I love Twitter because it is immediate.  It is the thought process and relationship equivillant of instant gratification.  That is pretty addictive for most people.  On the other hand, blogging is the process by which a thought, a statement or an idea is presented in a deep and meaningful way.   It is the vehicle through which a post can be fleshed out.

         I like to think of it this way, Twitter is verbal shorthand.  It is clear, concise, direct and immediate.  Who doesn’t love that when time is short and people want to connect to others and not feel isolated in the midst of their day.  Blogging is more like a novel or  a streaming consciousness.  It is a full on conversational connection; if comments are encouraged, embraced and followed up on.

Or for those of you who are more visual; think on this:

        Twitter is like fast food and blogging is more like an all you can eat buffet.  Both are tasty, both meet the need and both have their fans.  But, when you combine them…you get a fullness of good food, tastiness, and service.  Both have their place and serve their purpose. 

         Twitter doesn’t have to replace blogging just because time is short and people have limited attention spans.  After all, there will be down time eventually for longer reads if they are temporarily short on time.  Blogging (or reading blogs) isn’t always possible because of demands on a person’s time.  However, Twitter can be a blogger’s best friend by simply being an immediate word of mouth referral (or an advertising)…an introduction of sorts.  It is like being invited to a party where you know no-one.  Then, the host of the party (Twitter) introduces you to people who share the same interests as you, have connections that will bless you; and maybe, just maybe, you will discover that your blog and some of Twitter’s referrals have mutual friends that you both know and love.  That also works in reverse…your Twitter stream can be enriched by the readers of your blog.  Don’t you just love it???

          People are being influenced daily by where they go and what they purchase online by these powerful effects.   It is a digital form of word- of -mouth.  It appears that the negative opinions regarding the Bruno movie… which is based on it’s gay theme of an Austrian television host, may have prevented this movie from having a repeat of it’s opening day’s financial success.   It may or may not be true, that online word of mouth prevented many people from viewing scenes that many have alleged are pornographic in nature; but, many voiced their negative comments in multi-media outlets after seeing it; including Barbara Walters who said on her show, The View, that she believes parents should keep young kids away from this movie because of the up close shots of genitals and scenes of  vividly descriptive anal sex.  However, as long as people perceive the Twitter effect as being true…it will gain in it’s ability to influence people’s behaviors.

          The ways that Twitter is being used is still in its infancy.  People are exploring the limits, the rules, the regulations, the benefits, the profitability, and the power of  Twitter.  I think you are going to see Twitter explode.  There are scoffers…mainly people who have tried to use it strictly for business purposes of direct marketing.  That doesn’t appear to be effective.  Most Twitter users are people who are connecting in a social way and for a variety of reasons.   For the most part, Twitter streams are not targeted markets, so that limits a plan to heavily promote tweets intended to make massive amounts of money.  Many hope to benefit financially in a linear kind of way…but, often people are offended and distrustful when approached in an unsophisticated business model, by people who approach them with an in-your-face, door-to-door kind of way.

         True influence is going to come by the power of recommendation or rejection.  This is done by planting seeds of approval or discontent by a peer-to-peer approach.  Big business is going to learn to hire people who will annoymously plant seeds of recommendation.  That is different than an affiliate kind of way of putting out an affiliate link which will directly connect them to a business or product.  Others, realizing the power of recommendation marketing are demanding transparency when a recommendation is underwritten by financial gain by the person doing the recommending.

          Anyone who knows anything about gardening knows that you must plan, prepare, nuture and then harvest your produce.  Part of the planning is strategy, preparing means that you need to evaluate what is needed that will allow the business person or individual or organization to achieve their goals of influence and success.  Planning what kind of seeds to plant and when to plant them is part of that planning and preparation.  Nurturing those seeds of recommendation or influence will require many things including large numbers of “seeds- or people sending out tweets”.  It will require a little psychology, a lot of personal relationships built on trust and responsibility and an awareness of when too much is too much and when there is not enough “seeding” going on. 

         The reason for that awareness is that Twitter is a volunteer thing.  Every person has the right of choice whether to follow another Twitterer back; that is crucial for a two way relationship.  If someone is offended, spammed, intruded on or direspected…they will delete or block that person from their Twitter stream.  This will end the influence or the harvest of the desired effect of the Twitter user’s “seeds of influence”.  It is all evolving as you read this. 

          Lest not forget…gardening can be destroyed by pests.  Pests in a real live garden come in all kinds of shapes and sizes.  Conditions can destroy a garden as well.  A productive garden takes all of this into consideration.  Pests online are those who have destruction in mind….those who spam or who try to destroy by hacking into accounts to steal data to be used later for financial gain.  Twitter and other online means of social networking are trying valiantly to curb such pests.   As far as conditions go, some of those can be controlled and some cannot.  The most powerful conditions that you can control as a Twitter user are respect, responsibility, trust, honesty and authenticity.  A fake person or one who operates without those conditions quickly becomes powerless and blocked!  So grow your “gardens” with care so that your harvest of influence is based on the good things that all relationships need to be healthy.  Be very careful about the fertilizer you use because it can come back to “burn” you!

        When Ted Turner’s daughter, Laura Turner Seydel,  heard about this she said she would get her Dad to throw his support around the world to get him to his goal simply for the fact that Ted Turner is a part of an organization called Nothing But Nets.  This is an organization that backs  purchasing nets for families, for the small price of $10, to fight malaria.  http://www.NothingButNets.net . 

         Larry King, www.twitter.com/kingsthings has followed up the challenge himself with a challenge issued on a video which can be seen here:  http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/04/15/lkl.kutcher.response.cnn  It is starting to look like a rumble to me.

         Ashton is trying to make a point…he is trying to say that one person can have as much influence as a whole news network with all of the new social network tools that the common man/woman has at their finger tips.   This is a case where fame can do tremendous good for people in need; I applaud that.   I too think that the balance of power in how the world’s perception of  people and events  is changing.  It will be interesting to see how things evolve for the better or the worse.  Thanks to all for participating in this social experiment.