Email > Twitter > Facebook > Breakfast > RSS (on the go)

A few years ago, my email was the last thing I looked at before going to bed and the first thing I did when I woke up, often during breakfast. Fast forward to the present and now a bunch of “news” compete for my attention: email, RSS feeds, news sites, Twitter and Facebook updates and so on. Because the time-space continuum isn’t changing and I still need to rush out the door to work, there’s less and less time to cram all of this reading in.

As a result, the stuff that I actually read becomes shorter and shorter. While email is still my top priority as it probably is for many others, my priorities have shifted. I find I am more efficient when I compartmentalize my attention. It used to be that I’d login to Facebook on my computer but now, I simply scan status updates on my mobile. I used to catch up on RSS feeds through Google Reader, but now, I refresh them on the mobile and read them cached on the train to work. Most recently, I’m finding Twitter gaining in the attention competition. If one is judicious about who to follow, I believe it’s possible to get a timely pulse of what’s going on at a glance because the 140 character limit enforces efficiency and blends nicely with my morning caffeine spike. I am sure a couple of years from now, there will be something new that will shake things up.

What does your morning routine look like today?

Since the outset, there has been furious debate as to whether Twitter can become a sustainable business. How could a company run for over 2 years without any revenue or a sustainable business model? It defied the business strategist side of me, especially when they they turned down a $500MM offer from Facebook. There was even a “Twitter business model contest” to see who could come up with one. Part of the challenge comes from the fact that Twitter has evolved from a single-purpose status bar into a very efficient and direct 1:1  or 1:many communication platform. Increasingly, it’s how I find things out before it hits the news (anyone remember Flight 1549 that crashed in the Hudson? It was reported by Twitterers on the scene within minutes and a full 15 minutes before any major news organization).

In the nearly 3 years since its inception, the service has had its ups and downs — with serious downtime that comes with rapid expansion. Despite the growing pains, users put up with it because it was so addictively satisfying and to some, it represented the bleeding edge of social interaction.

Recently Twitter closed a $35MM series C round of funding which tells me there are indeed people who think there’s a viable revenue model in the works. As we saw with the CNN + Facebook status integration for Obama’s inauguration, there are opportunities for Twitter to do the same — or better — by integrating into other real-time events. Think about it: Twitter attracts super social people who want to share and what better way for brands to connect than via people who will spread the message because they want to? For them, it is less about the brand and more about the social interaction that they would normally do on their own. The question now is, how can Twitter monetize these activities without alienating its users (ahem, Facebook)?