By Petra Farinha (March 23, 2009) (MIPs)

Facebook really opened space for Mass Interpersonal Persuasion in a incredible way. It’s funny to see how so many people, as me, that were not so much into the social networks trend, adopted it, use it and are so open to “persuasion” as never before. I think that one of the characteristic of it’s success as Fogg pointed out in the text is that  “having the persuasive experience inside of the walled garden of a trusted culture “,  gives credibility to the persuasion.
It’s not easy for a person that is not a big fan of social networks to think of  other examples of MIP’s. What I currently use, not everyday but more frequently is Twitter. For me is a different tool/service from Facebook – a delicious instant broadcast channel. At least that is why I use it. It could work and works already as a Mass Interpersonal Persuasion. Is not so contained as Facebook where the persuasion happens inside of it’s framework (allowing apps to run inside) but Twitter is used as a channel to broadcast the persuasion. But even the short message that is broadcasted could be the persuasion itself.

Twitter has similar characteristics that Facebook presents, in my opinion, to be considered a MIP : automated structure, social distribution, rapid cycle, huge social graph and maintains credibility. The re-twittering effect could be a more concrete example.
In relation with measuring impacts I don’t know anything in concrete but for sure that exists some programs that allow it and since it’s API is available that are so many projects, including visualizations that allow to see patterns of messages being broadcast and re- twitter all over the world. Also if the persuasion includes broadcasting a link where the experience happens, also the impact could be measured there.

I  think that Twitter works very well as a channel for broadcast messages very fast ( real time as opposite to facebook that was updated every 10 min) and it’s impact is so huge that even Facebook change it’s home page and some features. These changes represent a response to the rise of Twitter as a real-time message broadcasting system that goes beyond members personal circle of friends.

Maybe Twitter as become a better platform for Mass Interpersonal Persuasion.