The Sociology of Twitter, Video Interview with Liz Pullen
Sociologist and ethnographer, Liz Pullen, spent a month tracking the top 500 Twitter users (as ranked by number of followers) as well as the much-contested suggested users list. In tracking these accounts, she also closely analyzed the behaviors of new adopters and their expectations of the service. Perhaps her conclusions will help us all understand - and hopefully improve - the dismal attrition rates for the service.
Are new users able to understand and take advantage of Twitter as a powerful tool? Or are they encouraged to think of it as yet another broadcast medium? Is the suggested users list a good strategy for improving new users' experience with Twitter? Most importantly, do we or should we use Twitter a social network, an information network, or a microblogging platform?
Pullen's research covers topics such as race, age, and profession in the fastest-growing and suggested Twitter accounts. Her academic expertise also adds a very rational, impartial, and valuable voice to the social media dialogue, which is a warmly welcomed side effect of non-techies' adoption of Twitter.
Watch this fascinating take on social media from a sociologist's POV, and in the comments, let us know how you get the most benefit from Twitter.
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
--== Cougarster.C-o-m ==-- Best Cougar dating site in the world!
It's where cougars and younger men can meet(Cougar is the slang for woman who is mature, experienced and want to date with a younger man). No matter you are looking for a NSA or serious relationship, please do check it out!
I think that for many of us, twitter is one among many ways of communicating/posting/sharing and interacting online. At the end of the day it's about use, twitter's simplicity means that it can be used in many different ways. It may serve personal uses, say following news, announcements, memes; or social "conversational" uses (friends & peers); and more recently, more public uses (following brands or celebs).
No doubt the use case involving brand/celeb following is less interactive; but at some level it must create a sense of proximity to celebs, even if they don't talk one to one with their followers.
The more twitter is integrated with sites and social networks, too, the more it's going to become a pipeline. It'll then be up to those sites to aggregate feeds and help filter tweets so that users get what's most relevant to them.
There will probably be a high churn rate among new users who expected to get access to celebs on twitter, as Liz points out. No doubt about that. But it's hard to know what people feel and take away from reading and following celebs on twitter. The fact that few interact with them directly doesn't necessarily mean it's failing as a medium. With changes in access and proximity (through tools like twitter), come changes in our expectations, too. I think most people figure that out pretty quickly -- it's then up to them if it's still interesting.
Thanks for the interview!
When I first heard about twitter, I thought someone would be crazy to use it. Now I am addicted to it. Sometimes I wish I would have never heard about it, because I would have a lot more free time on my hands.
Thanks for the interesting article.
This video is better than your others 'cuz of your stylish framing and groovy lighting / colors...
My first impression from Liz's mannerisms is she was judging you as just a pretty face, she seemed like she had not a clue of your tech smarts... Don't ever let 'em doubt your tech smarts!
My second thought is that Liz is expressing the same about twitter, and for good reason! It's tempting to think Twitter's beauty is superficial and only skin deep! Yet twitter has far greater depth / potential than Liz is willing to see, right?
It'd be great if you could get all smart and uppity / challenging of the people you interview. As why not try and rattle Liz a little about her lack of passion and obvious disdain for what Twitter is or can be?
How about really messing with the people you interview, as in really getting 'em to show a variety of emotions? How about being overly-intelligent, irreverent, spastic, sublime, overly-valuing and easiely riled up?
Most of all just be yourself, but for the love of tech, please stop acting so pleasant. You got the pleasant, polite agreeable part down perfect.
Boring!
Why not break out of that mold and expand your horizons? Why not add more of that which is unexpected, more like an improvisational performance that makes more candid, more creative answerings of your interviewings.
Be well, Deane
The more twitter is integrated with sites and social networks, too, the more it's going to become a pipeline. It'll then be up to those sites to aggregate feeds and help filter tweets so that users get what's most relevant to them.
Probably the most informative and interesting interview I've yet seen on RWW. Nice work, Jolie! I'd strongly encourage you and your colleagues to get more interviews from objective voices outside the biz. They almost always provide far more useful information than the standard "tech geek interviews tech geek" format.
was told pretty good interpretation Deane wanted to say thank you took me less than what
Didn't see the interview yet, but for starter I loved reading the comments of Deane.
Thanks
Thanks
This was a great vid and I immediately went to Liz's site and read all her posts. She hit on some issues that I have also identified (signal-to-noise ratio, finding followers, etc). I'm looking forward to seeing her additional findings!
As it turns out, I recently compared the demographics of Twitter users to that of other SN's and social bookmarking/information sites. The results are at: nmc.itdevworks.com.
You readers may also find Themos Kalafatis' data-mining work both related and of interest. I'm fascinated by his findings: http://lifeanalytics.blogspot.com/
If it were not for the suggested user list, I would not have a dozen screen caps of John McCain making laughable missteps in his twitter account. Other than that, it seemed pretty pointless. I know who and what I am interested in. Search options have made Twitter better for discovering and participating in relevant conversations. Telling me who I should follow, not so much.
With Twitter growing and being used on so many sites, it's going to turn into a big pipeline of information. It's only a matter of time before everything you can think of plugs into Twitter someway or somehow.
@Deane I'm sure you meant well, but why would someone spend a month researching Twitter if she wasn't passionate about it? When you listen to her interview and read her work, you realize she's deeply fascinated by the service and uses it constantly and to great effect. It wasn't Liz who was judging anything based on appearances; it seems more like you've taken her academic mannerisms and decided that she was some kind of university snob who gave a boring interview.
Geez.
Liz is awesome and treated me with the utmost respect. She gave a fantastic interview and worked very hard to be knowledgeable about this topic.
As for my video work, I'm aware that everyone wants to see something entertaining, but I'm not going to be confrontational just for confrontation's sake. Also, I think it's unfair to ambush one's subjects. I've been a journalist and interviewer for about ten years at this point; I can tell you that the only fair, right way to "shake up" a subject in a way that gives your publication credibility and maintains trust with the public and the source is to write a well-researched, thorough text-based piece. Outside of sensationalist network news and Michael Moore documentaries, getting up in someone's grill out of the blue on video is just not a good idea.
Jolie, I am so glad you interviewed Liz, and I too was disappointed by Deane's assumption that Liz is arrogant and disinterested in Twitter.
Clearly, Deane knows little about social scientists and their passion for their studies. Most of us devote our lives to specialising in a few niches - and when we find something new, as Liz has, we then spend more years watching, studying, questioning and THINKING about it that most people would ever imagine.
I found it very interesting that the bods who run Twitter are trying to actively suggest that it isn't a social networking site. This is where participant observation (one of the research methods Liz used) come in handy to confirm people's actual behaviour (i.e. use of Twitter) compared to the the 'big picture' corporate vision of Twitter.
Again, thanks so much for sharing this interview with us.
Very interesting with regard to the disabling of local search features. It seems Twitter loves to make misstep after misstep. I completely agree with Liz's analysis that it is a broadcast medium and not a successful social network.
The comment by Deane was just a weird, I didn't get any of those vibes at all.
Finally,
A social scientist's take about Twitter and on video. Great one! RWW (the audio needs improvement though...)
Keep it up RWW!
For businesses, Twitter is a powerful social media tool for building a strong online presence and sharing meaningful interactions with local target markets.
Definitely push and pull media - broadcasting, narrowcasting and social media rolled into one. It's early days (daze!) I think folk are going to be a lot more creative with this medium, it is another way to spark creative juices - just read what people have to say about your brand on Twitterfall - brilliant. I wonder what Liz would make of Yammer?
Will people ever stop pushing version numbers on the web!
http://www.hiphopalemi.net/Sohbet.asp
Hah, I thought I was the only one to notice the groovy lighting. The interview was in a good atmosphere to :).
I wasn't clear about her message.
Did she say Twitter isn't a social network?
Because it doen't integrate new users - first as lurkers, then as novices, users & leaders.
If so, she's wrong.
It works well on all 3 of the levels she's delineated: Information Distributions Network, Microblog and Social Network.
PS: Since the guest did 99% of the speaking, the camera should have been close up on her.