“Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent,” said Bertrand Russell. And while his words are typically poured over by philosophers as opposed to the Technorati, his idea can be applied to pretty much every part of human history. We are an inherently skeptical population, it seems. Especially when it comes to technology.
Feature adoption is often met with an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude. But two new pieces of technology, one big and one small, from Google and Twitter respectively got me thinking recently about what it really takes to change people’s social media habits.
Twitter’s official retweet function has been met with a lot of fanfare, but hardly the kind Twitter wanted. Until now, “retweeting” was always an unofficial function, a meme perpetuated by users who needed a system with which to quote one another. Seeing this user behavior, Twitter took steps to codify retweeting by making it an actual feature. In doing so, however, they’ve inadvertently disturbed the flexibility and editability inherent to the unofficial function. People have protested on Twitter in two ways: by voicing their hatred for the new function, and by continuing to retweet the old-fashioned way.
Old-fashioned communication is what Google is trying to evolve, as well, but on a much more grandiose scale. Google Wave has been billed as the next evolution in online communication, a highly collaborative and expandable platform that will “bring together e-mail, instant messaging, wiki, and social networking.” And as with every new Google product, there’s been a scramble to procure beta invites. But from my personal experience, excitement quickly gives way to confusion. The first line of any wave is almost always something resembling “I’m in the wave,” quickly followed by “I don’t get it.”
So are the official retweet and Google Wave failures? Hardly (if history has taught us anything…). I was recently Gchatting with a friend about Google Wave. There were a lot of questions about why it exists, what it does, and whether or not we’d ever use it…the only conversations that really seem to be going on about Wave right now. Then she forwarded me her very first Gchat from a few days after the Gchat feature was launched:
My Friend:
testing…
i just saw the green light.
and this is the first time i’ve used this moderately silly feature.
Her Friend:
yeah it doesn’t seem like a winner to me, but i tend to accept google’s ingenuity unconditionally
Almost three years and literally thousands of chats later, her friend’s words ring true with a sort of prescience. And my friend’s conclusion about Wave? “[I] may have to continue to hold judgment on Wave.”
Such patience when it comes to technology is certainly a virtue, especially given the social media public’s tendency to rapidly warm up to new shiny toys. After Facebook implemented the newsfeed, there was a tremendous backlash (as every Facebook redesign has experienced since), but Mark Zuckerberg stood his ground. Now it’s a central feature. Looking back on this event, Zuckerberg summed up social media users’ skepticism-turned-adoption quite lucidly and succinctly: “A lot of this is just social norms catching up with what technology is capable of.”
That said, the only sure bet that can be made is that the final draft of Google Wave and Twitter’s official retweet will have to go through a number of revisions before people consider mass adoption. But human stubbornness works both ways. Google and Twitter will be just as determined to perfect these new features as people are reluctant to start using them. And if history’s shown us anything, it’s that time is on their side.
Tags: community, conversation, Google, social media, social media tools, Twitter
RT
Interesting take Evan. Your post really made me think about my own skepticism, and I liked the philosopher’s touch. Having said that, don’t a lot of technologies and features die because they’re simply poor quality? I agree it may be too soon to tell on Google Wave and Twitter retweets. Getting over the initial shock of Twitter codifying retweets in a new format, I’m still concerned as someone who tracks metrics. Twitter’s analytics are often inaccurate, which can frustrate this exercise. I’m essentially worried the retweet tab won’t tell me what actually happened – it will miss some data and accuracy will decrease with length of time since the post. If outside tools cannot access this new codified retweet data, then I have to rely on the analytics from Twitter.com. Maybe this is a problem that can be easily solved. What do you think?
David
I think you’re right that a lot of features do die because poor quality. But I think that both features will go through a long period of refinement before the core value question arises. And given the history Twitter and Google have had in getting people to see the light, that’s why I’m willing to come down on their side. Because if five years ago you would’ve told me that anyone cares how my lunch was in 140 characters or less…
And I think the Twitter analytics concern for the new retweet is important because it raises the red flag for the entire service. That problem, like you said, plagues the entirety of tweet tracking. If we say it enough times about everything new, maybe they’ll notice. The big question will be when they open the firehose to all 3rd party developers, if anything improves on those platforms.