The Steve Rubel Stream

While I don't disagree with the figures, I do take offense to the Miami Herald's implication that the 80% of meformers are not tweeting "actual" information. Personal information about another human being is very useful in navigating our society and learning to trust and be trusted.

I'm with Melissa, particularly because a significant amount of the "actual" informer type information on Twitter is either stale or far less relevant/interesting than the tweeting party believes. It's actually become a sport for me to see who gets the real deal piece of data the moment it matters, who tweets about it the same day and is somewhat in the loop, and who starts going off about it a week later only when mainstream sources have started digesting the stale leftovers.

Wouldn't be surprised if this were already out-of-date. I think people are tuning in to the "informer" side of Twitter and that is where the real excitement and dynamism is.

@melissa
wasn't it what twitter was all about from the start: stay connected with your friends?

One thing I do almost every day whereever I am is use Ubertwitter's "people near me" feature, to see what random people are tweeting. It's definitely ~80% me-forming. Lots of people use it like IM/texting in public and do little to inform. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. Good to have data that backs up what probably the street-smart already realized.

Study: Twitter is 80% "Meformers" and 20% Informers! Who are you Metformer or Informer?

I believe mostly an informer - but that's for you to decide.

Twitter and Facebook are about relashionships. I think you should get to know the pesron and a little about who they are and what they do. I think that one you establish the personal side you gain credibility on the information side.

@ JB What I've learned the last year via my b2b blog is: the more valuable information you give, the more you gain credibility. people come to you asking for advise and help. and it works the same way thru twitter and fb. Interesting: most of the business contacts are meformers in the sense of advertising themselves or their product.

Didn't the banner at the top of the twitter page used to say "what are you doing now?" Seems made for meformers.

1. very interesting research. personally, I tend to find most trustworthy those informers that blend a bit of 'meformation' into their tweetstream every now and them - makes me better understand their perspective on the information they are sharing. so in/meformer mixers are to me the most useful (as you do Steve - I relate to your Giants comments, which adds a level of trust for me around the information you share)

2. perhaps the better way to make the disctinction on what type of content is shared by meformers and informers (and makes meformers less vulnerable of being accused of not sharing 'actual' information) is that meformers share personal information and informers share third party information (but often with a personal angle/comments added to it).

Actually, the study is pretty clear that it's about "meformING vs. informING," not the people but the message count. As Berend summarizes well, conventional wisdom on Twitter (social media in general) is that you should mix "meformation" with your "information," or no one will care anyway. So, an 80/20 split in the individual tweets might mean 60/40 on the tweeters. It would be a harder study, but I think very interesting, to probe that a bit.

Agree with some of the sentiments above, but there are some significant problems with the theoretical underpinnings and methodology in this research. I've spelled out some of them here: Meformers or Mesearchers? On Finding Self-Centeredness in Social Media. http://www.ethnographer.com/?p=97

Very Interesting study. I like the analogy of "Meformers vs. Informers" but have to agree with some of the other commenters. If twitter is ultimately about forming relationships, to some extent "Meforming" needs to occur. However it seems the "Informers" are ones who hold the most weight in the boxing ring of social media.

I think the stats are what they are and no judgment should be cast. There is no "correct" way to use Twitter. It serves the purposes of its user. If that purpose is to inform friends they just had the BEST hamburger ever, great. If, on the other hand, the user hopes that Twitter boosts their professional profile, they probably will focus on topics that will demonstrate their expertise.

If Twitter is merely about taking your phone texts to friends and turning them into "deploy once, share many," that's your highest and best use of Twitter. People that want more info and less "me-fo" should just unfollow.

What is sad, however, is when people desiring to position themselves as experts feel they need to be in Twitter to do so, and then just post about themselves. They don't realize they're doing nothing to boost their reputation as an expert just by being in Twitter. It's also sad when someone follows another person who truly is an expert and wants to see posts from them about that topic, but are disappointed when all they get is "best hamburger" posts. Just stop following ... that person isn't going to share their expertise in Twitter and maybe never intended to.

Bottom line: There is no "correct" way to use Twitter, and the numbers merely measure how society is using it to share about themselves or other topics. Both can be very meaningful. And finally, for many people Twitter isn't about "attracting a swarm." That's only meaningful if somehow that's going to result in a payday. Maybe those are the 20% who are sharing info?

I totally agree. I see too many comments on Twitter that are all about "me, me,me," and I feel an energy of one-upmanshipmanship there. The "Informer's" tend to "inform" too much about "me," i.e., themselves. I am a self published author and writer, and I run deep and seek to connect with the same types of people. I don't think that I'll find many of them on Twitter.

just Gary: You might not find "many" self-published author/writers, depending on what that number needs to be, but there certainly are "quite a few." You might start your search with @doctorow, @nelilly, or the whole crowd at http://www.greententacles.com/twitter/

Hmm, Im usually using some scripting for that, wp widget etc
http://build-autoweb.info/