futurist + strategist + innovator ….making "sense" actionable

I wrote this post on June 30. I’d been reflecting on whether or not I should post it and wasn’t prepared to while I still held some hope that my efforts may pay some dividends.  Since then I’ve concluded that the opportunities for developing around Twitter are for more established and wealthy players only. I also don’t see the developer efforts around Twitter as a playful – experimental playground anymore. While I read less about Twitter today I still don’t see them promoting an effective business model.

As I re-read my thoughts below I realized nothing has really changed. There’s still great strategy and learning in the efforts behind Phweet and Twitmart in particular for Twitter. So I’m sharing my thoughts. You never know it may lead to another conversation.

Chirp Aftermath Thoughts:

Now a number of weeks ago (April 15th!) I watched Day One of Chirp (the Twitter Developer Conference) and then attended their hackathon on DayTwo to mingle with developers.

I met people with different levels of enthusiasm. Many like Loic of Seesmic tried to put a brave face on announcements that day. Developers were key to building a new platform. The developers have done Twitter proud. See Twitter Apps for a listing.

Yet post Chirp the reality is different. They launched Blackberry, Apple, and now Android clients. Only Nokia’s still to come (Gravity anyone). The question is…. “Will Twitter continue to eat it’s young?  I think Twitter will, at least in broad terms.

Background:

I have some experience in this area. Some years ago I was the Skype evangelist. I helped Skype indirectly get that big payday from eBay (the first time round!). I wrote post after post of suggestions, including “Skypecasting” which really launched podcasting globally.  I helped many developers sort out issues. I worked with all the individuals that did early call recorders, and those that created a “Skype presence server” proving it could be done. I also wrote a post giving the Skype Developer Program a D- at the time. Working on the same criteria I’d give Twitter a much better grade today. Perhaps a  C+ or B- overall. The question is relative to where they are -is it going up or down? What will the performance in the next quarter or year be?

Let me share my problem through the context  of what we developed and pioneered around the TwitterAPI. I will state too, early advice given to me by Shel Israel before Phweet launched was “love Twitter to death”. I’ve tried to and as a user I still do. Yet as a developer I no longer have faith. At least limited or little faith in where the approaches we created will ever make a business case. That they will come to  light in different forms – in the end well I have little doubt about their opportunity.

I can see that a number of developers have created successful businesses. I talked to one of the Radian6 team at Chirp. He said they are now 80+ people and going from strength to strength. That makes sense. Still that doesn’t help those that helped Twitter pioneer a new form of communications.

Twitter Apps made Twitter useful. Whether Twitteriffic, TweetDeck, Seesmic, Echofon, TwitilatorPro, Tweetie etc. This proliferation of “chat” like clients revolutionized Twitter. So much so that they defined the Twitter experience. Unfortunately for these developers Twitter has decided that the “experience” is something they have to make easier, better, simpler. This includes examples like how to find a “twitter app” by name in the iPhone store. This was one of their examples.

What are the achievements for the TwitterAPI client communication community?  Without these clients #hashtags, groups, shortlinks, photo and video sharing links etc may not have ever evolved. This includes experiments with location on early iPhone apps pre-Apple appstore. All fodder for Twitter’s future.

I early on saw this proliferation of “chat clients” for twitter as something revolutionary. For the first time we had a new model. A follower model, it was just like the phone system. Even more “mentions” @messages didn’t need person a to friend person b. It was like the telephone. Yet now we had a text based signal that mimicked SMS rather than a ringer going off. The result was open multi-chats, ah-hoc exchanges and the easiest initial escalation with context ever.

Case 1: Phweet: Making Twitter Talk

We knew all this when we started Phweet. It made sense to us to leverage the TwitterAPI and enable Tweeters to talk. Eg escalation from an @message exchange to a voice conversation. We launched Phweet in July 2008. We were too early.  We found Twitter was really quite asynchronous and not the real-time medium it was meant to be. We knew with a few tricks (sms / DM’s) how to make it that way. Almost concurrently Twitter was at that time cutting SMS services in other parts of the world (many have since been restored under new rate agreements with mobile operators).

Phweet worked on a number of levels. It also demonstrated the power of the URL. We were one of the developers effectively keeping the value of our enhancement within the Twitter ecosystem. Meaning we used the TwitterID and only because we couldn’t add value to the Tweet used an external URL.  Thus we managed all site activities by using TwitterID’s. Photo sites are similar.

This URL element is actually the key Twitter problem (Which is how do they create value for their investors). When a user inserts a link the “value” is found off Twitter. Yes we can point to it… we can ReTweet it. Yet the info that most often matters is a link to a newspaper article or another blog. Or more negatively it is a link to another site that is selling something. Or a site where you have to log-in with another ID to transact anything. Twitter’s lost all control at that point. Thus the market continues to ask investors where the real money is.

Case 2: Twitmart: Social Classifieds Marketplace

That brings me to effort two. I’ve not talked about it much on these pages. Although I’ve blogged elements related to super tweets, and Twitmart in the past. For me from an early point in time Twitter’s real opportunity was in location based Tweets.

Let’s take a break for a moment. Hear me out. Twitter was first – smart and lucky. They stumbled into micro-blogging, and the early emergence of PC/Mac clients made it incredibly easy to broadcast short updates. It captured bloggers and introduced those who had never blogged to this form of publishing, engaging and communicating.  It spread at first the “check-in” type of tweet although that seems to have died down somewhat. The open API’s made it easy to feed in blog posts and bookmarks and so Twitter became the channel for aggregating one’s lifestream. That made it even more a part of what we do. While SMS stumbled after the early beginnings the iPhone generation totally changed Twitter. No question that the iPhone apps gave Twitter more personality no matter how easy SMS is. Concurrently, the iPhone/mobile world meant @messages were more likely to be received in a reasonable time. So TAKE BIG NOTE OF Twitter’s announcements re the API and “streaming” to clients. Twitter realizes that it’s future lies in “real-time” notifications that are important to you. That means they will be delivered to mobile. They may come via one of their clients, via SMS or be read on the web or over email. It doesn’t really matter.

So where does a real-time Twitter leave the communications developers? Eg the Tweetdecks and Seesmics etc of the world. Well they could very well go into Ping.fm type land. They have to be Meebo like. They can also stay one step ahead of Twitter. Eg what’s the difference between the latest Tweetie owned by Twitter client and a developer client in a real-time world? Broad examples would be “voice”, “video conferencing”, “desktop sharing”, “data capture and organization” etc. IOW – in other words Twitter and Twitter’s chat clients now potentially compete with Skype or gTalk or Facebook Chat or the older AIM, Yahoo & MSN etc. Developers who want to make some money quick may want to look at adding these types of capabilities. Eg a premium. Call me on my Twitter Handle. These are effectively collect calls – the receiver pays if they want to accept the call and the context.

Yet there is another aspect of the “communications / client realm. It is best known through the “various picture services” and the short URL services. This brings me to the second area that I’ve been part of exploring and developing. It started back in late 2008 based on learning from Phweet and consideration of how to monetize a phone call in a world of free. David Beckemeyer and I  began looking at “social classifieds”. Yet it wasn’t until early this year that we really put the effort in. We wanted to create a “trading place” for Tweeters. We recognized that 140 characters is not dissimilar from a classic newspaper classified ad. We also saw real benefits even in a relatively asynchronous world. Each ad would have the benefits of a “TwitterID” and thus the reputation associated with that ID. Yet for classifieds to really work on Twitter one needs an easy way to escalate the conversation without additional exchanges of ID. Eg no phone number no email or need to follow the other person so private info can be shared. Enter Twitmart as a proxy working just like Craigslist with email and instead using TwitterID’s.

So big developer initiative two. We built the basic platform to turn Twitter into a Social Classifieds Marketplace. We enabled easy exchanges between parties without following each other (even those that aren’t twitter members) enabled “long ads” and optimized the Tweet to get Googled. Yes I’ve sold stuff and made money on Twitter using Twitmart. But the part that really began to excite me is the mobile aspects of our strategy. You see once you oAuth with Twitmart this Tweet is enough to post a classified ad on Twitter.

d twitmart #forsale Subject descriptions of item

Case 3: Watchlists:

That’s it. Well not quite. Let me go to stage 3 of our developer activities. Stage 3 includes watchlists. Twitter has slowly been releasing access to the Twitter Firehose. That’s all the tweets in real-time or the selection of Tweets you want to process. So you define a slice Eg plug in to the firehose for all #forsale tweets. This is all part of Twitter’s real-time strategy. When conversations lapse or get replies days later from someone – twitter doesn’t work so well.

So think of using the watchlist in two ways. One when I create my twitterfied ad imagine that I get instant “leads” based on what others have tweeted in my neighborhood. Offered or ‘I have’ vs ‘I want’. Imagine your #service – plumber and your listing isn’t yellow pages but now Twitter. Now imagine each time someone thinks plumber in your neighborhood you get a message or perhaps you have an auto send. There are many variations that are possible. So what is it that we want. We want to “Tweet” I want a job and then want Job opportunities to come to us. We want to walk down the street and have “passive notifications” instantly available where ever we are. What’s a passive notification. It simply is your screen of “social classifieds” within an X radius of where you stand. These could be local businesses, (who will pay) or someone talking about a local food joint. It just depends on the “chatter” you want to see.

So where to Developers?

It’s complicated. To take these concepts further requires money. Money is not something investors are willing to bet on Twitter API developers. Why? Because it looks a lot like Twitter will usurp your space.  Twitter is going mobile. Twitter wants more value retained within its walls or garden. Twitter is doing this by taking over the experience, and focusing on mobile.

Twitter has tossed a bone to developers in this space. Suggesting that niches are still available. Perhaps true for some of the early companies into this space. Eg CoTweet or Radian6. There may also be some custom “Super Clients” that a small group will pay for that more than make enough money to keep a single developer going. I can imagine a TweetDeck pro. It may cost you $50 per year one day. As a product it still has a long way to go. Yet it is at least plausible and I presented some examples above where clients like it turn to “business” and become a power tools. By providing a “firehose” real-time option for these solutions Twitter continues to stimulate development into the market that will be slowest to move.

Then there was the new cherry. Annotations! I heard so much excitement and so little of use about this at Chirp. The fact is little was really being said. Yes it will contain this many characters. What can go in there? URL’s, Encryption keys? Prior event / post event? How will annotation be read? Is this just another BS word for what the “description” in Twitmart already is. It’s a Tweet annotation, determined by the user. So if I can annotate Tweets with my picture, my location, my details, some contact system etc… even payment then what’s the point of Twitmart. I could add comments too.

Fact is there still remains one last area. That’s “proxy messages” – eg where a messages should be private or allowed between two or more parties. For social classifieds to work we will want proxy messages. Proxy messages will come. They will be enabled via filters and watchlists. A proxy message can potentially be delivered in real-time even when a user isn’t following another. Why’s this attractive? Well look at dating sites – all personals, look at jobs etc. Twitter has mislead people if they believe that delivering coke ads to my mobile is important. However delivering options where I stand may be.

Lastly. The reason I really think I should quit developing around Twitter is it  isn’t an “understood” or “rational” playing field. Staying on board is about ‘trust’. I don’t even want to count the number of hours I’ve put into Twitter in various forms. Twitter still doesn’t have a release 1.0, 2.0 strategy type of roadmap. In fact they test with some ‘friends” and those that have the leg up on other developers are those that are most connected to Twitter pals or already have the most users. There was no SDK for iPad or SKD for iPhone4.0. No sign of it coming either. That means you need to know you get special treatment to continue to commit to twitter. Otherwise expect to be “beaten” on timing to release, or changing strategy as the fences are moved around you. Importantly, there are no dates. Eg when will Annotations be launched and what are the rules? Or even @anywhere or the firehose. That remains “experimental”. Experimental and “loose” benefits Twitter and a limited few developers.

It took a few years for the overall Skype Developer program to die. I doubt Twitter’s developer group is going to disappear quite so quickly. I do see it morphing. Twitter is a consumer / user play. It’s not going after businesses or the enterprise. That’s the niche that may keep developers going for awhile.

So my view is “social classifieds” will be off-limits effectively. This space is Twitter’s future. When the people create ads the whole insertion issue in the tweet stream goes away. Developers could integrate Twitmart social classifieds and phweet related services quickly into the “client ecosystem. There’s ultimately no reason that “social-trading” should be limited to one identity.

After working increasingly with social networks and telecoms over the last seven years I can continue to observe that emerging businesses delight in using API’s and hoping to get developer uptake while successful incumbents have almost zero interest in opening up their API’s. I’d found Twitter’s ability to enable “value-adds” via URL’s compelling. While Twitter itself was very much the dumb pipe – just like SMS the opportunity to create a smart signaling / notification channel that negotiated rules for the exchange between individuals was compelling. Twitter was a perfect example of communications wanting to be free, open, and controlled by the endpoints.

Unfortunately, I’m concluding they will be like all that came before. Skype has yet to deliver on a naked Skype (Skypekit is coming?). Twitter is about to get clothed and developers are paying the price. You won’t hear much beyond whispers from the big developers. They actually have large audiences and thus still have options.

I’m all chirped out for now.

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