Twitter is everyone's favorite whipping boy when it comes to 2.0. "I don't get it" or "It's useless" or "It's trite" -- and I am certainly guilty of some of this thinking myself.
In defense, I point you to Joshua Porter's 'Opaque Value Problem'. Technological 'value' can only be measured by the needs of a single individual. And as Jeremiah Owyang has said, if done correctly, Twitter functions more like a chat room than a stream of disconnected thoughts. In business school, we'd call this 'network effects'. Lately, I've been following more and more people in the social media/web development arena whose opinions and foresight I greatly value. I have definitely learned a good deal, and have had the opportunity to actually engage in conversations with them. (and I'm just a d-list web personality at best)
Case in point, today I started ranting about what kind of airline I wish existed. Complaining about air travel is like complaining about Chicago winters -- its one of those collective ills. It seems like airlines have been reduced to the same level of customer service as a Greyhound bus. My snitter was going crazy with replies (snitter is a desktop app that accesses twitter -- so far, it's been pretty reliable). From my one, almost random complaint, emerged an entire wish-list of services/features for our perfect airline, and I'll share it with you:
At fictional Twitter Airlines, we offer:
- all flights with absolutely no children under 12 (arbitrary but ideal)
- free wifi access
- but no mobile calling service (cell phones have ruined enough, haven't they? controversial, maybe)
- movies & tv on demand -- and normal headphone jacks
- no barriers to using your miles (we made em up, you earned em, why would we stop you??)
- opportunities to earn more miles (did you show up early? buy food or drinks? used us multiple times in one month?)
- on time service, and greater communication about possible delays (on a recent flight, Southwest waited until 30 minutes before a flight to notify me of a 2 hour delay -- even though the delay originated much much earlier)
- if we're delayed or we have to cancel a flight, we'll do our best to immediately negotiate you onto other airlines and flights
- real leg room, real elbow room, and real bathrooms -- having no first class section will help out -- every seat is in first class!
- customer service -- no, not just the little booth with the people that are obviously trying to avoid you as quickly as possible -- use your phone/laptop in the terminal to immediately connect with a customer service person that can serve you
- actual food and beverage service -- you can even order those chicken strips from the Chili's in the terminal from us up to 30 minutes before your flight so you don't have to wait in line
- the kind of respect and trust you should receive from a company that values your patronage
Anything to add? to subtract? Would you pay a premium for these services? How much of a premium? 20%? 30%? 100%?
Companies are already on Twitter, with their ear to stream and there's a lot they can learn, but there's even more to be gained by active participation. As a fellow twitter-er put it, "glad you're taking notes. Any airline that's taking notes as well will do well."
What is something you've learned from using Twitter?
Interesting post, what about an airline where you actually swap seats during flight? Health and safety concerns aside, ban everything that needs a battery to run and make it into a speed dating/networking session. There are a bunch of people from all sorts of backgrounds on a plane so make the most of it and meet somebody interesting.
Posted by: Ross Hill | December 08, 2007 at 11:25 PM