Twitter and the ‘What Now Factor’

As Twitter nears the peak of escalation, I thought we should look to the past for an example of how a channel, like Twitter, starts losing its luster, its most powerful users, and its mass appeal.

George Burns/Harpo Productions, via Associated Press

Oprah and Evan Williams Tweeting on the Oprah Set

“One small message from Oprah, one giant leap for Twitter,” says Jenna Wortham of the New York Times in this morning’s paper. I couldn’t agree more. It was a big week for Twitter, with Ashton Kutcher, Oprah and CNN all vying for screen time on your Twitter stream.

But what does this kind of media attention really mean for Twitter?

The Millionth Follower

As the mainstream media and mega-celebs flock to any new media platform, and the masses follow, the entire community is overwhelmed with a huge volume of low-value content (and low-value participation).

Ashton's Millionth Follower: Quantity not Quality

For example, Ashton’s millionth follower was a person with 432 followers, who followed 2 people and has (of yet) never tweeted a word. There’s no value there.

The What Now Factor

My friend Brad introduced me to what he calls the ‘What Now Factor.’ The What Now Factor is the length of time it takes the average user to join a new media channel, figure out the channel, then ask themselves: What Now?

For example, I joined MySpace. Nine months later I had tons of friends, a pretty active MySpace page, and I got bored. That’s when I asked myself: What Now? The answer: Facebook. In my world, I hit the What Now Factor in about nine months on MySpace.

MySpace and Facebook: What Now Migration Analysis

It’s my new-found belief that the What Now Factor very closely correlates to the length of time it takes for a channel to cycle through Escalation. As you can see in the Life Cycle Analysis above, the Escalation phase for MySpace may actually lead to the migration of users to Facebook, which, in late 2006, had just entered its Adoption phase.

Why might this migration occur? The Internet celebrities created in the Adoption phase of MySpace hit the What Now Factor and start to migrate to a new channel (Facebook), leading others on to the ‘next big thing’ at the early stages of Gestation or Adoption on the new channel.

How To Avoid High ‘What Now’ Attrition

Any channel that fails to answer the ‘What now?’ question for its most avid users, as the channel approaches the end of escalation, risks losing their early (and most sophisticated) user base to new channels. In this case, Twitter might lose users to Tumblr or Indenti.ca. So, how can Twitter avoid this migration?

Twitter must do three things:

1. Ask The Tough Questions: How is Twitter being used? Where are our users finding the greatest value? What are examples of the highest quality content on Twitter?
2. Adjust and Adapt Quickly: With answers to those questions, Twitter must evolve.
3. Encourage and exemplify quality content creators who add the most value to their constituents.

Takeaway Message

Try, as hard as you can, to avoid getting caught up in the Twitter hype.

Make sure you’re watching Twitter’s early adopters. Make sure you look for other micro-blogging platforms that answer the ‘What Now?’ question. Most importantly, take a look at who’s following you on Twitter. Look at who you’re following. Take a hard and objective look at the quality of the content you see streaming by all day long and ask yourself: Okay, what now?

My Questions To You

How long do you think it will take you to get to the What Now factor on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn? How do you want Twitter to answer the ‘What Now’ question?

About the author

Andrew Davis -

In 2002, Andrew founded Tippingpoint Labs with journalist James Cosco. Since then, he's spent countless hours exploring the online universe and building a methodological approach to developing digital strategies that drive revenue or reduce costs.

Andrew's always asking big questions and analyzing data to understand markets, online forces and even business models. Andrew's research has resulted in the creation of innovative online metrics including Online Brand Value and Category Brand Value, eye-opening graphical representations of website evolution through the New Media Life Cycle and even using online data to predict offline revenue.

When he's not surfing the web, Andrew's traveling the globe speaking to a wide-variety of audiences about everything from social media to the future of print. Andrew is a frequent contributor to the Tippingpoint Labs website and has been creating valuable content since the early 1990s for The Jim Henson Company, CNN, The Today Show and MTV.

He's contributed to a book of short stories, called The Way Things Were and produced and co-wrote Roadside Ambition a documentary film about one small town with two huge balls.

"In a world where content is consumed as rapidly as it's created, companies need to develop a sound strategy to creating valuable online experiences that can, and should, be leveraged enterprise-wide. There is a content solution to every business challenge."