A2SM contributors Justin Freid and Jody Raines both posted (here and here) about @Anywhere, the hot new feature that Twitter CEO Evan Williams announced at SXSW. As a major new initiative by Twitter, @Anywhere is worthy of comment, but I think it’s more likely to fail than succeed.
Granted, @Anywhere offers some interesting benefits that shouldn’t be ignored, such as providing links to the Twitter Profile of someone mentioned in a post. That may not seem like a big deal, but as Jesse Stanchak from SmartBlogs says, it hints at “a world where social networks are in the background of everything we do, a constant companion.” I think that’s an awesome vision and is likely to happen. Indeed, Charlene Li probably said it best when she wrote that “Social Networks will be like air.”
However, if you clicked over to Stanchak’s post, you might have noticed I left something out; specifically, the very end of the sentence quoted above. What Stanchak actually says is that social networks are, “a constant companion, but never the focus.” And that’s an important distinction.
External links, like those above, are useful when they offer additional information, but they are also a distraction. Did I want you to click on those links? Sure, otherwise I wouldn’t have added them. But what I really want is for you to read this post in its entirety first (and leave a comment or share it) before clicking on those links. Why? Because the more external links I provide, the greater the likelihood that you will click on one and that increases the chances that you will get distracted and not come back to finish reading the post. And that is what @Anywhere is designed to make you do; leave a website.
For website owners, not only is this a bad thing, but there are also broader implications.
- I lose control over my content. Suppose I mention someone controversial, but don’t want to link to them. With @Anywhere, it may choose to create that link. So, not only do I lose control, but what happens if that someone is saying something I don’t want my readers to see? What if it’s offensive? Do I really want to be associated with that?
- It distracts from my content. As mentioned above, if I want to give someone a link to something, I’ll provide that link. Remember, I want them to read my content on my site, not be sent to some arbitrary destination from which they may not return.
- This has been tried before, unsuccessfully. Ever notice that certain words on some sites have strange double underlines? Ever mouse over those words? Do you bother to read the advertisements that popup? Do you ever click on those ads? If you’ve never noticed those underlined words, that’s because that model doesn’t work and there are few sites that still use the technology. It’s annoying, creates a poor user experience, and the ads are rarely relevant to the content. If it were such a great model, everyone would be using it.
- It reduces a website’s revenues: Taking me away from a site will decrease the total pages I will see on that site. Also, not only will potential ad revenue be reduced, I will be less likely to purchase from that site as I am no longer there (assuming it’s an e-commerce site, like Amazon). And what will happen when @Anywhere is “enhanced” to open to other websites, not just to someone’s Twitter profile? I could potentially lose my customer to a competitor.
I’m sure Twitter will address these issues (especially since I’ve brought them up), but I don’t see @Anywhere ever being anything more than a niche product and Twitter (arguably) isn’t a niche product business.
What do you think?
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