Comments on: Twitterverse segmentation: The Journalists

By: Adriel Hampton

Adriel Hampton — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:23:39 +0000

Awesome post. An interesting discussion is “what is Twitter for?” There are so many diff uses for the tool, which is really nice. A couple of journo feeds I like are @latimes and @johnabyrne – Byrne is wicked cool to follow, really, and others should emulate him. But as for cluttering me up with links to your site, uh, I’ve still got Drudge.

By: AJAG

AJAG — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:21:45 +0000

Great post – this is crying out for a diagram

keep rambling!

By: cotterpinx

cotterpinx — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:04:50 +0000

My capability for analysis of any sort of somewhat limited these days, but while you’re at it you might want to include some reference to what may be another subgroup of the Balanced Invisible: the TRULY (and intentionally) invisible — those who protect their tweets. Maybe this is a “phase” of tweeting that new users may go through on their way to joining another category, maybe they’ll never move out of this group. Some pithy category title like “Paranoid Clique Members” might do. This group seems to be made up of folks who are concerned about the idea that they have no idea/no control who might read their tweets if left public, as well as folks who tend to think of Twitter more like an asynchronous chat to specific known individuals.

I think both those descriptions apply to me to a certain degree. I also think that those may change as i get used to other benefits of Twittering.

So i could see that developing categories that describe how people are using Twitter is not just a nifty idea to do just for kicks, but kind of a continuum describing how one’s usage can and does change over time. The Stations of the Twitterer, perhaps, though that sounds awfully blasphemous.

By: lewisshepherd

lewisshepherd — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:27:38 +0000

JB – excellent post(s), very insightful. I endorse Kelcy’s comments – and see that you’re already engaging her on the topic in realtime on twitter.

I am told there are theses and doctoral dissertations being researched using large-n twitter feeds as fodder for social-networking, but your post is the first I’ve seen with that level of detailed slicing, and I’ll be interested to see how your categories match up in future study. Also, it’ll be interesting for us all to watch over time as twitter expands (if it continues to expand) beyond early adopters, to see other subgroups emerge.

Great post!

By: Kelcy Allwein

Kelcy Allwein — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:52:47 +0000

I would suggest that balanced invisible may need to be redefined or split into another segment. You define it as if it is negative for just real friends or Moms. That’s really not a fair definition since many individuals are using safe groups/networks to learn how to diversify. Additionally the technology is still limited in search capabilities to help people break out. I would also suggest that there is a different segment under balanced invisible who are growing diverse networks but doing it in a balanced way. They have not yet achieved a large following for the engaged intellectual or curious celebrity category and in fact may never do that. I would suggest that this group may have started with friends or colleagues and then diversify as they come in contact with engaged intellectuals or curious celebrities. I would certainly never have networked with some of the folks on my twitter network except for connections that were made through those other two groups.

By: SEB

SEB — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:06:03 +0000

John, this is a superb post, thank you.