I keep reading Apple + Twitter stories and no-one seems to have a clue why it might be a good idea… or a very bad idea… or simply unnecessary. What almost no one does… is tell me a story of why it might be a good idea. This is a crude little thought experiment. An example of where it might lead you is… Could the app/itunes store become the billing engine for Twitter services? Are the Telecom operators financial models the likely casualty? Is iTunes the next bank?
Steve Jobs 2015 WWDC… reflecting on the 3.0 iPhone launch.
I wasn’t there at the 3.0 launch, Phil did the talk. In retrospect we still seemed so unlikely to make the iPhone the ubiquitous communication device. The carriers remained difficult although we had no real competition. The launch of iPhone3.0 was the turning point. Till then the iPhone had been somewhat crippled and we’d made a decision to hold to one app at a time. That was problematic as we had no way to cope with the real-time world that was emerging. For the first two years we had no way to wake an app and it took us time to work out the details.
The integration of the notification services structure changed all of that. It was MobileMe then. When 3.0 launched we had games that kept people synced in real-time. As messenger and twitter clients moved to this same format we found that those running iPod touches could run their fun and communications off the same device. With location based notification services emerging, and new “friend in the vicinity” notifiers people really began looking at their iPhones in a new way.
It seems so strange now. Yet when notifications were read out and played via bluetooth headsets we really began feel real-time updates in a new way. We no longer had to look to a screen for notification. It solved the old desktop / laptop popup window problem; many of you won’t even remember that. Of course you couldn’t screen the flow then for much. An individuals flow was not finely tuned to them; the messaging still crude.
Yet that’s where our perspective started to change. By the launch of 3.0 we had already seen over a billion apps downloaded. While the phone had been limited to just over 100 we announced then that the iPhone would support 1000 apps without a problem. It would be another two years until we launched “background” services which were effectively invisible background apps. The real money in the apps was to come in the value they brought to notifications. Sure we all had ideas then about shopping and finding a date…. the solutions turned out to be obvious. We also knew we needed real access to this emerging flow. Twitter volumes were exploding. News broke on twitter. It was the future.
We bought Twitter just before Christmas 2009. It coincided with my own new lease on life. Twitter had two key things that were of real importance to us. Yet we said nothing for another year…. We added in the “location” GPS details to every Tweet. We made it even easier to integrate with mapping and we built a telephony contacts API that began to leverage the Twitter profile. We also put in a free SMS messaging service for Twitter users for all @replies. The markets thought we were nuts.
Yet it’s like getting someone hooked on crack and we needed leverage. The combination of app notifications and Twitter notifications started to present our next big challenge. Still at the time it was manageable. Of course now we have the full contract / exchange infrastructure. So the following year at WWDC we realized we had the momentum and the moment. We used the iTunes store, Twitter and MobileMe to launch a free global phone service. Yep, just like that. still sounds like it comes out of left field. We gave the users more control without taking anything away.
In that year we’d learnt you can set up Phone calls on any iPod Touch. You do it via a message or signal. “Hi Phil, I’d like to talk to you about!”. In fact it was the guys at Phweet that originally set the strategy in motion. In a world of real-time messaging there was no need to use a dial-tone to set up a call. Even then many of us were at the point where we sent a text message first. The mobile operators didn’t see it coming. We enabled Twitter apps to “forward” all tradtional calls (calls without notifications first) to the MobileMe service. Signals for calling would now travel via URL’s. In the iPhone world it was just another screen gesture and any URL could offer the ability to escalate to voice and video.
Over the next couple of years we effectively turned off the dialtone and the keypad. URL’s URI’s became the points you wanted to escalate a conversation around. In the background it really didn’t matter any longer whether it as an old PSTN call, a VoIP call or in which direction the connection to the exchange was made. We almost slipped before we realized that each Tweet and URL could have highly complex services attached to them. We shipped that with the 6.0SDK.
What mattered was we’d put access and response control in the users hand. We’d also shown the developers a market where despite the increasing negotatiated complexity behind the scenes the user experience was easier than ever. Merging the Twitter and iPhone Developer communities accelerated notification service developments. Dropping MobileMe – making it free enable the notification ecostructure to thrive.
Today we face a new opportunities and we think we are ready for it. I spoke before about when the apps effectively went invisible…. iMem 1.0 represents the next generation human OS.
So ask yourself.
Is this scenario even a little possible? What’s your Twitter strategy? What’s your notification strategy? Could Apple pull this off?
These are points of intersection that make could make it interesting.
- iPhone users use Twitter.
- iPhone users don’t use MobileMe much.
- Apple is about to turn on a notification service with iPhone 3.0
- Apple doesn’t have a “profile” or simple directory listing other than what is in the “contacts” and no way to share same.
- More importantly the Twitter profile relates to a URL not a number
What is similar about Apple’s notification service and Twitter?
- Notifications directed at a user (Twitter DM or @, Apple’s SMS popup format) may be public or private.
- The flow of this information is designed to “escalate” / launch new programs and activity.
- Apple can monetize this notification activity.
- Apple is also the gateway to real-time updates.
- The only notifications outside this model are ringing calls, SMS and MMS. (You could perhaps count email too). Twitter supports SMS and email.
So….
- Could Twitter be the world’s independent notification service?
- Will Apple simply usurp the “notification” world by riding on top of the “app” mania?
- Can this combination refine notifications to such a point that the “power and economic structures” around the phone / mobile change dramatically?
- Does this change who should be interested in Twitter?
I read a wonderful piece by Malcom Gladwell today about David and Golaith. Apple has learned the fullcourt press.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article! I liked the way you narrated the whole futuristic technology. Off course, phweet will change the communication paradigm. Twitter as a global notification platform is gone happen.
Here are some additional points to think off
1) Twitter username as a global user identifier.
2) All communication like sms, mms, email and voice happens via this global identifier
3) Twitter the new communication platform
From an acquisition standpoint; Sorry Apple, I don’t see the synergy. Google or Microsoft makes lot of sense. These companies can exploit the power of twitter. All that said, I still wish twitter goes all the way alone and unleashes its power.
omfut(Ravi)
Ravi, Thanks for the additions, we’re on the same planet when it comes to using global identifiers. Twitter has given more control to the user for theirs (via developers) than effectively anyone else.
There’s real value in looking further at the “identifier” model that Twitter almost finds themselves in now. Push needs to be under the users control. Similarly, filters.
As we once discussed, goodbye dial tone, hello notifications.