twit for tat

6 months, 2 courses, and 1 great professor could not convince me that twitter is a powerful marketing tool, i know, the news and the surveys give you a hell lot of information about how effective it is to market your product using "twits", but i just dont get it. to start with, twitter is about updates from people you "follow" and for heaven's sake it allows about 140 characters in that text box, so coke is launching a new flavour, and it had a twitter update there about it, i know that company has a million followers but what exactly are we expecting here? people who are on twitter every day, all the time to respond to "that" update ? im not sure if we are targeting the people we want. twitter, as popular it is, needs constant attention, "ah my friend updates his location on twitter" its so convenient to spot it.. quite frankly, who cares? and who are these people who are updating their status every now and then, people with too much time, and probably some kind of attention seeking syndrome. getting back to the marketing aspect of twitter, i havent tried this part yet, but it is supposedly a very powerful tool, "let people know about your product", its a waste of time. I am better off making a facebook page than having a tweet page. the people at twitter have to realise that the customer that they cater too are either teenagers who have no work, or very tech savvy people, both care enough to be a part of something new happening @ web 2.0. the companies have to realise that they need to have a very powerful filter technique in order to separate and classify user's .. rather customers according to their needs. both, also do not care much about "products" they are there, because they want to be "there".. i have tried my hands on twitter, and i would dare not enter that boring world again. i have always felt, there is a fine line between keeping it casual and keeping it professional. a good mix of them would certainly do wonders for you and your product, but a random mix .. well a random mix is usually a mess. i do appreciate the new addition "twitter business", and can also admire the marketing done using 140 characters, but then we have to consider the fact that it is only the first step that is taken here, first stop in long journey of b2b marketing, but then, what next, are they always going to use twitter to find businesses, i dont think so, i think we need more that 140 characters there. sure you can just post your website link and hope for others to reach you, but then again you are catering only to the "highs" and the "lows" people.. when the people in between are the ones that really need you. 021

technology now

my first technology blog, has to be special and for obvious reasons has to be about Microsoft. I was going to follow a similar concept like my tumchalo page, but then my thoughts about anything would be more like a combination of thoughts things that i see and read about. well, here it goes, the latest now is about the war of operating systems, Microsoft with its mature management, and google with the "cool factor" attached. my verdict, Microsoft has nothing to worry about, especially when it comes to operating systems, we the people have got so much used to using windows for our computing needs that it would take decades for another operating system to even break even with. break even eh, i think i went wrong there, break even is not gonna happen, not at all, Windows is windows, like it or leave it. it is very easy for a company like Microsoft emulate some of the features of another OS or application, but it has a class of its own, and would rather like to keep its head high. something really exciting happened a couple weeks ago when microsoft launched office space live, yes people, a direct head on clash with the famous google docs, and the twist here..ladies and gentlemen, office live does support docx documents. just the other day, in my marketing class, the class im sitting in right now.. its not class time, i came early so decided to post..anyways.. we were talking about google having various applications online which are extensively being used by millions of users, but at the same time, these are user's who take the operating system for granted, they dont know what they would be missing without the microsoft keyboard they are typing on. a personal view on the OS wars, I would never shift to an operating system until it is as popular as Windows, with so much happening in work and life, do you think you really have the time to search and download an application that emulates windows, or office not to forget you still wont be getting a full fledged editor, google talk is one application that i would probably die to use, oh..and not to forget picasa photo editor, but then it is disappointing that when im working on my friend's Apple machine, i dont have access to them, and im not sure, but i think google talk does not have a mac version yet, yea yea, there are these cheap 3rd party softwares you can use to login, but then, just not yet. why should i waste time in searching and installing a software that is not something i want, it is something i can work with. On the other hand, there is Microsoft Windows, no thinking involved, go online, download anything, and IT Will Work. the choice is yours, do you wanna be cool outside...or cool inside. 021