These days it seems the best indication of when a particular social media source has reached it's used by date is when recruiters are using it more than your 'real' connections :-)
Take LinkedIn for example. A year ago, this was a valuable tool, allowing us all to connect to business associates. These days, all I seem to get is requests to connect with recruiters, and poorly targeted job offers. Facebook isn't so bad, but that's more likely to be because I don't have technology related keywords against my profile.
So, I'm wondering how long before the recruiters start swarming over Twitter? How long before we get shotgun broadcast @replies to everyone about new jobs?
My guess, the wonderful Twitter landscape we enjoy today will be polluted within 6 months. The Block button will be a regular in our daily use, and the 'continual conversation' we enjoy now will regularly be little more than a prelude to a job offer...
But hey, on the flip side, maybe there's an opening for someone to develop a Twitter app for recruiters...
Here's what RecruiTwit could do:
1. You seed it with a few people to follow (eg Scobleizer). Then it goes along following the followers of the seed people (all automatically of course)
2. Then, when you are ready with your job ad, you type in the description and click Send. RecruiTwit creates individual @replies to everyone you follow, spamming them with a 'personal' job ad tweet
3. In the Premium edition it'd allow you to use multiple Twitter accounts so you can avoid the Twitter API limitations (60 an hour currently I think)
4. In the Platinum edition it automatically creates new Twitter accounts for you every 7 days, since everyone will have blocked your existing ones by then
Am I being too cynical? You can reply to me on Twitter here if you like.
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