Can you remember life before Twitter? What began as a forum for 20-somethings to share the most mundane aspects of their lives has morphed into a 140 character Jack of all trades.

People win things on Twitter. We have the Twitter Diet. Twitter Dating (Flitter), Twitter Job Hunting and networking. It’s changed customer service. Social media has started movements for positive change..and pulled off great hoaxes. It’s fundamentally altered Crisis Management (anyone remember little things like Dominoes? Miracle on the Hudson?). It’s even changed the dictionary.

Is there anything Twitter can’t do?

By its very nature, Twitter has captured the hearts and minds of those of us with very short attention spans that are bound to move on to something else. The very appeal of Twitter is the authentic, brief snapshots that a Tweet can give you. Who didn’t love knowing what Ashton & Demi were having for dinner? Or the ability to get their seat changed away from a smelly neighbor on an airplane by simply Tweeting. Or being the first to touch Shaq?

But now that the Twitter-verse is so massive, much of that authentic, spontaneous fun has been replaced by “stuff” that varies in from super interesting and compelling to super-boring. Really, does anyone care that you checked in at Starbucks? Or that you Tweeted about similar things 40 or 50 times over the course of the day?

This is not to say that Twitter, or social media for that matter, are going away. Quite to the contrary. Like Pashminas and Uggs, which enjoyed a massive popularity for a season or two when you just couldn’t get them, then settled in to “wardrobe staple” status, Twitter is here to stay. But as a communications tool, interest in Twitter is already changing from the frenzied client requests to one on a list of “to do’s” – A Twitter strategy is like having a website, issuing a news release or getting to your beat reporters….a must do. But not something that gives you “extra credit” on the communications scorecard.

cwinters Social Media Dominoes, Miracle on the Hudson, Pashminas, Twitter, Uggs

If you’ve followed this blog or tuned in to the webcasts where I’ve been a panelist, you know that I’ve been saying that 60 seconds is the new “first hour” – the textbook window of time when a Company must take control of a situation in order to preserve reputation. And while that is a somewhat hyperbolic statement, the Miracle on the Hudson is my case in point – and was the day that I began to rethink everything I had learned about crisis communications 101.

Today, I heard that BP’s cap may be leaking. An editorial in the New York Times calls Congress to the carpet for not taking detector tampering in the Massey Mining explosion that was the industry’s worst in 40 years. But the furor and public outcry seems to be losing steam.

Certainly, the intensity and speed with which information moves creates some unique and new challenges for crisis communicators….but does it also create opportunities? Are memories shorter? Does interest wane more quickly? Do we move on to the crisis du jour and give reputations a pass?

Has the plethora of “worst events in history” in the past few years desensitized us to the significance of these issues? Or does the pervasive mistrust of all things big – big banks, big companies, big governments caused us to expect the worst?

Big questions for a rainy Monday morning…

cwinters Crisis Communications BP, Crisis Communications, Massey, Mining, Miracle on the Hudson, oil spill, Public Relations