I have been having a debate about the length of the introduction video for a new desktop sharing application that my business partner is currently working on.
He feels it’s too short and doesn’t go far enough into explaining what the product is about, while my argument is that curiosity is an intriguing ‘lock-in’ mechanism.
I had to record the video early last week, and I made a concerted effort in making sure it lasted no more than approximately 1 minute as I don’t feel people have more time than that to invest anymore, especially when you consider how many sites we all browse in a day.
That wasn’t the main reason for keeping it so short however. My reason relates to my observations with Twitter (and Facebook for that matter).
You see, up until March of this year, I had visited the Twitter homepage a few times in the 12 months before it, and browsed a few Twitter homepages of people 
mentioned in the media. I never signed up though.
I couldn’t understand what Twitter was about, or what value it could provide for me personally.
But in late February, Andrew Warner mentioned an interesting tactic for using Twitter for potentially picking up new leads using search terms and alerts, so I was curious to learn more.
I read a little bit more about using Twitter search for a way to see what people were talking about regarding any given subject, and I came across some interesting blog posts that talked about how Twitter can be used as a valuable marketing tool.
So I decided to give it a try, which invariably meant I had to create a Twitter account. When I first joined, I found the whole experience rather overwhelming, and not to mention confusing, but I decided to persevere.
After all, if Andrew Warner was on there, it must have been serving some higher purpose. He doesn’t strike me as someone that likes to waste time with trivial pursuits.
Suffice to say, in the 4 months up until now, I have only used the search feature a handful of times, but spend at least 1 to 2 hours a day on Twitter.
Twitter ended up creating plenty of value for me in so many ways that I hadn’t 
even imagined when I first signed up, especially as a platform for meeting very interesting and like-minded people.
But here’s the interesting thing. The value that Twitter has been able to create for me is a discovery that I made for myself, partly by accident, but as a net result it gives me a great sense of accomplishment. This value is not necessarily the same for someone else it serves, but I think that is exactly the point.
It took me quite a few weeks to realise this, that Twitter is rather fluid as a platform and can be used in so many different ways. It all depends on what purpose you want it to serve.
When I first started to discover its real value, I kept thinking to myself “Why don’t the guys behind Twitter create a video that shows the ‘outsiders’ where the real value is?”, but then it occurred to me that if Twitter had indeed put a video on the homepage, firstly it would have ‘made up my mind’ for me, which is never as powerful as if I make the conscious (or unconscious for that matter) decision for myself.
[Our unconscious minds don’t necessarily work the way we all like to think (no pun intended)]
And secondly, the fact that it can serve so many different purposes for so many people, it would be almost impossible to put a video together that shows all the ways in which it can be used. Not only that, but with an ‘official’ video listing the benefits and the current ways in which it is being used, you’re inherently also telling your audience that only what is shown in the video is what is possible with Twitter.
Why limit yourself by giving people pre-conceived ideas about what they can and can’t do?
As long as my need to network with interesting and like-minded people remains, and Twitter continues to serve this purpose for me, I’m going to stick with Twitter.
If it wasn’t for my curiosity, I would never have ‘tinkered’ and achieved a sense of accomplishment, which, for me, is an emotional investment that makes me a loyal ambassador.
Customers need to be given room to exercise their curiosity, in my personal opinion.
This is why, in this introductory video, I’ve demonstrated only the key points and nothing else.
I also think that by making room for the curious, it allows others to create conversation about you or your product, which in itself is excellent for creating a ‘buzz’.
