SXSW 2010: Twitter Losing Relevance?
Observed at the SXSW 2010 film festival in Austin this week, Twitter loses its edge
By Jeff Pulver
140 Conference to discuss what happened to Twitter at SXSW
AUSTIN, TX (Gosh!TV) 3/23/2010 – At South By Southwest 2010 (SXSW), a strange thing happened on the way to the Austin film festival. A community of twitter faithful shifted from sharing everything about everything on only Twitter (and maybe Facebook) and changed their habits to rely on learning about what was happening and where things were happening by using foursquare and Gowalla instead. There were other products and platforms being used including Loopt and GySPii but foursquare and Gowalla were the dominant platforms.
Friends of friends not attending SXSW may have greatly appreciated the reduction of what might otherwise appear as “noise” on twitter about specific happenings at SXSW. However, the unintended consequence of not using twitter at SXSW meant SXSW spent little time as a trending topic. In turn, that may have lowered the buzz and the impact that being a trending topic can have.
In the year since SXSW 2009, a number of friends became passionate and dependent on using Foursquare or Gowalla as the platform to share where they are and what is happening around them. At SXSW 2010, this was taken to a new level. If you’re spending time around your friends, and you have a chance to speak to them almost at will, there is something to be said about only sharing your location information. Then you have the ability to make decisions of what to do or where not to go based on this information.
There were times when one could feel the ebbs and the flows of people moving as they checked into various locations. While most of this is felt locally in the place you are, it also became apparent on the platforms when hundreds of people would rush to check in to a location. There were times when it felt like chasing ghosts. You go to a spot because a friend had checked into that spot only to discover he or she is no longer there.
Foursquare’s introduction of trending places was a good one and a foreshadowing of future features. Look forward to seeing more derivative information shared in the future. It will be the information shared from the first and second derivatives of the core information that will keep people using location based services.
At SXSW breaks, at lunch and the flight home, a typical comment shared was: “I haven’t been on twitter for two days. Not sure when I was on last on Facebook. I just look on Foursquare for what is happening and where it is happening.” This is not the case of one community moving to a new platform just because it’s new and cool. The shift was intended as a means to an end. It was the tool used by people to figure out the who, what, and where things were happening. By the end of each evening, we were not only tired but our phones had no energy left either.
The shift may be a transient one. Moments after returning from SXSW, friends had switched back to using Twitter once again as the default communication platform.
SXSW 2010 will be known as the time Foursquare came of age and the place where at least one community’s dependence on Twitter had shifted. What does it mean to the #140 community, the users of the real-time Internet? The #140conf conference in NYC on April 20th to 21st may tell.