The first gathering of recruitment twitterers in the UK (which unfortunately I can't make) might be over-subscribed, but elsewhere in the digital landscape commentators are already dismissing Twitter as last year's trend and looking for the next big thing.
The latest take on this was in an excellent article that I read in Revolution magazine. The piece focused on the transitory nature of early adopting social networking audiences and said that they tended to move on from one trend to the next as soon as the original trend becomes mainstream. Social networking sites are like cool underground bands, as soon as they become popular they are, by definition, no longer cool. Although this explains the demise of Friends Reunited and changing attitudes to Facebook (hilariously described in a Guardian article last week as the "Reuters of inanity") I don't wholly agree with this over-simplified view - there must come a time when the utility of a site makes it indispensable? Maybe Twitter is heading that way, weaving its way into the very fabric of the internet?
Anyway, the article went on to list a handful of social networking sites that could be next year's Twitter, or last year's Facebook, if you know what I mean - Seesmic the video blogging site, Spotify the music streaming site that's already attracting a lot of attention, Gypsii that aims to capitalise on the increased use of mobile internet devices, FDCareer that looks like a place where you can track your personal development plan in order to keep recruiters updated on your development, Yammer that aims to harness the power of social networking for corporate productivity and Power that acts as an aggregator for all your social networking activities.
Check the sites out and see what you think, you never know, one of them might be the next big thing and you could be part of the wave of early adopters that establishes them in the mainstream.
Disclaimer - I've only been using Twitter since the start of this year, so it's obviously outrageous for me to claim that it's last year's trend, I'm still learning how to use it properly, I just thought the article was cool, made some thought provoking points and wanted to share it!
It will be Twitter today and something else tomorrow.
Posted by: John | 03/30/2009 at 02:17 PM
Got to start Twittering soon. Great article.
Posted by: John | 04/06/2009 at 09:55 PM