Twitter is beta testing with a small subset of partners a feature to let multiple people easily post on a company’s behalf. Blogs, such as ReadWriteWeb, have said that this feature already exists from third party companies:

“And the hot Contributor API is something that CoTweet has been doing for a while.” Link.

I think the feature is entirely new.

After reading Twitter’s blog post about Contributor, I realized the so-called already-in-existence hadn’t existed yet because Twitter has paid attention to user needs.

Here is the post by Twitter product team member Anamitra:

“… a tweet from @Twitter would include @Biz in the byline so that users know more about the real people behind organizations.”  (My italics.)

Now, go to the Twitter pages of JetBlue or ZenDesk who use CoTweet (and also Hootsuite). You’ll see posts “from CoTweet” or “from Hootsuite.”

Honestly, that’s really funny. It’s like me writing a letter to a friend on paper and signing off, “Miss you, Pen” or “See you in a week! Love, Pencil.”

The tool being used shouldn’t become more important than the person writing it. Anamitra wrote it this way:

“[Contributors] enables users to engage in more authentic conversations with businesses.”

The inclusion of “authentic” and “conversation” is central here.
Somebody smart at Twitter is paying attention to details and helping companies become more human by implementing their NEW Contributor feature.

Heuristic for categorizing features:

Group by how they satisfy user needs and not simply by other functional characteristics.

I think about this all the time. What makes some feature stunning and useful?

Nick Bilton, lead writer for Bits

One answer: a feature that helps you connect with people offline.

Nick Bilton, a new writer for the Bits blog of the New York Times, points to this offline-connection factor as what in his opinion makes the mutual friend list of Facebook a killer feature.  One example he highlights is that when you meet people at a conference (or any event), you can quickly use some app on your phone that’s tied into Faceook in order to find out who you might know in common.

It’s the same reasoning of the @harvard.edu verification that started Facebook’s viral rise. If you feature can affect offline interactions, you may be moving in the right direction. Of course,  in these cases there is a network affect that is required – everyone must be plugged in order for the feature to be valuable.

Companies like Facebook and Google have significant competitive advantage because they can take advantage of network effects in a host of ways – think of Google’s MapMaker. I’ll explore that topic of network effects and feature innovation at a later date.