Twitter – Micro-Blogging for the Enterprise?
December 5, 2007 by Mit Majithia
Barely a day goes by that we do not hear about the growth of Twitter and the how addictive it can be in terms of its usage. As more people get used to the idea, it acts like a controlled form of Instant Messaging – not as invasive as Skype or AIM and more instant than an email along with the ability to broadcast. Among the many various applications being envisaged, the million-dollar question is whether it will be used in the enterprise or not ? Send 30 minute updates to your team about the status of your project ? Assign tasks to team members on your way home on the subway ? Instant notification of schedule changes ? Will it get the stamp of validity from corporate customers who will use this tool to communicate with their employees or customers ? Amazon and JetBlue are two pioneers in this field who are using it to notify their customers about product availability and flight deals. Viget Labs, a local company uses Twitter internally to communicate among team members and to share information about project status, blogs and articles.
Nevertheless, there are definite concerns about privacy and sharing of corporate information. Viget Labs has laid down policies about sharing of customer information similar to those laid down by many companies for blogging. The social element coupled with the sharing and broadcasting nature of the service that has made the Twitter service so popular, may very well work against it in the enterprise space and slow its growth in the enterprise space.
Just as many organizations have adopted blogs to communicate with their customers, its easy envision it being used similarly to reach out to the Twitter generation . Typically, organizations will more easily adopt it to use it to connect to end consumers but the value that it brings for use internally among team members or a project is rather limiting.
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