Twitter is asking you, its users, if you have 140 seconds to answer seven simple questions about its service. Now, in calmer times, a simple user survey might just pass by unnoticed, but with all the hubbub over the past week about Twitter buying Tweetie, Fred Wilson’s over-analyzed blog post and the unveiling of Twitter’s ad platform, everyone’s looking for clues as to Twitter’s next move.
The survey wants to know what third-party clients you’ve used in the past, what ones you would recommend, what types of people you follow on Twitter, what types you want to find more of, and your primary (and secondary) reason for using the service.
The immediate conclusion to jump to, from these questions, is that Twitter is eyeballing other apps, either to buy outright or to work with on its ad platform. It still remains to be seen how Twitter ads will play out in third-party clients and Twitter could be getting some market data for precisely that reason. Another way to look at it is, we get to see what third-party clients and services are on Twitter’s radar and exactly how the company sees itself.
For example, when the survey asks who you follow, you can choose between actors, celebs, coworkers, industry experts, family, friends, local businesses, musicians and news sources. What about government agencies and political figures? The hundreds if not thousands of absolutely hilarious joke and humor accounts, like Shit My Dad Says and Drunk Hulk?
In the end, we’re just as interested in the answers to these questions as Twitter is, and we’re hoping the company releases the data to the public at some point. Not likely, but we can hope, right?
One final note, if you do fill out the survey you have the option of giving your Twitter name and an email address to possibly be added as a candidate to test new products in the future – for that reason alone, I’m willing to tell Twitter what my favorite clients are.
