Twitter is emerging as a top social network aimed and marketed for essentially any computer user that wants to keep their friends, colleagues, and/or fans in “the loop.”
Teens are dominating the social networking market with numbers that are still growing exponentially though they are still primarily using Facebook for social interaction and networking amongst friends and family.
Why haven’t teens adapted to Twitter, currently the third most visited social networking service next to Myspace and Facebook?
While teens demonstrate a firm understanding of technology, the fact is Facebook is a more integrated and, most importantly, a more simple social network.
Think about this: to upload a picture of you and/or your friend on Twitter, it takes approximately five steps.
1 - First, you open your Twitter account,
2 - Go to TwitPic.com (or any other photo uploading service directly marketed for Twitter),
3 - Login to Twitpic using your Twitter credentials
4 - Click upload photo
5 - Tweet (or push) it out.
On the other hand, when using Facebook to upload a picture, it takes three steps.
1 - Click the photo icon in the status update area,
2 - upload a photo,
3 - Share or push it out.
It’s a simple as that.
The teen market is not motivated to use multiple sites and services to share their content, especially when they can use a simpler service (Facebook, in this instance) In fact, all of the services are integrated on Facebook.
Though I am a teen and I am also on Twitter, I am still part of very niche market - teens have have adapted to social ecosystems and the world around them. But the average teen, which is the majority, are looking for a simpler service or social ecosystem which allows them to share the content, collaborate with others, and socialize in one set environment with out using external applications.
The majority of Twitter users are able to easily adapt to it quickly and efficiently. Why? Because the majority of active Twitter users have basic knowledge and the ability to understand the core of the service. Though Twitter may not be a current trend for the present day teen market, it soon will be. With more and more teens adapting and learning more about technology, and the internet as a whole, they are on a driven path to a life gone digital and a life gone social.
Author: Tommy Fishback
Follow @tommyfishback on Twitter
Sarah Austin.
News, comments and interviews around micro fame online. Pop17 is a two-to-three minute daily exploration to track, analyze and understand the new cultural phenomenon of online micro-celebrity. Who are these new influentials? What are their stories? How have they leveraged their online successes? These are the kinds of questions we will explore everyday at Pop17. Grab an RSS feed! Or you can find me on Twitter and YouTube.
