Twitter Archetypes - its just the Old.Net with pictures

Those of us who recall Archie, Veronica, Gopher and the gang do (I suspect) sometimes look at the Twitternuts with some wry amusement, as it is so similar in feel to the early text based 'Net - and the bulletin boards before it. The community was so small, and everyone was just delighted to find like minded others who used this newfangled thing, so a level of cameraderie grew up between people who had never met and mostly never would - but the mutual trust was huge, I recall letting some American 'Netfriends house sit our place for their vacation based just on the fact they seemed like decent people on the Internet.

But we will also, if we are wise, heave a sigh now for what it will look like as it grows up - if those systems are anything to go by, with increasing numbers comes:

- increasing defective behaviour (mo' trolls, pimps, flamers etc)
- increasing crass commercialisation
- increasing traffic, requiring multi-furcation into many groups, special interests etc.

(Actually, strictly speaking its not exactly the same - Twitter is an asymmetric rather than symmetric pub/sub network, and its limited to 140 characters, and it's multi-medium - bit it serves much the same purpose)

Anyway, before that time comes - here is a very funny analysis of the 10 types of people who use Twitter from Shannon Whitley - I've published 3 as a taster, my favourite is the last one (No 10). This is what reminded me of the Old.Net, there was something like this posted yonks ago which was similar:

1) The Pimp - The pimp is always looking for avenues of self-promotion. If almost every tweet is a reference to a blog post and even conversations end in links to posts, you're following The Pimp.

NeckRelaxr: New Blog Post: Neck Relaxer big online sale! http://tinyurl.com/xi8xs

NeckRelaxr: New Blog Post: Have you had your neck relaxed? http://tinyurl.com/xi8xs

NeckRelaxr: @trumommy You must be tired after putting your kids to bed. I'll bet your neck could use some help: http://tinyurl.com/xi8xs



7) Ideologue - The ideologue is not really on Twitter to discuss anything. His mind is already made up and he'll show you how wrong you are with copious links to extreme blogs and YouTube "proof." The Ideologue is usually an extreme hater of one thing or another.

amerika: What a complete idiot. "Bush stumbles on White House steps": http://youtube.com/dkdkdk

amerika: @mekkey It's the Republicans and their "Commander in Thief."

amerika: Filling up the VW from Bush's Blood Pumps.



10) The Attendee - There are two things that this twit loves, Events and Hashtags.

lolgirl: Livetweeting the Social Sirens Conference. #socialsirensconf

lolgirl: Tony Seaver of "Be Your Best" is speaking. #socialsirensconf

lolgirl: You can be successful, but you must believe in yourself. #socialsirensconf

lolgirl: Never give up, but sometimes pause. [favorite!!!] #socialsirensconf

You will recognise yourself in some of the archly drawn archetypes I'm sure

One thing he doesn't have (probably because its a recent phenomena) is the Sleb Following "Social Media Climber" - the twitterer who follows and attempts to ingratiate themself with the "Celebrities" as those people come onto Twitter. Just search summize for @wossy or @stephenfry for example, and you will see this in spades! Knowing the market would be huge, we even designed an automated system for this over here.