It’s Not About Micro-Communication, It’s About Macro-Community

Twitter is the first communication mechanism I’ve been a part of that actually helps me build new relationships without any preexisting knowledge (or trust) with the other party.   Much hoopla has been made about the micro-format of Twitter and how it enables new forms of communication, but the amazing power of Twitter comes from it’s ability to allow people to connect and develop new relationships seemingly out of nothing.

My Twitter relationships may lack the depth of trust that I have in the “Friend” model (in some cases of Facebook, LinkedIn, or email but they’re still relationships that I’ve come to value and that provide me with a sense of community.

How this happened surprised me.  I had sporadically used Twitter for about a year, but wasn’t finding it very useful until I started using the search feature of Twitter to discover people that I shared a common interest with.  I’ve talked about this in the past, but in a nutshell to get an action (or Twitter usage, in my case) requires the following…

• Find people that share a common interest, motivation, or problem.  This commonality is the building blocks of relationships (aka community).
• When relationships form around a shared interest excitement is generated from the freshness of new ideas and finding people that share your passion.
• Excited users are users that take action, and in my case that was Twitter usage.

In essence by discovering people that shared my common interest for open source, community, and collaboration I discovered pockets of  users that shared my passion, and by ‘Following’ these people and interacting with them I developed new relationships that drove my adoption and usage of Twitter.

It then dawned on me that Twitter wasn’t about micro-communication it was about Macro-Community and bringing people together around the things that matter most to them, in essence, a ginormous community organizer.

I must admit, I’m excited at the opportunity for Community that Twitter has created.

More Reading

Community Building Success Factors
Finding the Value in Twitter