The Future of Twitter May Not on the Web

I’m a big fan of Twitter, like millions of users, but I don’t think its current web form is sustainable. Twitter the Company (Twitter Co.) has not innovated fast enough there, and it’s showing. There are two other Twitter use variations that will be more prevalent.

In total, I see currently 3 key Twitter uses: Web, Mobile, Integrated.

Let’s quickly review each one.

On the web (via www.twitter.com)
This form has its challenges. Twitter has been slow at innovating their web user experiences and features. The recent “New Twitter” was long overdue and barely enough to move the needle. And Twitter web clients (e.g. Seesmic, TweetDeck, HootSuite) have become confusing dashboards, appealing mostly to the socially hyperactive or online community manager.

And this segment being so close to Twitter Co.’s territory, few are daring to innovate or introduce anything on top of www.twitter.com because Twitter Co. has yet to clarify their intentions on where they will compete or not compete. Twitter-the-platform is beyond its API. One innovation I saw there was a plug-in called Power Twitter which had some of New Twitter’s features about a year before Twitter. Case in point: New Twitter usurped it.

Twitter on Mobile
Mobile is light. Mobile is fast. Mobile is simple.
Twitter is light. Twitter is fast. Twitter is simple.

It’s a great match.

With my iPhone standard Twitter client, I have multiple accounts set-up as curated news channels, and I switch back and forth between them to stay on top of some topics very efficiently. My stream itself (@wmougayar) isn’t as valuable as the additional vertical streams that I have piped through these accounts as re-published via Eqentia. This is the future of news reading: custom streams & personalized streams, and Eqentia is at the forefront of it.

Integrated
One simple example is how Foursquare integrates Twitter and allows you to broadcast your update straight from the Foursquare app. But the big revelation for me was installing and using RockMelt and how they have totally integrated Twitter and Facebook into the browsing experience. Now I can tweet something about a web page directly and easily,- on the fly, with little or no friction. I can interact with Facebook even more deeply without leaving my browser. This is a big boost for social media. I’ll be doing more from RockMelt which is now my standard browser. Previously I had to rely in bit.ly to share a page, but bit.ly was an intermediary, not a one-click pony, even with their bookmarklet and sidebar plug-in.

At Eqentia, we’re integrating Twitter inside our news app in ways that are seamless, innovative and most importantly that offer value to the end-user. We’re doing this on the “in”, the “middle” and the “out”. We integrate a mined Twitter stream on the portal webpage (in), we continuously update the number of Twitter-shares an article has received (middle), and we publish a curated content stream to a private or public Twitter account (out).

Can Twitter turn its web presence around, and make it more significant?
I hope they can turn this around if they want to take a piece of the Web search/starting page business that Google owns. Apparently, they are serious enough that they are going after the twittersearch.com domain. They have a chance only if they provide a rich enough complete app environment like Facebook. Facebook started firmly on the web, then they went into Integrated mode deeply (look at the variety of Facebook social plugins that are popping up everywhere!), and now they are going to improve on their Mobile experience. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more Facebook mobile clients emerge such as Friendly for the iPad.

Twitter has a chance to turn their Web presence around, but for me, for now, I’m getting more value from Twitter on Mobile and from increased Integrated-Twitter apps, whether it’s inside a browser, inside a client or inside a SaaS or mobile app.

“Twitter inside.” (chirp chirp chirp tune)

I’m betting on it. I’m biased for Integrated. Twitter is social, and “Twitter inside” will drag social media to also be inside and integrated, but that will be the subject of another post.

Related articles

• Curate Your News Streams or Drown in Them (eqentia.com)
• RockMelt browser gets Facebook and Twitter in your Chrome (geek.com)
• Twitter Goes After Twittersearch.com (techcrunch.com)
• Socialize Chrome Without Switching Browsers (aka, Who Needs RockMelt?) [Video] (lifehacker.com)