A simple message, less than 140 characters, is sent out to followers around the world and within hours, perhaps minutes, more than 100 million people have been mobilized to act. The message might instruct those who read it to look at a certain website, protest at a designated time and place, or perform any number of other acts, promoting an agenda or cause whose intentions may be either benign or downright evil. But whatever the message, whatever its agenda or intentions, the message has been sent and the world is shaken by its power. A tweetbomb. That is what this message is called. Although we haven’t seen one yet, you better believe it is coming, and it is coming soon. Welcome to the era of Twitter, an era of mass communication where a single individual or institution can mobilize massive numbers of people as never before.
There once was is a Twitter account @tweetbomb that used a viral technique to ‘bomb’ an increasing number of followers with a message once a day, but this was not a true tweetbomb. It was simply an interesting exercise by the same name, quickly shutdown by Twitter for violating terms of service. Meanwhile, as various famous tweeters are now eclipsing the milestone of one million followers, the prospect of a true tweetbomb looms ever closer.
The tweetbomb is a single, simple message that is sent into the wild of cyberspace, causing a minimum of 100 million people to act at its behest within hours, or perhaps at some future pre-determined date and time. It is not enough for 100 million people to receive the message – those who receive the message must act upon its contents for the message to rise to true tweetbomb status. The distinction of receiving vs acting on the message may seem minor, but in fact it is a defining feature of the powerful tweetbomb phenomenon.
Already today with our current outlets and models for information distribution we commonly see rapid dissemination of information to audiences of 100 million or more. Take the Superbowl, where roughly 1 billion people slurp in a cocktail of promotional messages, product launches, and news updates as they tune into the big event. Or take the death of a politician or actor with worldwide appeal and recognition, an event whose occurrence can easily travel the globe to hundreds of millions or even billions of people in a matter of hours.
Yet even as the examples above demonstrate that today’s information society already transmits pieces of information to enormous masses of people with alarming speed, there are very few examples where such large numbers of people are mobilized to take a particular, premeditated action. Continuing with our previous example, a Superbowl may be viewed by a billion people, but it does not typically cause even a mere 1 million of these viewers to do anything particular. With the rise of Twitter this is set to change.
It is conceivable in the next few years that a single individual or institution could have more than 100 million followers dutifully waiting to receive a message and take an associated action. Imagine an official Twitter account for the United States or Chinese Government, created with the specific purpose of mobilizing its citizens at a moments notice to respond to a natural disaster, military attack, or any number of other emergencies.
Even before Twitter accounts reach the 100 million follower milestone a tweetbomb is almost certain to occur. Either by direct intention or by sheer chance, the viral nature of Twitter allows for a tweet from a single Twitter account, large or small, to serve as the seed from which a message can be continuously retweeted to hundreds of thousands of other Twitter accounts. As a whole this cascade of viral tweeting and retweeting could ultimately lead to tweetbomb success.
At the moment, with the tweetosphere only comprising a few tens of millions of individuals, a tweetbomb is not going to happen. But perhaps in a year or two the tweetosphere will reach a critical mass of hundreds of millions of individuals, at which point the first tweetbomb will not be far behind.
One of the first tweetbombs will likely cause the ‘action’ of sending a vast and sudden surge of 100 million users to a particular website or document somewhere on the internet. Information distribution paradigms that came before Twitter, such as Slashdot or Digg, are famous for bringing surges of tens of thousands of users to websites within a matter of hours, but this is nothing compared to the power that will be unleashed by Twitter. A key difference between Twitter and previous paradigms is that Twitter automatically pushes information to users, whereas previous paradigms relied on users to seek out a specific website to find and act on information. This makes all the difference.
The power of a website like Digg to distribute information is only as large as the base of users that choose to go to its website within a short period of time. This base of users will always be limited to a necessarily narrow type of user demographic, such as technologically savvy, younger individuals. It will also be limited by the number of these individuals that are in a position and mindset to seek out the website within a short period of time, rather than cooking or driving their cars.
Twitter, on the other hand, allows information to be distributed to any number of people, anywhere, anytime with its ability to push information to users no matter what device they are using, no matter if they want it or not. Twitter is not limited to a certain user demographic, capable of sending a message of equal interest to techno geeks and Oprah worshiping moms.
The first signs of tweetbombs are already upon us. Look at the logs of any major website and you will see that they are littered with the remains of mini tweetbombs just waiting to become the real thing. Increasingly traffic to websites comes in surges or waves of people following a tweet that has been tweeted and retweeted across the tweetosphere. As the tweetosphere grows larger and larger each day, so too will these mini tweetbombs grow. Soon webmasters will see surges of hundreds of thousands, then tens of millions of Twitter induced users to their websites. Ultimately the tweetosphere will reach a critical mass and the first true tweetbomb will send a massive swarm of 100 million hungry eyeballs to some lucky or unlucky destination on the internet.
Having defined the tweetbomb we are compelled to ponder what it means for human society. Are tweetbombs a good thing or a bad thing? As with any technological weapon, tool, or advance, it depends on how you use it. Knives help us to cut fruit and open boxes, but they can also kill people. The same will be true for the tweetbomb. The tweetbomb is a phenomenon of awesome power, yet depending on the action it causes, its impact on the world could land anywhere on the spectrum of good or bad, unleashing great destruction or massive benevolence. Good or bad, like all technological breakthroughs before it the tweetbomb is inevitable. It cannot be avoided.
If you think the tweetbomb is impressive, then take a moment to ponder the tweetnova, a single blast of information that causes not 100 million, but rather 1 billion people to act. There may be some mathematical or other limitation that inhibits the emergence of the tweetnova within the current incarnation of a simple messaging service represented by Twitter. But rest assured that either Twitter or some successor platform or technology will soon allow for one billion people, and ultimately every single person on the planet, to instantly receive and then choose to act on a single piece of information.
So who will initiate the first tweetbomb? Maybe it will be us, in which case how about following @singularityhub so you can join in on the fun. Even if Singularity Hub does not send the first tweetbomb, we have tons of daily stories just like this one that you won’t want to miss.
Comments
I am very interested in cause and consequence regarding reaching a Critical Mass. My purpose is to change reality sooner instead of later. We change reality via our expectations because expectations feed into our actions. The Singularity will be an enormous change. In anticipation of the Singularity we can begin changing now. Most importantly, “collective expectations” can snowball dramatically into a colossal Positive Feedback therefore I am helping people to appreciate how utopia is easily possible. I want people to see how they will create utopia. The sooner people realize they will create utopia the sooner utopia will occur. It all depends upon your confidence, your expectations; it is a self fulfilling prophecy. My following blog post explains this in detail; particularly I want to draw you attention to the video link midway down the page: http://singularity-utopia.blogspot.com/2011/02/science-of-confidence.html
One day soon I hope the idea of a utopian Singularity will shake the world.
lol, a minor tweetbomb occured when rapper 50 Cent tweet that he invested in a company on the stock market. Within the next day, the company’s stock rose 200% due to 50 Cent’s followers invest in that same company… Egypt’s uprising may also be an indication of a tweetbomb…
“The tweetbomb is a single, simple message that is sent into the wild of cyberspace, causing a minimum of 100 million people to act at its behest within hours”
Correction, even if you explained further down:
The tweetbomb is a single, simple message that is sent into the wild of cyberspace, possibly causing a minimum of 100 million people to act at its behest within hours”
Um, Twitter does NOT “push information to users no matter what device they are using, no matter if they want it or not.” To receive a given Tweet, I have to:
1) Install Twitter client on my device.
2) Start up Twitter client.
3) Happen to look at the screen at the right time and actually notice the Tweet before it scrolls out of sight.
Twitter does not have a magical ability to harness more mindshare than other media. Just because someone has a million followers does not mean that a million people will see every Tweet. Most people follow a lot of other people, and therefore they only see a tiny fraction of the Tweets put out by the people they follow.
Um, Twitter does NOT “push information to users no matter what device they are using, no matter if they want it or not.” To receive a given Tweet, I have to:
1) Install Twitter client on my device.
2) Start up Twitter client.
3) Happen to look at the screen at the right time and actually notice the Tweet before it scrolls out of sight.
Twitter does not have a magical ability to harness more mindshare than other media. Just because someone has a million followers does not mean that a million people will see every Tweet. Most people follow a lot of other people, and therefore they only see a tiny fraction of the Tweets put out by the people they follow.
An interesting view of twitter on a grand scale.
This seems to assume twitter remains twitter. What happens when we get haptic twitter. We already see in the labs the reading of thoughts. Soon we’ll have the pushing of thoughts and feelings. Facebook already uses the term poke.
We have game controllers for less than $100 that use thought and are in the toy stores. If the singularity is coming then won’t we be seeing mashups of robots, and message platforms, and controllers and….
An interesting view of twitter on a grand scale.
This seems to assume twitter remains twitter. What happens when we get haptic twitter. We already see in the labs the reading of thoughts. Soon we’ll have the pushing of thoughts and feelings. Facebook already uses the term poke.
We have game controllers for less than $100 that use thought and are in the toy stores. If the singularity is coming then won’t we be seeing mashups of robots, and message platforms, and controllers and….
Cool one =)) =^_^=
Cool one =)) =^_^=
Ha! You seriously over-estimate the percentage of twitter “followers” who will react to a tweetbomb.
Jay:
So true! A followup story is coming out any day now where I will show some pretty cool stats on how often followers actually click on a tweet and what the implications are for tweetbombs and just generally
Ha! You seriously over-estimate the percentage of twitter “followers” who will react to a tweetbomb.
Jay:
So true! A followup story is coming out any day now where I will show some pretty cool stats on how often followers actually click on a tweet and what the implications are for tweetbombs and just generally
A simple message, less than 140 characters, is sent out to followers around the world and within hours, perhaps minutes, more than 100 mill
140 CHARACTER LIMIT EXCEEDED
Commencing countdown ….
A simple message, less than 140 characters, is sent out to followers around the world and within hours, perhaps minutes, more than 100 mill
140 CHARACTER LIMIT EXCEEDED
Commencing countdown ….
This was not officially a tweetbomb because it did not reach enough people, nor did it specify that people take a particular action such as “show up at this place at noon” or “go to this website”. Certain tweets during the McCain Obama election were certainly predecessors to what will one day become the first real tweetbomb.
The recent push by @aplusk, @kevinrose, and @singularityhub to make a push for people to buy malaria nets was perhaps the most concerted effort towards a tweetbomb to date, but again it was not big enough to qualify as a true tweetbomb…the tweetosphere simply is not big enough yet…but it will be in a year or two.
Im pretty sure a tweetbomb (of a good kind) recently happened in the Obama McCain election… no?
what is REAL is that the company Twitter already has the power to push a single message to every single one of its users. it also has the power to push a single message to every single phone device connected to its systems. now that is something to think about… great article.
I’m concerned about the possibility of a tweetbomb that would be “Pogrom tweet bomb” – a call to violence to members of a minority group with a different sexuality, skin colour or ideological belief system.
sorry but it’s a complete bullshit
You’re talking about a Twitter version of Infinite Jest…. something hypnotic that makes its way out through the network. dangerous magick indeed, careful with that axe eugene
What’s more important is the ripple effect Twitter already has on the established media distribution channels.
So even if such a bomb would not reach a number of such magnitude within the service itself, the uptake on blogs, print magazines and other less real-time interfaces will multiply the effects.
But the remaining necessities: can the endpoint of such a bomb handle all the incoming traffic, data, payments, activities or messages?
As a counterpoint to your bomb idea, i would also suggest the “minefield”, a topic-based eruption of micro-messages, directly from the trenches.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/erik_hersman_on_reporting_crisis_via_texting.html
The implications for activism and the direction of consumer boycott and demonstrations of power are staggering in their implications. How ironic would it be for the simple process of sharing 140 characters between members of a cause … possessing the power to bring the corporate behemouths to their knees. What a great time we live in!
Abdul,
Dude, you are thinking too narrow. I am not saying that tweetbombs will occur for any potential tweet. Of course there are several tweets for which people will not obey what is requested and the tweet will not become a tweetbomb. But there are several for which people will obey, the most obvious being to click on a link to see something of interest whether it be an article, image, etc.
It is a simple numbers game. A certain number of people will click on a proposed link in a tweet if it is sufficiently interesting (your presence on this blog is a testament to this).
As I have stated in the post, anyone who runs a substantially sized website is well aware of the surges of traffic that come from tweets/retweets of a single original message. This phenomenon is only set to grow. Even if we don’t reach the 100 million mark, we can all agree it is going to get pretty frickin big
Dude…Really? “Having defined the tweetbomb we are compelled to ponder what it means for human society.” Human society? Do you buy viagra after every spam email? Do you outsource your web development for $6/hr to China from every spam email?
I don’t. Why in the world will I do the same with a stupid twitter message. I think what you need to write and come up is the perfect message that will make you click on it.
If Philip K Dick were alive to read this he’d have some interesting observations about information/god as plasmate and inherently alive, working with humans as a host.
I remember the first time I saw line dancing, back in ’89. Nightmares for weeks !
snowcrash.
Well, you did set a window of action within “a couple of hours”…
I don’t mean to be too negative but it sounds to me like you are talking about a difference in degree, but not a difference in kind from what already occurs. If making a consumption decision isn’t specific enough of an act, then how many viewers of the Super Bowl do you think put their hand over their heart during the performance of the national anthem?
Also for a Twitterbomb it’s not just a matter of 100 million users on Twitter, but 100 million users following a particular account. And what of the necessary conditions to be able to not only reach such a mass of people, but also to compel them to do something?
> It typically makes more than 1 million of
> those viewers buy Budweiser.
Not all at once, and not as a specific act. It simply reinforces a behavior they might already have
> It made more than 500,000 people call the FCC
> to complain about Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe
> malfunction.’
500,000 is much less than 1,000,000, which proves my point
Super bowl is more influential than twitter now, but this post ponders a coming future where the tables will turn
“Superbowl may be viewed by a billion people, but it does not typically cause even a mere 1 million of these viewers to do anything particular.”
???
It typically makes more than 1 million of those viewers buy Budweiser.
It made more than 500,000 people call the FCC to complain about Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction.’
Let’s get out of the twitter echo chamber here for a minute. If you are talking about influencing people en masse, the Super Bowl is vastly more influential than Twitter without any question whatsoever. You presented the evidence yourself, and ignored all kinds of basic ways in which the Super Bowl influences millions upon millions of people’s behavior.
Will Twitter eventually have user accounts with one hundred million followers? Who knows. What I do know is that when it does achieve that level of reach it will be joining other forms of communication that are already there.
We’re alive.
Brian: just updated the post
tioquerra: did you not read the frickin story? I clearly point out that the tweetbomb may be equally benevolent or dangerous
Hmm… The power to communicate to millions of people at once, it must be really dangerous! — once again the fear meme gets spread… Have you ever heard of radio or television?
Umm . . . @tweetbomb was shut down by Twitter?
That’s news to me, considering I follow it and it just tweeted. Might want to check your facts.
TweetNova will not happen until at least 10% of all living humans have some kind of permanent brain/computer implant/interface (TweetCap ?)
The emergence of a tweetnova in human to human (h2h) communications is probably limited, like you say, by various factors, such as cultural decoherence, lack of sufficient attention cohesion, even simple geography like different time-zones.
However, communication, and the capacity of acting on measurements, and their transmission, is rapidly moving beyond h2h, into the machine to human, and machine to machine (m2m) realms. M2m is basically unbounded, and the smart sensor networks constituting the forthcoming Internet Of Things are going to be made up of tens, hundreds, and thousands of billions of nodes. (Intel is already exploring the shape and needs of a future network of 7 trillion nodes…)
A tweetnova consequently is much more likely to occur in m2m communication, as its bigger brothers of higher order of magnitude participating actors for which you are welcome to come up with additional neologisms!
Fascinating and quite quotable. I don’t think the words “tweet” and “twitter” are going to last but the mass communication is only going to grow into more of a cacophony.