

Tweet is cheap - jgrahamc
http://blog.jgc.org/2010/10/tweet-is-cheap.html

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ryanwaggoner
This reminds me of the excellent point made by Andrew Mason (founder of
Groupon) in his talk at Startup School: the easier it is for people to lend
their "support" to a cause [1], the less meaningful their participation. If
signing an online petition takes a single click, a million "signatures" might
mean less than 10 hand-written letters to your congressperson.

1\. Obviously, donating money or doing something tangible is different, but
I'm speaking of things like signing petitions, swapping out your profile pic,
etc.

~~~
frou_dh
That's why I never tap out an "RIP" comment or forum post. It's insincere to
do that then flip back to whatever else you're doing on your computer.

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cperciva
_A tweet or retweet of a social cause may help spread the news, but it takes
just as much effort as retweeting a LOLcat._

Twitter is inhomogeneous. I pay attention to retweets from people I follow,
because the people I follow don't retweet LOLcats. (And the day one of them
does is the day I unfollow them.)

Not all retweets are created equal.

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TimH
On the flip side, this tweet and the action from it raised almost $15,000 for
breast cancer in less than 24 hours:
<http://favstar.fm/users/Mike_FTW/status/27827936119>

28 people matched the 10c donation, and there was $8,000 of adhoc donations
inspired by the action. See:
<http://favstar.fm/users/Mike_FTW/status/27901780152>

~~~
nir
I doubt someone committing to donate $x for every retweet validates Twitter as
an activism tool. It's just a well meaning PR stunt that uses Twitter instead
of any number of on/offline tools.

A real test would be something like the protests in Iran. I remember wondering
why the regime doesn't just block Twitter, like they do for other sites.
Apparently it wasn't worth the bother, the impact was more felt in the Western
hyposphere than Iran. Personally what really concerned me was the State Dept
asking Twitter to reschedule downtime for this. I'd hope they have somewhat
better sources.

~~~
TimH
Yes, I'm not claiming this was any great revolutionary activism - but it was
action beyond "Western self-congratulation" as John writes about in the linked
post.

People took out their wallets, and paid. See if you can find the 28 people who
matched. It's not easy - they're not getting any PR. This was someone who on a
whim decided to attempt to raise money for a charity through the Twitter
medium, and he gained a lot of support. The trigger was favs, not RTs - I'd
argue it's not a PR stunt.

I do share your cynicism about the Iran situation, but I think Twitter can be
used as an effective tool around smaller issues as demonstrated.

What if in the future there are 2 billion twitter users instead of 170
million? Do you think there will generally be higher awareness of global
issues? Before you can act on something you need to be aware of it right?

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twidlit
In other words the conversion rate from tweeting to activism is too low.

~~~
patio11
I'd be careful there: optimizing for activism doesn't optimize for social
welfare, it just optimizes for the moral satisfaction of activists.

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danielnicollet
I agree with the post here. To me, there is a sense of complete hollowness in
almost everything that I see fostered on Twitter. It's so easy to tweet that
there is no commitment to anything most of the time. But Twitter has just
started what will probably have a long future of product development. Twitter
has fought the plague of twitspam and will maybe surprise us with a more
sophisticated version of tweets if they take the $200M they are rumored to be
raising.

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alexfarran
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/oct/20/science-i...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/oct/20/science-
is-vital-result)

"Somewhere in the thick of these successes, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a sly piece
in the New Yorker saying that Twitter couldn't start a revolution. I think
that most would agree that the Science Is Vital campaign proved him wrong."

~~~
hugh3
_I think that most would agree that the Science Is Vital campaign proved him
wrong._

So the achievement of the "Science is Vital" campaign was to deliver a
petition to the UK Government asking them not to cut science funding, which
later wound up being cut by less than somebody predicted at some point?

And this is isomorphic to a "revolution" how? Call me when there's a gay pride
parade in Tehran.

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gojomo
You have to crawl before you can walk. Weak ties can turn into strong ties;
cheap affiliations can grow into durable ones. Once you're self-identified
with a cause via something cheap and easy like Twitter, various
cognitive/behavioral effects _will_ draw you further in, over time. So give it
time.

