More evidence of Twitter going mainstream - even regular IT people are using it

Sometimes it seems like the social media world is divorced from the business world. Sure, there are small Web 2.0 companies that embrace everything, and there are companies like Oracle that present a social media face to us, but there still seems to be an invisible barrier between the social media world and the world of real work.

So I was somewhat surprised to see this headline:

Twitter Tools To Turbo Charge Your Microblogging

The headline itself isn't what surprised me - it was the fact that the headline appeared in InformationWeek.

In fact, the online edition illustrates this transition nicely. The first paragraph of Mitch Wagner's article includes the words "Twitter addicts," but then crosses out the word "addicts" and inserts "power users" instead. Sounds transitional to me.

This is what he said. This is what Mitch Wagner said:

Twitter's open architecture has allowed developers to build a wealth of third-party tools to help Twitter addicts power users get the most of the service. They include dedicated Twitter clients for the desktop, browser, iPhone, and BlackBerry, along with tools for automating Twitter, posting photos to Twitter, and managing your friends and followers.

Wagner then talks about TweetDeck, Twhirl, Twitbin, Twitterfox, and a number of other services, and even digresses into FriendFeed for a bit.

Perhaps I've missed something, but I guess I'm surprised to see Twitter coverage in a business publication - I'm not surprised that Wagner wrote it, but perhaps I'm surprised that a major IT business source published it.

Then again, InformationWeek's slogan is "Defining the business value of technology." It looks like business use of Twitter can now be justified.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to eat a mango.

Sphere: Related Content