Month: April 2008

I’ve been introducing a lot of people to Twitter lately. The conversation when I introduce it to someone has a very familiar pattern:

Me:

Do you use twitter?

Them:

No, but I’ve thought about it. But I don’t think I would get much out of it.

Me:

I had the same thoughts when I started, but I’ve gotten a few business leads, connections to the community, and speaking engagements through Twitter. So I get tremendous value out of it, and it’s fun.

This reminded me of the way that Scott Kveton talked about Twitter during his intro at Ignite Portland. He said:

By the way, when I tell you about this, you are going to think this is the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard of–because everyone who Twitters thought it was stupid too.

That’s absolutely true. Many of the most prolific people on Twitter had the same thoughts as people who look at Twitter now and think it won’t work for them. I thought it might be interesting to go back in time and see if they tweeted about their impressions.

This sparked a series of re-tweeting people’s early tweets. Some of my favorites:

@marshallk “now if I can just figure this service out quickly :)“

@davewiner “eat ideas flying around“

@betsywhim “figuring out how to use this thing“

1st tweet from @jowyang: “Surfing the web” 2nd tweet: “sitting at home“

@ravenzachary “Is this more than a fad?“

@kveton “I’m sitting here trying to figure out why I’m using this … haha … :-)“

There are a lot of funny early tweets to look at. But the main reason I wanted to expose this was to say to people who are new that you’re not alone in wondering whether or not Twitter will be worth it to you. The most experienced Twitter users started out with the same questions, wondering if they had anything worthwhile to say, and if anyone would bother to follow them.

So give Twitter a shot and be sure to stick with it for awhile until you find your voice. Sometimes things that are valuable aren’t apparent until you give them a try.