Twitter: Reading The Tea Leaves

In October, 2007, Tom Davenport, a noted technology author and holder of the President’s Chair in Information Technology and Management at Babson College, asked an important question: “Where’s the “working” in Social Networking?”

His article, in the Harvard Business Review, began with an unequivocal statement:

“A popular current myth is that social networking sites … are thriving with adults and companies because of their business applications. It ain’t so, and I’m not sure it ever will or should be true.”  He was referring to MySpace and Facebook, and used his two children as authorities.  At that time, Twitter was just a glimmer in its founder’s eye.

Two and a half years ago, after more than seventeen years online, I would have endorsed Davenport’s logic.  Businessmen, myself included, are prone to reading tea leaves about such matters.  We view the world through years of experience, and take our best shot at prognosticating about the future.  We are frequently and staggeringly wrong.

What a difference a few years can make.

The first Twitter message, (“just setting up my twttr“), was sent at 9:50 PM,  March 21, 2006, and with it Twitter sprang from the tea cup and vaulted into Internet history.

Who really knows why Twitter has captured the imagination, how long it will last, or what the ultimate impact will be on business?  But here are the facts today:

• As of April, 2010, Twitter has a registered population of 105,779,710.  Of the 223 countries on the Earth, only 11 have a larger population than Twitter.
• Twitter grows by over 300,000 new users per day.
• Twitter logs over 180 million unique visitors per month.
• Twitter only has 175 employees.
• Major, consumer-oriented companies, like Dunkin’ Donuts, Ford Motor Company and Mountain Dew Beverages, have strong and successful Social Media departments.  They are listening carefully to their customers, and they are selling lots of donuts, cars and soft drinks.
• In one of the worst job markets in U.S. history, where even MBA’s cannot find gainful employment, there have been 13,633 new jobs posted on Elance in just the last 15 days.  224 of those jobs are in Social Media.

In the short time it has taken to write this brief article, over 300 entrepreneurial followers have joined the Jericho Technology Twitter population.  Many of these men, women and companies will become our future clients.  As any real-world businessman will tell you, that’s a lot of tea leaves.