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Tag Archives: twitter

Twitter in action: Live coverage of the Apple event

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Per yesterday’s post on Twitter needing better demos, here’s a very (IMHO) useful way to follow live coverage, from multiple perspectives, using Twitter. I’ve created a “list” of people who are either live at the event, or following it closely. These people are more likely to tweet only about the Apple event during it. I’ve now taken the list, and embedded it here in the blog as a widget, to show the content. This means you, if the you in question is not a Twitterer, are now actually using the service. Enjoy.


As an aside, one of the “gotchas” about lists will be watching what happens to this same group of people’s content tomorrow. While there was a moment in time where they are united in function and content, within minutes it will become disparate conversations having virtually nothing to do with each other. Which is, unfortunately, another problem with trying to find common ground in Twitter. If you’d like to experiment more with lists, you can visit Listorious, a web site devoted to nothing but Twitter lists…

Will Normal Folks Ever Use Twitter?

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I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but I saw a post on how most Twitter users do not use the service, and thought I’d expand some thoughts. The majority of my friends do not Tweet. Nor does my family. They do not care about it. They see “follow us on Twitter” during TV broadcasts and don’t know why they should. Further, they are not getting more interested despite an increasing barrage of the service.  If anything, they are even less intrigued to the mystique that is Twitter than ever before.  Note that some of my screenshots contain vulgar language – nothing compared to Xbox Live banter, but you’ve been warned.

Here’s the “first impression” a user gets by coming to twitter:

Independent of all other things, this doesn’t really give any insight as to why people are going crazy about Twitter. If I’ve heard that Oprah and Ashton are tweeting, and my favorite football player, and it’s the latest hottest thing, and all I see is a static page with a bunch of random-seeming terms, I’m not yet compelled.  Further, the major tagline “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world” isn’t exactly right.  If you make a search like “how are things in haiti” you get a very bizarre set of responses that do not inherently answer the question.  Knowing how to search in Twitter is important, yet isn’t taught.  Showing hashtags also overly geeks up the screen, and in a bad way.  To continue this “new user experience”, I clicked on “pregnancy pact” (was curious) and saw the following:

This didn’t really explain anything to me, just showed me, well, the exact type of garbage the average person does not want to be reading.  It’s not even gossip/fun, it’s just *weird*.  Sure there’ll be the occasional clever gem, but for the most part, especially with popular topics, it’s becoming a haven for spam or utter drivel.  Also, as an aside, Twitter should not display foul language to users who aren’t logged in – some people still prefer to keep vulgarity elsewhere. It actually gets even worse if you look at trending topics:

Huh?  No thanks.

Now how about the new user experience from the perspective of following someone they were “told” to follow.  The @CNN account shows recent CNN headlines, as it should.  However, this does not exactly “add value” to someone’s life, as finding CNN headlines is relatively easy to do.  How about mega-celebrity @Oprah?

Not exactly new and interesting, and definitely not “real-time”. All we’ve learned is she seems to like Avatar, uses capital letters inappropriately, and then includes a bunch of things that look like gobbledygook.  Why? Because once you do get “into” Twitter, you start using acronyms, links, and vocabulary that make texting look downright poetic.  What’s a ow.ly? Who’s RT? It looks foreign and daunting.  It’s as if there’s a huge “insider’s” club, and if you don’t get it, you feel awkward and alienated.

Finally, there’s looking at what happens once someone actually does sign up for Twitter and use it.  They are presented a seemingly random list of “suggested” users.  Following these people creates a stream of equally foreign and incomprehensible Tweets, likely about topics that aren’t interesting to anyone other than a small group, and again, in an exclusionary, not inclusionary, manner.  Trying to catch the eye/ear of others is near-impossible, and building a following outside one’s small social circle is unlikely to occur.  More stats:

The average Twitter user has 27 followers, which is down from 42 followers in August, according to the new study. About 25% of users have no followers at all; that’s up from 20% with no followers last August. Upward of 40% of users only have one to five followers.

So what should Twitter do about it?

This is the million billion dollar question.  The company is already in danger of reaching the backlash phase inevitable in modern society (get too big/successful and you become the enemy, deservedly or not – see Starbucks, Google, Wal-mart, etc).  Some say it’s already started.  I don’t think so, as I think we haven’t even come to the point where people care yet.  That said, my non-Twitter “regular world” friends are already telling me they’re tired of the inundation of “follow us on Twitter” they see during TV shows, Web sites, etc.  This is a problem, and Twitter must solve it to get as big as they want to be – otherwise this whole thing will get outed as a “early adopter only” toy, and valuations will come crashing down.  And if it starts to crash, even a little bit, it probably won’t recover – nobody wants to hang out in the club that was cool 3 years ago, but only your dad goes to now.

In my opinion, Twitter needs to thoroughly overhaul the new user experience.  Forget “suggested users” and focus on “suggested uses“.  Part of the reason the media like Twitter so much is it is actually useful for doing their job.  They can publicize their content rapidly and directly, can interact with both readers and companies, and make reporting/blogging/journalism a component of how they use Twitter. For celebrities, be they Web-only or real ones, it’s good for personal branding not to mention a nice ego-feed.  For events which occur in real-time (Hudson plane crash, Haiti earthquake, elections, etc) it’s a good way of finding out information as it occurs (though obviously fraught with error and rumormongering).

Notice how we’ve still ruled out “normal people living normal lives”?  There’s zero relevance to the average person who wants to live in private.  Even as they dabble at lifecasting, there’s no reward, as the game logic to using Twitter is fundamentally broken. Unlike FourSquare, or new site TheSixtyOne, there is no form of achievement system.  If anything, you are measured up against people with millions of followers, a completely unattainable goal.  Here’s the opposite: the very first thing I saw on thesixtyone:

Even though the above shot has some confusion, it’s so much closer to telling me something to do, how to do it, and how I benefit from it.  Twitter could easily do the same: “find 10 sports figures (or bands or politicians, etc) and follow them” or “retweet (RT) three people with less followers than you” etc.  This system could scale up pretty high, and create a much more interesting hierarchy for the “twitterati” as well.

The folks at Twitter are clearly smart (and yeah, they got a little lucky along the way, but that’s part of being smart IMHO), and clearly know they need to do something, and soon.  Twitter needs to be able to positively convert new users into active users, and absolutely must work on the “why do I care what someone’s having for lunch?” reputation the site has.  I believe an achievement type of system that rewards “good behavior” is the right way to do it (not to mention major user interface/experience overhauls).  As it stands now, I’ll return to my prior conviction that Twitter has not proven themselves as a viable platform, and must still navigate extremely well and carefully to be the billion dollar company everyone wants them to be.

Not-So-Live at CES 2010

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En route to Vegas, I got myself completely ready for “liveblogging” CES 2010.  My plan was to walk the show floor, find interesting stuff, and either make a quick video or take a picture and blog.  In order to achieve this goal, I had the following technologies prepped:

  • My Droid Eris.  I was fairly confident that the Verizon network would hold up well during the show, giving me 3G bandwidth when and where I’d need it.  Further, it has a 5MP camera – good enough for CES picture taking. Usefulness: 9/10.
  • Ardica jacket w/Moshi Power Pack. Stage Two is doing some consulting work with Ardica, so they gave me a jacket to use during the show in order to keep my Eris charged (since the battery while doing 3G connectivity drains ridiculously fast). Usefulness: 10/10. And as a bonus it kept me warm outside!
  • Flip minoHD. As my backup to my Droid, I had a Flip ready to make all sorts of interesting videos, just in case. Usefulness:2/10. I only made one video with the Flip, but it did work when I needed it.
  • WpToGo (Android App). Gave me near-perfect mobile access to the WordPress blog. Usefulness: 8/10
  • Ustream Broadcaster (Android App). Gave me live videostreaming directly from the phone. Usefuless: 9/10
  • TwiDroid (Android App). Gave me access to Tweet and monitor Tweets. Usefulness: 9/10

Right now you’re probably thinking “well golly jee, Jeremy, it sure sounds like you were set up as the ultimate mobile blogger. What ever could have gone wrong?”

First, while the network connectivity far outpaced my iPhone friends, it still just wasn’t good enough for really watchable mobile video. My friend “Tivoboy” sent me a note that said “live stream is cool and novel, but vid quality is poor doesn’t make for real viewing or ANY future use.”  After receiving that (4 videos later), I pretty much stopped.  Here’s a sample video:

So, now that I was reduced to still imagery and blogging, I ran into the next hurdle: I’m amazingly slow at typing on my Eris, and CES is really busy.  Every time I took a pic, I wanted to upload and write right away, but in reality I pretty much had to keep moving.  So I decided to keep the major storytelling for after I returned, and used Twitter for any “real-time” updates.  I’ll spend the rest of the week getting all the content online (depending on how much MW2 I end up playing).

Overall I thought it was a pretty decent CES.  Nothing outstanding, but then there really hasn’t been much amazing to see at CES in years anyway.  It’s the fundamental branding problem of the show.  Further, the rapidity at which content was shared by Engadget and others radically diminished the in-person wow factor.  When you already know about the various 3DTV, ultra-slim TVs, netbooks, tablets, e-readers, and everything else that’s being shown, it takes a bit away from the in-person showiness of it all.

I think this is the fundamental challenge to keep the show interesting and excited for the attendees (beyond their busy schedules full of meetings).  By Friday afternoon (day 2) when I was walking the show with Robert Scoble and Rocky, we had already seen everything we wanted to see.  This is compounded by the (and forgive the word) “lemming-ness” of the big players.  Once 3DTV was pre-established to be a hot thing, it became the only thing, and as a result, boring.  You simply can’t get excited by 5 different demos of the same technology (especially not one that many of us just aren’t excited about).

Technology Predictions for 2010

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Every year I predict, every year I get at least one thing right. And many wrong.  But that’s the fun part, right?  This year instead of categorizing based on the technology area, I’m going to organize based on my own scale of how crazy the prediction itself is…

The No-Brainers
Stuff that is almost definitely going to happen. Except the ones that don’t…

  • Twitter growth levels off, though Twitter usage increases. I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see the churn rate equal the signup rate as I believe Twitter still has a massive problem with getting new users enchanted with the service.
  • A new version of the iPhone comes out that is incrementally better than the 3GS.
  • Google launches “Android for Set-Top Boxes” but gains little traction in the foreseeable future. (repeat from ’09).
  • CES 2010 exceeds expectations, either in the form of interesting new gadgets or industry-wide product/technology launches.
  • BlackBerry overhauls their “app store” to make it more iPhone-y.
  • Mac OSX market share continues to rise.
  • Superslim TVs (like the Samsung LEDs – drool!) become the hot category for displays.  Many of them are “connected” to various Internet services.

Sounds Feasible
Predictions that are a little more “out there” but don’t require any major convincing.

  • Zynga files to go public, and the entire “social gaming” category gets even more unbelievably outrageous.
  • Yahoo! begins some kind of realistic turnaround. They have far too much foot traffic and too many good properties to continue to fail for so long.
    • Hint to Yahoo! – reinvest in your Flickrs, Deliciouses, and other “interesting” stuff that you are good at, and stay OFF the television and other places that you are not good at.
  • One PC maker emerges from the trenches with a really well-designed laptop that actually can stand up against a Macbook enough to make people take notice. (repeat from ’09).
  • “Real-time Web” loses steam as a meme. While I’m personally very bullish on the impacts and possibilities, it’s far too niche and far too unimportant to “regular folks” to care about.
    • Probably same for “Cloud Computing”, but since everyone’s just confusing it with “The Internet” it might have more staying power.
  • Apple releases stats on iPhone/iPod/iTunes/app store that are just mind-blowing.
  • 4G/LTE networks spread faster than expected, become viably competitive to the mainstream consumer within the year.
  • The term “Social Media” finally begins to fade across all industries other than Social Media Mavens, Gurus, and Wizards.  The latter reach level 7 and learn how to cast User-Generated Fireball and Community Driven Magic Missile.
  • All non-Apple tablets are craptastic.  Ditto for touchscreen phones.
  • 3DTV gets embedded into lots and lots of TVs, much to the chagrin of consumers who don’t feel the need to look like that goofy guy in Back to the Future, even in the comfort of their own living rooms.
    • Note that in my opinion the only thing that really makes 3D “work” in the home is sports. And even that’s a long shot.

Whatcha Talkin Bout Willis?
Stuff that’s probably not going to happen, but ya never know…

  • Facebook reveals huge revenue numbers, files to go public.
  • Twitter gets acquired by Microsoft.  Yeah, I’m being specific here, but it’s the only logical acquisition, and Microsoft’s got deep enough pockets and have failed at virtually all things Internet.  In a nutshell, Ballmer wants to bring sexy back.
  • The Apple Tablet ships in 2010. Sure all the “in the know” folks are convinced this must happen, but most of them said that about 2009 (and/or that Apple would ship a netbook).
  • Some kind of flexible-display type of device is announced (might even ship).  If I had to hunch (and I of course do), it’d either come from Apple or as a new Kindle.
  • Tru2Way is announced as the new failure of openness from the FCC.
  • All versions of Rock Band and Guitar Hero in 2010 fail to exceed sales stats of 2009 or 2008.
    • Hey guys – remember how that Who Wants to be a Millionaire show was super popular? Then they started running it 4+ nights a week?  Then it moved to daytime?  There’s something called a “saturated market”.  Stop with all the specialty versions and get back to improving the base game, which you can sell add-ons to.
  • Cisco buys a few more gadget makers and technology providers in their attempt to own the Digital Home.  In each case they continue to exhibit poor timing and overpay for slightly outdated platforms.

Can I get a hit of that stuff?
Things that are just plain unrealistic, but I’m saying them anyway.  This way if they happen I can say I was the first to say them.

  • Apple does not ship a tablet. Yes, I contradict the above point, since I do think “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” holds up in general.  However, it is Apple, and this is a terrible device category, and Steve Jobs hates doing things crappily.  BTW, you really should read this piece if you are even remotely following the Apple Tablet news – it’s extremely well written and insightful.
  • Facebook buys Twitter.  It’s not really all that out there as a concept (although I’d wager the personalities behind both companies are big forces against it).  Both companies need to continue rapid growth. Both companies need to create lots of revenue.  Both companies want to be “empires”.  There are many overlapping aspects, but the combined entity could realistically “own” the social network.
  • A new game console launches.  I put this in the long-shot category because nobody is really incented to create a new console right now.  The Xbox 360 is finally hitting it’s strides; the PS3 has way too much cost to recoup, and the Wii is enjoying it’s ride.  If I had to guess, I’d wager on a 4th party entrant (Samsung?).  If one of the big three, I’d pick the next console as a “Wii HD”.
  • A “Lifestreamer” device comes to market.  It’s not quite a phone, but it’s always on, always recording, and has amazing synch with some Web service.  Never takes pictures, only video. Able to “Tag” moments.  Has real-time streaming capabilities.
    • Scoble buys units for himself and entire family. 😉
  • Microsoft (or possibly Yahoo!) goes on a major Internet services acquisition spree, picking up companies like Zoho, bit.ly, Adobe (yes, Adobe), Pandora, Evernote, UserVoice, and more.
  • The TwitterPeek is the #1 hottest selling device of the year!

That’s all folks, see you in 361 days for the results.

Note that I anticipate much snarkiness in the comments.  Have at it.

Scoring my 2009 Tech Predictions

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I hit about 50% on my 2008 predictions, time to size up my prognosticatory (not a word) skills again. And here’s the original post (though I’ve included all the predictive content again below).

Home Gadgets/Tech

  • Microsoft opens the Xbox 360 platform even further, enables an “app store for the home” that spans well beyond games. WRONG – while there are many new features and some openness, it’s not even close to my prediction.
  • Blu-ray sputters along, but not enough conclusive evidence (in other words, revenue) happens to either shut down the format altogether, nor to get consumers to adopt it. RIGHT – stats on Blu-ray for 2009 were unimpressive.  It’ll be physical media versus the newspaper industry to see who kicks the bucket first.
  • As the FCC-mandated digital TV transition approaches, the hype machine reaches full effect and very convincing pieces try to show the plight of the very few.  After it’s all over, virtually nobody complains loudly. RIGHT – oh yeah, there was a transition last year, wasn’t there…
  • One or both of Home Automation and/or Interactive TV returns to prominence in techie chatter, but neither make any additional inroads into actual homes. WRONG – the hype machine stays in neutral
  • Pasting from 2008 predictions: Google launches “Android for Set-Top Boxes” but gains little traction in the foreseeable future. WRONG – Droid came instead…  but I’m putting this back on the list (to-come) for ’10.

Computers

  • Netbook sales grow well, but not astoundingly so.  The majority of users ignore them due to a lack of actual value present in the device (especially those of us with big grubby fingers). UNKNOWN – I left this one too vague and could go either way on it.
  • One PC maker emerges from the trenches with a really well-designed laptop with great Vista drivers that actually can stand up against a Macbook enough to make people take notice. WRONG – MacBook sales just continued to climb relative to PC Laptops instead
  • A Linux-based computer powered with a really great GUI and OpenOffice comes to market from an established brand. WRONG – although Android netbooks are supposedly coming next year, but that’s definitely not a 2009 thing.
  • USB 3.0 launches, causing massive annoyance and confusion to consumers.  I still can’t believe they didn’t give it a different name than USB.  Terrible decision. WRONG – the format launched, but nobody really cared.

Mobile Gadgets/Tech

  • More lousy wannabe touchscreen phones ship, none compete 1:1 with the iPhone. RIGHT – so very very right.
  • A really good GPS+phone combo device comes to market. WRONG – I shouldn’t have said “really good”
  • The BlackBerry Storm is rapidly replaced with some better device from RIM. RIGHT – but then again they did name it Storm again…
  • Mobile commerce replaces location-based services as the hot mobile trend. MIXED – they’re both pretty hot, but FourSquare really did charm the pants off the tech bloggers.
  • US cellular companies wage a price war, making several features (ahem, texting?) cheaper, along with better priced packages across the board. WRONG – and oligopoly enjoys another year.
  • No truly impressive Android phones ship from anyone. WRONG – the Droid and Droid Eris are both impressive (though still no iPhones – and I *have* an Eris)

Events/News

  • CES 2009 is notably smaller than 2008, yet the important stuff that goes on at the show is business as usual.  It’s all the fringe people who are absent, and the same who complain about the lack of cool new stuff at CES.  Which won’t be a surprise due to the rarity of cool new stuff actually shown at CES! RIGHT – and ditto again in 2010
  • Macworld is just the first of many shows to also announce downsizing, including Streaming Media, Web 2.0 Expo, etc.  2009 will be a bad year for the tech conference industry. RIGHT – Macworld? Streaming Media West was a ghost town. Web what.point.oh?
  • Apple introduces only evolutionary products, nothing astounding or revolutionary. Let’s face it, sooner or later the well runs dry, and this is the time for the company to expand its market.  Yes, we’ll get a new phone, laptop, and ipod, but I doubt we see anything as profound as in the past 2 years. RIGHT – although I do very much like my 27″ iMac, it’s not revolutionary.  Maybe in 2010, we’ll see.
  • A largish black monolith with dimensions 1 by 4 by 9 is discovered. RIGHT – but I can’t tell you about it.

Web/Online

  • Facebook reaches a user base of 200 hundred million users.  It’s growth ratethen  slows and the alarm bells sound loudly throughout the media, regardless of actual success metrics. MIXED – bit off more than I should’ve with that one.
  • Twitter finally announces its business model, which underwhelms everyone.  Not that it won’t be a good model, just that it will have been (wow is that passive voice or what?) built up with far more hype than can possibly be delivered. MIXED – they didn’t really announce anything specific, but are making revenue, and the hype train is unquestionably fully loaded.
  • Many “web 2.0″ companies face major shrinkage as the funds simply don’t come back to them again.  Companies with huge traffic bases or, more importantly, solid revenue models will be fine, but the rest start fading away (and they take their weird names with them) RIGHT – look around, the air’s a lot thinner these days
  • Several “prominent” blogs/bloggers retire due to a lack of revenue, exhaustion, lack of interesting new content to write about, etc. WRONG – was really expecting this to happen, but I didn’t see much of it.
  • Web 3.0 does not arrive. RIGHT – duh.

Total count:

  • RIGHT: 10 (9 without the monolith)
  • WRONG: 10
  • OTHER: 4

Not too shabby, not too overwhelming.  I’m still writing the 2010 edition, so hopefully nothing monumental will happen before I can publish it!

How-to: Figure Out What Twitter Lists You (or someone else!!!) Are In

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Twitter Lists are all the rage. The shiny new object. The hot new thing.  For at least the next day or so… They’re a practical way to manage people you follow, and, of course, yet another mechanism to drive one’s ego and other forms of self-indulgence.  Especially since they aren’t even open to all Twits Twitterers yet.  But supposedly everyone’ll have access soon enough.  So let’s assume that by reading this post, you have access to the Twitter lists feature.  Not sure?  Go to Twitter.com, log in, and look for “lists” on the right of your screen.  Can’t find it? No lists for you!

I logged in today and found I’ve been added to TEN (10) lists!  Yay for me!  Is 10 good? I have no clue.  I’ll give it a resounding maybe.  But they like me, they really really like me.

The cool thing is, lists are public and totally fair game.  So not only can you easily follow anyone’s lists of amazingly cool wonderful people who tweet better than the likes of you or I, but you can also easily find out what lists someone is on.  Why would you want to do this?  Well, other than the obvious game of figuring out who is the coolest kid in school, it could be a great way to find lists of people that are relevant to you/your industry pretty quickly.  Here’s the simple 3 step-process to find out what lists someone is on…

  1. Get the twitter name of the person you want to stalk know more about.  E.g. “jtoeman”.
  2. Cut a hole in the box.
  3. Go to the URL http://twitter.com/that twitter name you got in step 1 above/lists/memberships. For example: http://twitter.com/jtoeman/lists/memberships
  4. Read list.
  5. Think about the words you are reading.
  6. Enjoy a cup of coffee with some freshly steamed milk (organic from sustainably farmed cows if possible).
  7. Watch an episode of Glee.
  8. Try to remember why you were looking up people on Twitter in the first place.
  9. Profit.

Hope this was helpful!

The TwitterPeek is Real? Cmon! No, seriously?

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As a “connected gadget guy” I had heard a few rumors that Peek (the company blissfully unaware that people generally do like BlackBerries, and I don’t much care that it’s on Oprah’s list – the future is smartphones and it isn’t slowing down anytime soon) was coming out with a Twitter-only device. I scoffed at most of these comments, as it sounded so… odd. As I stated about the WikiReader last week, in the mobile space converged devices are hands-down beating out single purpose devices.

But I saw a tweet today claiming it’s real, and I did a quick Amazon search, and lo-and-behold – it’s real! But to think that there’s a market out there for a Twitter-only device is just plain puzzling.

Let me break it down a bit:

  1. Twitter use is, for the most part, technologists and some celebrities.  Both groups have smartphones, primarily iPhones and BlackBerries, which have fairly rich Twitter integration.  Neither will purchase a new device that does Twitter only.
  2. New-to-Twitter people are still getting warm on the concept (well actually mostly they are just dropping the service), and wouldn’t buy a new gadget.
  3. This leaves us to the “if and when Twitter gains mass acceptance” market.  Let’s discuss some more…

I’m still far from sold that Twitter hits mainstream adoption. Granted it’s being splattered across virtually every media one comes across, it’s still lacking in its ability to get widespread use by widespread users.  This is very different from “people know about this Twitter thing because of Oprah”.  Right now, most people who encounter the service do not become regular users.  It’s still quite a few steps away from the masses actually using it.

Which makes it even more steps away from the masses buying a device that does nothing but Tweet.  Sorry to poo-poo on a new gadget (again), but I can’t help but feel that this is yet another case of a lack of market definition prior to building something (costly).

By the way, on the chance/assumption that this is exactly the same Peek as before, only more Twitterized, then at least I feel a little bit better that there wasn’t a crazy amount of time investment to build this thing.  But if that’s the case I can’t understand why they’d turn off the email service?  Too much crazy going on for me here to comprehend.

As a last p.s. – whomever was supposed to launch this thing shouldn’t have let Amazon list it early… Kinda spoils the surprise.

Five Random Thoughts: Beatles Rock Band, Social Gaming, beeTV, CrunchPad, Palm Pre

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I’ve been told I’m a ‘long format blogger’ – most of my posts are fairly long (typically overly so). As a result my posts tend to take a while to write, which means I need to block out (too much) time to get them up.  And I seem to have less and less free time all the time these days, plus by the time I’m writing something, it seems like a thousand others have already written something related to what I’d write.  While I know I shouldn’t feel biased by others’ writings, at the end of the day I feel that if I’m not saying something original, what’s the point?

So in an effort to get some thoughts across, I’m going to try to do the occasional “roundup” post on a few topics all at once.  This is the first of said posts.

  1. Rock Band, Beatles Edition
    I’m not sure which game I’m more excited about, this or Modern Warfare 2.  I love The Beatles music, and I love Rock Band, so that’s a huge win. Plus I like the idea of a non-hard core version of Rock Band.  If you haven’t seen the preview, check it out here:

  2. Social Gaming
    The new enhancements to the Xbox Dashboard include integration with Facebook and Twitter.  I have a feeling most of the features will be overkill and rarely used by the majority of Xbox owners, but there is a clear improvement needed to integrating social networking and gaming.  The key missing element in my opinion is an easier way to find your friends within the Xbox Live experience.  Hopefully direct integration with the services I use for networking will help me find and connect with people in my gaming world.
  3. beeTV
    A startup raised another $8 million to provide recommendations for watching TV shows.  This is now 10 consecutive years of me watching companies try to enter this space and fail.  Further, these guys are doing deals with cable and set-top companies, two segments notoriously perilous for relying on for a business to succeed.  Who knows, maybe these guys will find that magic touch, but my hunch is (a) there isn’t a real problem in this space, and (b) making a sustainable income stream will be extremely challenging.
  4. Crunchpad
    I applaud the crunch team for their efforts on building the Crunchpad.  But I have concerns over the device itself.  First, the market – I don’t see a web tablet (at any price) effectively replacing a laptop for simple surfing, it doesn’t make sense.  Second, the usage – it’s either going to be tiring to hold it up, or it goes into the lap, which again, brings the laptop back into the scene.  Ultimately I see it as a “bread machine” type of gadget (purchased, used for a little while, then slowly migrating out of daily life until it gets regifted). I’ll be curious to see what comes of it.
  5. Palm Pre
    Reviews are saying it’s solid. Sprint’s said they anticpate a shortage. I believe both statements are accurate.  But I also believe it will never supplant the iPhone or BlackBerry, and I also believe the initial orders placed by Sprint are in low volumes relative to those products.  I think the product is probably going to be pretty solid, but I think it’s too-little, too-late for Palm.  I know back in the day I didn’t think people would switch to AT&T for the iPhone (I was wrong), but I can’t imagine iPhone people switching to Sprint for the Pre.  Maybe I’ll be wrong again…

Well, that’s my first attempt at a “ripped from the headlines” kind of post.  Feedback, comments, and spirited debate are very welcome.

Explaining Twitterspeak to Others

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Now that Oprah’s on Twitter, it’s safe to say there’ll be even more attention being paid to this bizarre little service.  Yes, I use it, and yes, I can comfortably say it’s bizarre.  Never before in the history of mankind has the concept of extremely short format person-to-world shouting been possible, and we have a long way to go to until we truly understand the impact.  But in the meantime, with all the new users coming to Tweetersville, I figured I’d put together a handy-dandy guide to help explain some of the Twits you might see out there.

The following translation table should help get you started on comprehending the true meanings of what can be “conversed” 140 characters at a time. Important disclaimer: if you cannot handle cynicism or snarkiness, well jeez, what are you doing reading blog posts at all (here’s a safer place for you)?

If you see someone Tweet… That person is saying…
I’m here in [COOL LOCATION] but am so exhausted from the flight I’m gonna crash. Hey everyone, I got to go to [COOL LOCATION] and you are stuck in your lame place!
Hanging at the Web 2.0 Expo with @Arrington and @Scobleizer I’m at the Web 2.0 Expo and just saw @Arrington and @Scobleizer walk by
Retweeting [FAMOUS PERSON]: … Hey, [FAMOUS PERSON], please notice me!
Just heard a really cool rumor about a big tech company – you’ll get the scoop tomorrow Nothing.
Thanks for following me, I really appreciate it! I’m a big tool that uses autofollowing/autoresponding services, and didn’t even push a button on my keyboard to send you this message. That’s right, it took exactly zero of my caloric output for this waste of bits to occur.
Gosh, I’m sooooo behind on my emails! Rather than deal with my email overload problem, I’m going to waste more time by Twittering.
Heading to the mountains, have a great weekend everyone! Attention 14+ 19 million people, my house will be vacant this weekend. Please review older tweets of mine to determine my home address, then enjoy yourself to my stuff.
OMG, can’t believe I’m going to be on [SOME TV SHOW, PODCAST, OR OTHER “BIG” MEDIA]! so exciting! Yeah, I’m hot stuff, and I want you to know it. This little realm of 140-character communication is neat-o, but the big folks know about me too, because I’m special. My mommy said so, and this proves she’s right!
Holy crap, I can’t believe they killed [MAJOR CHARACTER] on the [BIG TV SHOW] season finale! I am envious of DVR owners and thus comfortable with spoiling the TV show they watch.
Holy crap, I can’t believe [SOMEONE] won/got kicked off [BIG REALITY SHOW]!! see above
Hey, does anyone out there know where you can buy [SOME PRODUCT] in San Francisco? Hey, can someone Google [SOME PRODUCT “San Francisco”] for me? I’m just too darned lazy to do it myself.
Hah, [COMPANY] just [DID SOMETHING], just like I predicted in my blog post 3 years ago. Gosh I’m smart, even though the other 80% of my predictions don’t come true.
[PRODUCT/SERVICE/COMPANY] is so lame/amazing, I hear [unimportant blah blah blah thing] Someone else just said something about [PRODUCT/SERVICE/COMPANY] and I don’t really know it first-hand, but they sounded authoritative while on that phone call I was listening in on in line at the Starbucks instead of minding my own business
Sweet, only 7 more followers until I reach [IMPRESSIVE-SOUNDING NUMBER]! I spend most of my offline time alone, so I could really use a little ego-boost online. Can you spare a follow? Just a quick follow, please! I’ll clean your windshield…
OH: [SOME CLEVER/RIDICULOUSLY INANE COMMENT] I’ve wanted to say [COMMENT] for a while, but didn’t really have the cajones to just say it myself.
Kinda embarrassed to see myself on this list of the Top 50 Amazing [TITLE] List Not embarrassed at all, only bummed that I’m not in the Top 10, because I feel great about the world when my blogger friends write lists to identify cool people and put me in them. It’s pretty sweet
Twitter’s totally lame now that [OPRAH/ASHTON/SOME OTHER ACTUALLY FAMOUS PERSON] is now on it. I’m probably just going to stop using it, or maybe try FriendFeed I used to think 2000 followers made me popular, and now I realize I’m one of the masses again. And I sure don’t like it.
Waiting in a line to get a Frappucino. Or maybe I’ll try an iced chai latte, I hear those are good. Oooh, vanilla scone bites! Yummy! I have lost the fine art of being able to just do absolutely nothing for more than 17 seconds. I tried to just stand here in line, and let an original thought fly through my synapses, but instead I grabbed the nearest gadget I could and did something with it. Please, oh lord, let me be at the front of the line by the time I am done with my 140 characters!

By the way, I put together the list based loosely on Tweets I’ve actually seen… Did I miss any?

Note: if you are looking for help understanding what things like “bit.ly/2lOL2g” or #gov20 or OH/RT: mean, you are in the wrong place.

It's Official, Twitter is a Cult

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I’ve been “tweeting” for about a year now.  As many of my friends know, I joined fairly reluctantly, but felt it was one of those things I just “had” to do professionally.  Over time my use of the service varied, but I tried to stick to using it for mostly professional purposes (with exceptions of important life events, like my hospital stay, the birth of my son, the time I had to wait extra-long at the bus stop, and about that really yummy cookie I got at Specialty’s).  In the past year, Twitter usage has grown leaps and bounds, and their brand awareness is clearly reaching the mainstream.

Now there are those who feel this is bad for society, as we reduce content intake to bite-size formats and become headline crazy.  Personally I think this happened over a decade ago, and Twitter is merely the cough to our lack-of-depth cultural pneumonia that’s going around.  That said, there’s something a bit more to the Twitter effect than the other rapid-fire tools people seem to have at their disposal.  When you talk to people who really use Twitter (I’ve tried to do so to find employees, refer business, donate money, rally volunteers, but none of these efforts really go anywhere for me – I think you have to be in the Scoblesphere to actually have impact on your followers), they talk about it differently than virtually any other Web service they use.  Further, there seems to be a little bit more… fanaticism to Twitter than anything else I’ve seen.  I’ll paraphrase the commentary I’ve heard and seen…

“You aren’t on Twitter?  Dude, *everyone* is on Twitter, what are you thinking?”

“Did you see my funny Tweet today?  It got retweeted like 4 times!”

“I’m already up to 600 followers, but I gotta find more.”

“OMG, @garyvee is following me now! I’m special and important!”

To the non-twitterers, this kind of talk is clearly reminiscent of the Smurfs, with more gibberish words being used to describe any derivation of a Twitter-based action.  But as I’ve spent time watching the unbelievable quantity of discussion about Twitter itself, it’s become utterly clear to me.  Twitter is a cult.  Maybe not we’re-all-going-to-live-on-the-great-spaceship cult, but a cult nonetheless.

Warning to the thin-skinned: there are broad generalizations here – if you cannot deal with that as a concept, go here instead!  As sourced by The Internet, a cult can be defined as a group having all of the following 5 characteristics:

  1. It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members
    Twitter users attempt to get non-Twitter users to join.  They talk about the urgent necessity of being on Twitter (funny video on this). New twitterers are welcomed with very open arms. Gaining followers is rewarded psychologically (go find a single human being not happy with “being followed”), and once a user has a mass of followers, they are highly dis-incented to leave Twitter.
  2. It forms an elitist totalitarian society
    Twitterers tweet to each other, and in person, talk about their tweets.  Twitterers believe that everybody should be twittering.  Non-twitterers are ignored. Companies and individuals who do not use Twitter are belittled, and generally looked down upon.  Having followers is “good”, not having them is “bad”.
  3. Its founder/leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma
    Okay, this one is a stretch – first, I don’t know the founders at all, and second, from what I do know about them it doesn’t seem like a very accurate claim whatsoever (though they certainly are treated like royalty around the valley).  But instead of thinking about this in context of the individual founders, think of the so-called “twitterati”.  Many “top” twitterers absolutely act these ways.  They make bold claims, talk about the famous people they are meting with, and otherwise spend a lot of time self-aggrandizing on Twitter.
  4. It believes ‘the end justifies the means’ in order to solicit funds/recruit people
    Forget the solicit funds, since we are still waiting to hear about a business model, but again, look at the communication style of self-proclaimed “Twitter experts” and the utter requirement on dragging anyone and everyone into the twittersphere.  People have offered to spend money to be a “recommended twitterer”.  Social Media Consultants tell 100% of their clients they “must” get on Twitter.  And it’s all self-serving – companies “have” to be on Twitter, because “that’s where the conversation is happening” – and by the way, they need to pay someone to get there and pay for advice on how to Tweet and pay for others to “monitor” their Twitter topics.  If topics like ROI arise, they are swept aside by the “importance of the conversation” and being told “all the early adopters are there”.  Buzzword merchants rule the day, and rational business logic is thrown out the window.  Don’t misread me here – there are early adopters on Twitter, and there are plenty of reasons to get your business listening and engaging in the 140-character-at-a-time shouting match, but the manic rush to push big business there is truly amazing.
  5. Its wealth does not benefit its members or society
    As I linked to above, studies are showing the concerns of impact Twitter may have on society. Personally, I found myself agreeing with many points raised.  As I saw what I will call “prominent” technology Twitterers reacting to the article, their comments treat it with disdain.  Why?  Because it’s a threat to the foundation that Twitter must be good.  While I have seen a few examples of people using Twitter to actually produce a benefit (raising some money, rescue stranded bloggers from the desert, etc), it’s pretty hard to justify other true benefits.  It certainly occupies time, and is unquestionably a fascinating method of communication (albeit a fundamentally broken one), but I’d wager a fine penny that heavy Twitter users are not healthier, happier, or otherwise more satisfied with life than the poor schlubs out there limited to such primitive tools as the phone and texting to just one person at a time.

Quick update: Just read “Twitter Leads to Immorality? C’mon!” – one other common attribute of a cult is the complete inability to handle negativity nor criticism about the cult itself.

Now before anyone massively overreacts to my statements (oops, too late, the angry reactions probably got written as comments/tweets long before most readers would even get this far), I’m not saying “all Twitter use is bad”!  But maybe we need to really consider the role it plays and how we could and should use it.  I fundamentally believe it is not creating “a community” and I am also deeply concerned about the combination of “Attention Grabbing Headlines” with the lack of responsibility used by many Twitterers (urban myth perpetuation, worms/attacks, and, of course, Rickrolling).

If there’s one thing I do believe is that Twitter is pushing us even further down the perilous road of “instant reporting”, regardless of the news or facts about a situation.  Fact-checking is all but dead in traditional writing, let alone 140 character chunks.  This pace is part of the contribution to the “work creeps into personal time” calamity modern society faces. Yes, it’s a calamity – did you know that when we were hunter-gatherers the average human “worked” for about 17 hours per week?

How to solve the problem:  calm down about the Twitter.  Don’t have to stop.  Don’t have to quit.  But also… don’t have to have 50,000 followers.  Don’t have to be retweeted a hundred times a day.  Don’t have to have everyone know every intimate detail of your day.  Don’t call me up to tell me about a cool tweet you wrote. Don’t try to recruit your grandpa to sign up.  Don’t expect every company to beckon to win your love just because you wrote (something negative) about them in 45 seconds.

And, of course, don’t expect a free latte just because you have some followers.

Twitter Scam Proves Early Adopters Don't Know Everything

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I visualize technology adoption like a huge wave crashing to shore.  At the tip of that wave’s crest are the newest of new technologies, such as FriendFeed and Plurk.  As the wave advances, they’ll either gain usage amongst a wider audience or dissolve into nothingness.  Below the tip are still new technologies that are trying to “cross the chasm” into the mainstream, such as Twitter – they might make it, or also just fade away.  Next up we have technologies that spreading to the masses, like Facebook and blogging.

From my time here in Silicon Valley, I’ve noticed a tendency that the “higher ups” on the early adoption wave tend to look down upon the rest.  Sometimes the smugness is so thick it’s as if those users who don’t microblog are busy using whiteout on their monitors while wiping a lingering trail of drool off their chin.

Over the weekend, it turns out someone tried to “phish” Twitter users, and achieved enough success to warrant widespread coverage by bloggers and online media. The official Twitter blog stated:

It looks as though this particular scam sent out emails resembling those you might receive from Twitter if you get email notifications of your Direct Messages. The email said, “hey! check out this funny blog about you…” and then provided a link. That link redirected to a site masquerading as the Twitter front page.

If you didn’t look at the URL of this false Twitter page, then you might not have noticed that it was actually just a page on the domain access-logins.com which was also faking Facebook’s front page. We immediately reported the offending domain (and warned our friends at Facebook). The site is now on OpenDNS’ and Google’s reported phishing lists.

So if you’ve ever had someone make fun of you because you aren’t using the beta version of an operating system, don’t lifecast yourself while making potty, or still have to push multiple buttons on your cell phone, this is your time for a Nelson-ish “haa-ha”.  Now I certainly don’t wish success to anyone using malicious activites like this online, it’s truly bad for everyone.

But maybe all the “I’m-so-cool-and-you’re-on-MySpace” attitudes of so many echo chamberites, maybe your horse ain’t so high after all?  Maybe a few of the people who got suckered in can help build better interfaces to their technologies so our less technically savvy friends don’t have to feel stupid when trying to adopt new stuff?  I have three “what I hope we all learn from this” statements:

  1. Being an early adopter doesn’t make anyone “better” than anyone else, and clearly not smarter.
  2. Product/interface designers need to do better jobs at making their technology more approachable.
  3. Internet companies, as a whole (Google – I’m calling you out here – you need to make spammy search results go bye-bye), are failing to protect consumers from those with malicious intent.