You know, the first time I had heard of Twitter, I thought it was just a useless website. A website that was just a ripoff of Facebook's status tool where you say exactly what you are doing.
I now know that Twitter has become something it was never intended for, it has become an instant news communication tool. It has given people from around the world, a new revolutionary tool to communicate that is faster then you can say "Ahmedinejad." The fact that I can receive a text message to my phone from an Iranian protesting in Iran is simply incredible. CNN, along with the main stream media, now finds itself competing with real people on the ground. You are getting your news from the people most directly affected, most knowledgeable of what is going on, unfiltered and uncensored.
Is it any wonder why the newspapers are dying? Who wants to read the news from yesterday, when you can get it now, and for free? Who wants to watch CNN or Fox News when people can read about the topic they specifically want to hear, from a blog written by someone who actually cares and really understands the subject they are writing about? Very rarely, will you ever hear a story about Intrade in the Mainstream Media, and if you do, rarely will you see any significant analysis of the prices available or how you might take advantage of such prices. This is the advantage web 2.0.
Blogs, Twitter, and Youtube are now truly revolutionary, oppressive leaders around the world can no longer silence the people and stop the flow of information. Hugo Chavez, would do well to pay attention if he tries to silence Globovision (the only significant opposition news on TV) in Venezuela. All he will accomplish by doing such a thing is to make his opposition's communication more underground, online, uncontrollable, and hidden from his view.
I also use Twitter to try gauge how a movie might do by using it to give me an idea of how the public thinks about a movie. A movie isn't going to do well because you think it's good or you think it deserves it. A movie does well because of good buzz and good word of mouth. And now a days, word of mouth is practically instant. As soon as you watch a movie, you text your friends and tell them how good you thought the movie was. You post on Facebook your personal review and your opinion on a movie probably means a lot more to your friends then what some reviewer; whom they've never met, thinks about the same movie. When you see a bunch of bad reviews and unfavorable tweets, don't bet on the movie doing well.
Twitter is a tool and like any other tool, it depends on how you use it. You still have to figure out what to search and which users have the most reliable information. What you get out of Twitter depends on the level of work you put into it. Most of the stuff that comes out of Twitter, Blogs, and Youtube is crap and you can waste a lot of time filtering out the junk. But every so often, you'll find a nugget of gold, and that makes it all worth it.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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Interesting post. I used Twitter a couple times as an input into my formula for determining a movie's box office total but then realized it wasn't that reliable. X-Men Wolverine had universally terrible reviews, or word-of-mouth if you will, on Twitter but still smashed the box office for $85 million. Then Star Trek came out and from the Twitter reviews you would have thought the movie was going to make $100+ million that weekend, but it only did $75 million. What I'm saying is that a movie where a large percentage of the target audience is likely to own a Twitter account is of course going to generate great word-of-mouth (if the movie is good). Star Trek aimed for the tech'ish 18-35 male audience. Shocker, that's also Twitter's prime demo. Mentions of Fast and Furious were nearly absent from Twitter when that movie came out because the target audience of red-state Nascar-loving people simply don't own Twitter accounts. But that movie did a $71 million opening (in April!) without any Twitter word-of-mouth.
ReplyDeleteLike you say..."What you get out of Twitter depends on the level of work you put into it."
Very interesting MMB, I think that Word of Mouth has a smaller impact on sequels like Fast and Furious and X-Men Wolverine. Which would also explain why Spiderman 2 & 3 did so well even though they were worse then the first one. I remember being specifically told that Spiderman 2 was awful and still I went.
ReplyDeleteWith Star Trek, expectations were already really high and Star Trek merely met those high expectations that were already built into the Weekend Predictions. Look at the previous Star Trek movies and none of them even come close to this last one.