What people believe they get out of conversations in various social media venues says a lot about the memetics of a website’s population, as well as how the user experience has shaped the course of discussion.Twitter is primarily a communication platform, so conversation is the natural purpose of the site. However, about a year ago LinkedIn added the “LinkedIn Answers” system, which is a conversation mechanism built around the business networking of the site.
I was interested in comparing how people make use of both LinkedIn and Twitter for the purpose of conversations, and asked people on both sites how they compared the two.
People on LinkedIn generally felt the following:
- That LinkedIn is less dependent on your followers
- Many people who responded had tried Twitter, but were not actively using it
- That Twitter can generate much faster responses to questions
- That Twitter’s 140-character limit can generate more to-the-point responses, but that LinkedIn allows for much greater depth of response
- Twitter users are perceived as more tech-savvy and “current” than LinkedIn users
From the Twitter perspective, people felt this way:
- People think it’s easier to find/save Q&A on LinkedIn. (I wonder if they know about Summize, AKA http://search.twitter.com ?) In any case–free business idea: create a Q&A “map” that integrates with Twitter.
- That they check Twitter more frequently, and only go to LinkedIn for maintaining the e-rolodex.
- That LinkedIn’s interface is stifling
- That LinkedIn doesn’t require as many connections as Twitter to be useful
My own conclusion, based on all the feedback, is that tools for organizing knowledge based on Twitter conversations is still a wide-open field. Maybe someone will build this. My other conclusion, and one I hope to apply as we build out GamerDNA–is to unite the ideas of simplicity (Twitter) with great tools that enable exploration (LinkedIn’s strength).
For those interested in seeing the original discussions on both Twitter and LinkedIn, you can view them here:
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