christophe Langlois.
http://clanglois.blogs.com/internet_banking/2009/05/visible-banking-twitter-watch-6.html
Banks on Twitter, May 2009-05-17
US - Banks
1st Mariner Bank (2)
Arvest Bank
Bank of America (2)
Bank of Oklahoma
Chase Bank
Chesapeake Bank
Citibank
Fidelity Bank
First American Bank guage
First Arkansas Bank
First Federal
First National Bank
Hancock Bank
ING Direct
Marquette Bank
Nicolet Bank
North Shore Bank
Northeast Bank
Poeples State Bank
RBC Bank
Suntrust Bank
SVB_Financial
Wachovia
Webster Bank
Wells Fargo (2)
US - Credit Unions
66 Fed CU
Alliance CU
Bellco CU
Brewery CU
Capitol CU
Chetco CU
COP CU
CU CU
DATCU CU
ELGA CU
Ent CU
Florida CU
FORUM CU
Gesa CU
Group Health CU
Idahy CU
Kemba CU
KU CU
MaPS CU
Mazuma CU
MEA Fed CU
NWGA CU
Oklahoma Employees CU
Pioneer CU
Tech CU
Telesis CU
US First CU
UW CU
US - Credit Cards Issuers
Advanta
Discover Card
US - Insurance
AIG Hawaii
Allianz Versicherung
CA Health Insurance
Dear AIG
ND Insurance Dept
VPI Pet Insurance
Spain - Banks
Banco de Santader
Banco Sabadell
BBVA
Caja Navarra
Canada
Banque du Canada
CEO_INGDIRECT
RBC
Vancity (2)
The Netherlands - Banks
Friesland Bank
Rabobank (2)
Germany - Banks
BNP Paribas
GLS Bank
SEB Bank
Australia
ANZozCEO
ANZMoneyManager
individuum
NAB
nablab
Raboplus
RaboplusNZ
Ubank
Westpac_help
South Africa
First National Bank
Chile
Banco de Chile
Ecuador
Banco de Guayaquil
Puerto Rico
Banco Popular
Romania
Libra Bank
UK
Capital One
Posted by: Chris Skinner | May 20, 2009 at 07:11 PM