September 28th, 2008

Social network applications such as twitter have a high noise to value ratio. So can it be used in a way to benefit the every day business?  Or is the noise ratio too high to get any use out of Twitter in your business?

I guess the first question that needs to be asked is do you know what Twitter is?

I recently dug into Twitter a little more and had a chance to discuss this with some other professionals at the infocamp held in Seattle this weekend.   But this got me wondering if Twitter would apply in a business application or if it was more for the social network personal use.

Before anyone can comment on this I guess you have to understand a little more about how Twitter works. This is a good video that explains what Twitter is in common language.

Watch this video and see what your thoughts are.

Here is what I think.

Twitter will be good if you are interested in meeting up with people in certain fields of interest if you can get them to follow you and you follow them.  Do I really want to know when your up or if you are going to the store or going to the bathroom.  Not really.  This to me means the NOISE ratio may be too high to make it worth while.  This does not have a business application for me.

However if you are meeting with others that are in our business field and there could be a meeting that I could participate in and learn something new or make new contact with others in the industry then maybe.  Or if you are sending tweets about sites that are interesting or relate to my area of research this could also be relevant.

Here are two cases that I think the Twitter service may be of use in business other then for social networking.

Case 1:  You do doing field work and seeing multiple clients during the day at their location.  You have an office that will answer the phone for you or forward your calls to your cell phone.  For us it would be for IT work at a clients facility or meetings about their web site.  Sending out a Tweet if you are going into a meeting or out of a meeting would be useful to the other members of your team.

Case 2: I am building a site for a service for sitters.  Parents may get updates from the sitter that as to what the kids are doing while they are out.  This would be good for new parents.  If you have three kids like I do any time away is time to be enjoyed without interruption.  however this would keep you informed as to what is going on at home without disrupting what you are doing while away.  This gives you peace of mind while not being intrusive.   This second case would also allow the parents from a mobile device communicate back to the sitter that they are on time or if they are going to be late.

I am looking for feedback from others as to what might be other cases to use Twitter for business that is going to have a high Value to Low Noise ratio.   Comments and feedback are welcome.

Oh and here is my twitter page scottk1234.  not much going on there and I don’t have friends that I am following so this is my social experiment.

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