A few weeks ago we interviewed Shel Israel about his new book Twitterville.

Twitterville is less a business manual than it is a collection of short success stories. The book is so effective because of the personal, one-on-one style with which it is written. It is both entertaining and informative, and while reading it you can’t help but feel good about social media and about the future of the world we live in as a whole. Perhaps that was why the insuppressible cynic in me kept rearing its ugly head and wondering: “is this all too good to be true?”

Allow me to explain. Very few impartial “business” books that I have read are written with as much earnestness as this one, and with such an unflappable belief in the goodness and value of the idea or goods being extolled. Throughout the book questions kept recurring in my head: “what about Twitter’s inherent ability to allow others to behave badly?”, “if Twitter becomes a platform for large companies to promote their business, why would people like me and you continue sharing personal opinions on Twitter?”, “does Twitter really represent a ‘Ville’, or are large swathes of the town’s population conspicuously absent?” Many of my questions were answered as I continued reading (one of the last chapters discusses bots, spam and other malevolent twitter techniques), but a few were not. Anyone looking for a “fair and balanced” (to steal a term from a different medium) representation of Twitter may want to consider these questions as well.

Perhaps my favorite section in the book is about IBM. On pg 132, Israel describes how thousands of IBM employees are involved in numerous conversations with analysts, customers, vendors, and media via Twitter daily, and that none of these conversations involve the selling of any goods. What is surprising is that these interactions are completely unmonitored by any of the higher-ups at IBM. Israel explains that “at IBM, employees are not just trusted to make decisions; they are directed to do so without consulting headquarters.” This struck me as somewhat miraculous: a gargantuan company allows its employees to communicate with the world freely, without fear of retribution for embarrassing the company’s name. This is all well and good and IBM certainly is to be credited for taking such an enlightened approach to business, but realistically, how many companies can and will take the same approach?

Twitter is simply a tool that allows people to communicate. It is much like Facebook and Myspace before it, and the hundreds of microblogging sites that will attempt to dethrone Twitter from the top of the Social Media sphere in the future. Twitter is as much or as little as people put into it, it can be as positive a force as people wish to make it, but can be equally as negative in the hands of anonymous wrong doers.

Seemingly, that is where Israel has fallen in love with the new medium, its ability to start communities from scratch, to give people the ability to share anything and everything from their office desk or their living room bean bag. How this is different than either Facebook or phone texting, however, I am as of yet uncertain. Twitterville is a great glimpse at the success stories (and a few words of warning about the possible failures) of the business world’s soir’ee into the realm of personalized social media as well as a guide into the wonders personal branding can have on ones business. It is entertaining reading and should certainly be read by anyone considering Twitter as a means to promote their company. Just keep in mind that Twitterville is not a Utopia. It is a complex, modern town just like yours or mine.