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San Francisco Chronicle Seeks Commentary from Brian Solis on Twitter IPO

Writing for The San Francisco Chronicle, Benny Evangelista reached out to Brian Solis to discuss Twitter’s successful debut on the New York Stock Exchange.

Here are a few of the highlights of the conversation

In front of Twitter’s headquarters Thursday, passers-by had different reactions to the street protest. Some people said they didn’t understand how Twitter works – highlighting a problem that analyst Brian Solis believes Twitter will work to solve. “It’s time for it to finally say what Twitter is in a way that Main Street will understand,” said Solis, principal analyst with the Altimeter Group, a San Mateo research and advisory company.

Twitter’s maximum 140-character text service means different things to different people. For some, it’s an indispensable personalized news and information service. For others, it’s a way to follow celebrities or talk about TV shows. For advertisers, Twitter can be a “human seismograph of what captures the attention of people,” Solis said.

Yet for many others, it’s a confusing mishmash of messages. “It’s still very much of an insiders’ club,” he said.

Solis said he expects Twitter might work on a redesign that helps users realize why it might be valuable to them. “If they can learn anything from Facebook, it’s that user experience comes before anything else,” Solis said. “Without satisfied users, there is no Twitter. At the same time, without revenue, there aren’t happy shareholders.”

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