Ｔｈｅ Ｎｅｘｔ Ｅｍａｉｌ 下一代電子郵件

Why Twitter will change the way business communicates Twitter

即將改變商業溝通模式

Hard to believe that only 10 or 15 years ago we interacted with coworkersandcolleagues with memos and phone calls. Email and instant messaging changed all that. Now there's a new communications revolution coming. These services mixcontacts，instantmessaging，bloggingand texting， and they're poised to make email feel as antiquated as the mimeograph.

The best known of the new services is Twitter. Since its debut last spring， it has been one of the fastest-growing apps in the history of the Internet. The best way to describe it is as a microblog service in which you tell people what you're doing or thinking at any given moment. The hook is that you're limited to 140 characters. \"It's strangely addictive，\" says NBC videographer Jim Long. \"Evidently， people are interested in what I'm doing， and I genuinely care about what they're doing.\"

Twitter's basic idea has proven so popular that others have copied its premise and added features. Jaiku lets me include blog posts， my link blog， and more along with my mini posts. Pownce users can send files to one another， as well as calendar events. At Facebook， I can add such information as my favorite music and the syndicated Web feeds I've shared in Google Reader.

All this adds up to a new way to share information about yourself. Although the content of the messages can vary wildly from voyeuristically interesting to terribly dull， a frequent stream of updates can strengthen your brand. My 4，000-plus Twitter \"followers\" can get my blasts online or via text message， and each one is also its own Web page， which means that Google can see it and let people search for it. When you're traveling frequently and working from coffeehouses or the backseat of a cab， these services are great to keep in touch with coworkers back at the office and with customers nearby. \"I post where I travel and arrange user meetups，\" says Betsy Weber， an evangelist with software firm TechSmith.

Sales and marketing are lagging in seeing the potential here. When I used all these services to tell the world that my wife and I were expecting a child in September， I anticipated hearing from the world's largest consumer-products companies begging me to tr y their latest diapers， food， car seats， and financial instruments. What came back? Nothing. Where was Procter Gamble? Given what it and other companies spend acquiring new customers， there's an untapped gold mine in Twitter and Facebook because we're volunteering so much information about what we're doing right now， whether it's working on a project or eating a chicken-salad sandwich. Learning how to tap it correctly—both to sell to me directly and in seeing major trends in the millions of daily public posts—will be the next major challenge for these companies.

If we revisit this conversation again in three years， I suspect that we'll have found all sorts of little uses for these services， and they'll simply become what email is today: something we must do just to participate in the heartbeat of business.

難以相信 ， 在 10 年或 15 年前 ， 我們用記筆記或電話的形式和我們的合作者或同事溝通 ， 電子郵件和短消息的出現改變了這樣的工作方式。如今 ， 又一次溝通的革命來臨了。這項服務包含了聯絡、短信、博客和文章等多種形式 ， 它會讓人覺得發電子郵件的感覺如同使用油墨印刷一樣陳舊。

這個新的服務工具就是著名的 Twitter。自去年春季登陸以來 ， 它成為互聯網歷史上使用增長速度最快的工具。簡單地描述 Twitter， 它是你在任何時間都可以向任何人講述你的想法和行為的小型博客。誘惑你的是它具有的 140 種特征。NBC 錄影師 Jim Long 說 :“它太具誘惑力了 ， 讓人上癮。很顯然 ， 人們對我在做什么很感興趣 ， 而我也很誠懇地關心大家在做什么。”

Twitter 的原理很普遍 ， 許多人利用它的原理創造了其他類似的東西并增加新的特性。Jaiku可以讓我使用包含博客郵件、博客鏈接和更多的袖珍郵貼。Pownce 的使用者可以像計劃表一樣把文件發送給任何人。在 Facebook上 ， 我可以添加我喜歡的音樂等信息 ， 企業聯合網站讓我能夠和Google的用戶一同分享。

所有的這一切讓你有了新的途徑分享信息。盡管這些信息的內容范圍十分不同。我增加的4000個Twitter 的追隨者可以同時在線或者互傳消息 ， 每個人都有自己的網頁 ， 這就意味著 Google可以看到它并讓人們搜索到它。當你頻繁地旅游、在咖啡館里工作或者在出租車里用早餐時 ， 你可以隨時和辦公室的同事或者客戶近距離聯系。“我發告示說我在哪里旅游 ， 同時安排使用者的會面。”TechSmith 軟件公司人員Besty Weber 說。

在這個世界里 ， 銷售和市場的潛力似乎被隔絕了。當我在 9 月份使用所有的服務告訴全世界我和妻子渴望一個孩子的時候 ， 全世界最大的消費品公司開始向我推銷他們的紙尿褲、食品、客車座椅和金融工具。是什么重現了 ? 沒什么。PG 又在哪里 ? 所有的公司都在想方設法尋求新客戶 ，Twitter 和Facebook 卻擁有一個還沒有開發的寶藏 ，因為我們每天都自愿提供大量的信息告訴大家我們正在做什么 ， 無論是在做一個項目還是在吃雞翅沙拉三明治。學會如何正確地利用新溝通方式做生意——直接向我賣東西并在數百萬的公眾郵件里看到顧客的動態——是這些公司所面臨的下一個挑戰。

如果我們在三年后再回顧這次談話 ， 我猜測我們將建立所有類別的使用服務 ， 它們不僅僅只是今天的電子郵件 : 我們必須做些什么參與到讓人心動的商業領域。

(Robert Scoble 是一位有影響力的錄像攝制的先驅和跟隨高科技時代的博客作者。)