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The Next Email--Why Twitter will change the way business communi
Hard to believe that only 10 or 15 years ago we interacted with coworkers and colleagues with memos and phone calls. Email and instant messaging changed all that. Now there's a new communications revolution coming. These services mix contacts, instant messaging, blogging, and texting, and they're poised to make email feel as antiquated as the mimeograph.
The best known of the new services is Twitter. Since its debut last spring, it has been one of the fastest-growing apps in the history of the Internet. The best way to describe it is as a microblog service in which you tell people what you're doing or thinking at any given moment. The hook is that you're limited to 140 characters. "It's strangely addictive," says NBC videographer Jim Long. "Evidently, people are interested in what I'm doing, and I genuinely care about what they're doing."
Twitter's basic idea has proven so popular that others have copied its premise and added features. Jaiku lets me include blog posts, my link blog, and more along with my mini posts. Pownce users can send files to one another, as well as calendar events. At Facebook, I can add such information as my favorite music and the syndicated Web feeds I've shared in Google Reader.
All this adds up to a new way to share information about yourself. Although the content of the messages can vary wildly from voyeuristically interesting to terribly dull, a frequent stream of updates can strengthen your brand. My 4,000-plus Twitter "followers" can get my blasts online or via text message, and each one is also its own Web page, which means that Google can see it and let people search for it. When you're traveling frequently and working from coffeehouses or the backseat of a cab, these services are great to keep in touch with coworkers back at the office and with customers nearby. "I post where I travel and arrange user meetups," says Betsy Weber, an evangelist with software firm TechSmith.
The professional intimacy these services create--hey, if you know someone's whereabouts and musical tastes, you're halfway home--can also win you clients. "People won't do business with you until they like you or have a sense of trust," says Cathryn Hrudicka, a consultant who uses Facebook, Jaiku, and Twitter. She has already gotten referrals from people she has met online because she has shown she'll be available when clients need her.
Sales and marketing are lagging in seeing the potential here. When I used all these services to tell the world that my wife and I were expecting a child in September, I anticipated hearing from the world's largest consumer-products companies begging me to try their latest diapers, food, car seats, and financial instruments. What came back? Nothing. Where was Procter & Gamble? Given what it and other companies spend acquiring new customers, there's an untapped gold mine in Twitter and Facebook because we're volunteering so much information about what we're doing right now, whether it's working on a project or eating a chicken-salad sandwich. Learning how to tap it correctly--both to sell to me directly and in seeing major trends in the millions of daily public posts--will be the next major challenge for these companies.
If we revisit this conversation again in three years, I suspect that we'll have found all sorts of little uses for these services, and they'll simply become what email is today: something we must do just to participate in the heartbeat of business.
Robert Scoble is an influential video podcast pioneer and blogger following the tech industry. Watch him at Podtech.net and read him at Scobleizer.com. For a video podcast of this column and daily "Best of the Tech Web," go to fastcompany.com/scoble.
下一代电邮——推客（Twitter）将改变商业传播方式
真难相信就在10-15年前我们跟同事和合作伙伴联系时用的还是便条和电话。电邮和即时短信把这一切都改变了。现在又有新的通讯革命要来了。这些服务把联络人，即时短信，博客和文字都糅合在一起，有望让电邮看起来象油印单张一样古老陈旧。
这些新服务中最出名的是推客（Twitter）。自从它今年春天面世以来，已经成为互联网历史上发展最快的一种应用。对它最好的描述是一种微型博客服务，你可以用它告诉别人此时此刻你在干什么，在想什么。关键是一次最多只能用140个字符。“太上瘾了，”全广（NBC）的摄像师金龙（Jim Long）说，“看起来大家还真对我在干什么感兴趣，而我也真的关心别人在干什么。”
事实证明推客的基本思路是广受欢迎的。于是其他人开始复制它的基本框架，并加入各种其他功能。佳酷（Jaiku）可以让我在这些微型帖子之外，再把博客的帖子放进去，还有我的关联博客。庞斯（Pownce）可以让用户互传文件，以及行事历。在Facebook，我可以加入自己最喜爱的音乐，以及我在谷歌阅读（Google Reader）里归纳的网络条目。
所有这一切合起来，就是一种全新的分享自己信息的方式。虽然信息的内容可以是赏心悦目也可以是味同嚼蜡，但持续的更新可以强化你的形象。我的推客有4000多“追随者”，他们可以在线或者通过文字短信收到我的声音。而每一次发声，又都形成单独的网页，可以在谷歌上找到。当你经常出差，要在咖啡馆或者的士后座工作时，这些服务很棒，可以让你和公司里的同事和附近的客户保持联络。“我把自己的行程贴出来，然后安排和用户见面，”软件公司史密斯科技（TechSmith）的推广员贝西·韦伯（Betsy Weber）说道。
这些服务提供的专业性亲密感也可以用于争取客户 — 嘿，要是知道某人的位置和音乐喜好，你就基本成功一半了。“人们如果不喜欢你，没有信任感，是不会跟你做生意的，”咨询顾问凯瑟琳·何鲁迪卡（Cathryn Hrudicka）说，她自己也是Facebook，佳酷和推客的用户。由于让人了解自己在有需要的时候随时帮忙，网上已经有人开始给她介绍客户了。
营销机构还没有对这里面的潜力反应过来。我曾经利用这些服务向全世界宣布我和太太9月份要生孩子。我本来期望世界上最大的消费品生产商来哀求我试用他们最新的尿片、食品、儿童汽车椅，还有财务工具。有人来吗？完全没有。宝洁到哪儿去了？跟他们现有的获取新客户的手段相比，推客和Facebook根本就是一个未开挖的金矿，因为我们主动提供了很多自己在干什么的信息，可以是正在做个项目，也可以是正在吃鸡肉色拉三明治。研究如何挖掘这个金矿 — 不管是直接向我销售还是从每天数不清的公开帖子中发现主流趋势 — 将是这些公司下一步主要的挑战。
三年后，如果我们再回头看这片文章，我觉得到那时我们已经发现了这些服务的各种各样的用途，它们将象今天的电邮一样，成为我们感受商业脉搏的必经之路。
罗伯特·斯考博（Robert Scoble）是追踪科技行业发展的有影响力的视频播客和博客写手。他的视频可以在Podtech.net观看，文字可以在Scobleizer.com阅读。本专栏的视频播客以及“最佳网络技术”，请参阅fastcompany.com/scoble。
