Where does it all lead?

                                                                                           image by Anthony Kolber

We all often jump on the bandwagon. There are a 1001 reasons why we do it. For better or for worse it happens; and for good reasons (as we see it). I mean who doesn't get excited by the hype? Everyone's talking about "it." Everyone's doing "it" (so they say). And who wants to get left behind, all by themselves, when everyone else has gotten on board, is having a good time (or so it seems) and appears as if they are headed off to good times?!

I mean if there is no hype then its boring, right?? And who wants boring?

But the single biggest question to be asked is "where does the hype take you?" When you walk up the stairs turn the corner and head down the walkway, where do you end up?

Ladies and gentlemen hype is a thousand miles wide and an inch deep.

I remember when MySpace was all the rage. It was so hot that Rupert Murdoch snatched it up for $580 million. It also produced the first "bonified" internet star, Tila Tequila, and was the catalyst for numerous new marketing strategies to scour the "MySpace universe" in search off the next star because at that moment that's where the action/hype was at. Well it seems that the MySpace novelty has died down and the hype machine has now turned its focus to Twitter.

I have two questions:

1. Did the the MySpace fanatics have a "post MySpace hype" strategy?
2. When the Twitter craze dies down (and it will) what's the reason anybody should pay them any attention?

The other day I had to laugh when I saw a website entitled The 14 Types of Twitter Personalities - wow. . .

I have nothing against Twitter. I actually hope the founders can make some good money with the thousands upon thousands of twitterers they have using their service (it seems that they do have some sound venture capital in their midst)

But don't get caught up in the hype - it leads to nowhere (plus hype does not have a long term strategy). So my question is in 5 years will people be using words like atwention and celebritweet??

My thoughts also go to the army of folks who will spend valuable time building a twitter empire of followers. I'm still trying to figure out. . .how on earth do you follow what 20,000 people are doing??

One thing to always remember is this. In order for you to go anywhere and do anything of significant value you need solid relationships. And solid relationships happen when people trust you. And trust is built over time. And the amount of time needed to build trust is months and years. Not the 10 seconds it takes to be friended on Facebook, or from when you get followed on Twitter. Of course you can use these tools as another access point to someone you know or already have an established relationship with but not vice versa.

Well I am always a huge fan of the "new" (ideas, technology, products, etc), and am never to be the one to get in the way of progress. So by all means go forth, tweet and prosper! And in the meantime...just like everyone else...will be trying to figure out exactl how tweeting may actually bring about prosperity...hmm?