Twitter buying Tweetie
Tim Haines
Abraham Williams
Abraham Williams | Developer for hire | http://abrah.am
PoseurTech Labs | Projects | http://labs.poseurtech.com
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Dewald Pretorius
But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it.
Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone
(and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products
compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and
that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further
development.
It's really like they're saying, "We picked the winner. Thanks for
everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you."
This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem
did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is
today.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Eric Woodward
of his product. I would like some clarification on the intended future
of Tweetie for OS X. The plans for the iPhone and iPad have been made
very very clear: stay away. Please clarify the plans for OS X.
But at this point I don't really expect a response, but I need to
ask.
--ejw
Eric Woodward
Email: e...@nambu.com
Tim Haines
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To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
funkatron
You think this is the last platform they'll do an Official Client on?
Take a look at the OS X music playback app market to see the future of
Twitter clients.
Here's the shirt for the Chirp keynote: http://spaz.spreadshirt.com/
Have fun in SF next week, everybody!
--
Ed Finkler
http://funkatron.com
@funkatron
AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funk...@gmail.com
Zac Bowling
As a twitter user I'm intrigued. As a twitter developer I'm not hoping that you are really close to a statement to reassure us all its ok and maintaining an even playing field. Although renaming it Tweetie to Twitter for iPhone is a hurtful (being "THE" twitter client relegates the others to second instantly in what was an even playing field).
So as a Tweetie user, please add sign up API so my mom and dad can get on Twitter from directly on the iPhone. Please add iPad support. Please also make a purchase of Windows based company to even out Tweetie for Mac venture so Twitter doesn't seem Mac happy, and please buy a Android company to even that side out too.
See you all at Chrip! I'm sure this will be a lively debate so: INB4 insanity
Zac Bowling
Isaiah
Isaiah
Cameron Kaiser
> of his product. I would like some clarification on the intended future
> of Tweetie for OS X. The plans for the iPhone and iPad have been made
> very very clear: stay away. Please clarify the plans for OS X.
Let's just say that I think Nambu is now worth more as the next Sea World
whale's name than an OS X Twitter client.
Fortunately, I inhabit the command line and Mac OS 9 markets, so I'm
pretty sure I'm safe.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * cka...@floodgap.com
-- I use my C128 because I am an ornery, stubborn, retro grouch. -- Bob Masse -
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
>> I am also happy for Loren, he deserves it based purely on the quality
>> of his product. I would like some clarification on the intended future
>> of Tweetie for OS X. The plans for the iPhone and iPad have been made
>> very very clear: stay away. Please clarify the plans for OS X.
>
> Let's just say that I think Nambu is now worth more as the next Sea World
> whale's name than an OS X Twitter client.
>
> Fortunately, I inhabit the command line and Mac OS 9 markets, so I'm
> pretty sure I'm safe.
>
Uh ... "market" implies that people will actually *pay* for something. I
haven't found that to be the case for command line tools. ;-) Don't know
about OS 9, though - last time I was "asked" to use one of those (summer
2004), I politely declined and did everything on my dual-booted Windows
XP / Linux laptop. ;-)
But that does raise an interesting question - I'm not overly impressed
with any of the open-source GUI Twitter clients, and I won't run an AIR
application on my Linux desktop - AIR is a resource hog (and closed). So
I stick with web-based clients like the Twitter home page, HootSuite or
CoTweet. Is there any energy out there for a *really good* open source
Twitter GUI client that would run on Linux, Mac and Windows?
And the congratulations belong to *both* Loren and Twitter! ;-)
--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
borasky-research.net/ @znmeb
"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." ~ Paul Erdős
Cameron Kaiser
> haven't found that to be the case for command line tools. ;-) Don't know
> about OS 9, though - last time I was "asked" to use one of those (summer
> 2004), I politely declined and did everything on my dual-booted Windows
> XP / Linux laptop. ;-)
Thanks so much for clarifying. :-P
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * cka...@floodgap.com
-- TODAY'S DUMB TRUE HEADLINE: Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told ----
Josh Roesslein
funkatron
On Apr 9, 10:58 pm, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <zn...@comcast.net>
wrote:
> But that does raise an interesting question - I'm not overly impressed
> with any of the open-source GUI Twitter clients, and I won't run an AIR
> application on my Linux desktop - AIR is a resource hog (and closed). So
> I stick with web-based clients like the Twitter home page, HootSuite or
> CoTweet. Is there any energy out there for a *really good* open source
> Twitter GUI client that would run on Linux, Mac and Windows?
Define "energy." Spaz has been out there and FOSS since mid 2007.
Moving off AIR and doing lots of other good things have been in my
plans for a long time, but open source in no way means people want to
help you. No one will be even close to your own interest level.
FWIW, I'm leaning towards deploying Spaz as a hosted FOSS web app --
that is, you could use my server, or DL and host it yourself. It would
focus on providing a good experience for touch-based clients
particularly. When that will happen is pretty much dictated by who
else takes interest.
Integrating well with StatusNet's server software seems pretty
appealing right now.
Abraham Williams
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To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
> Define "energy." Spaz has been out there and FOSS since mid 2007.
> Moving off AIR and doing lots of other good things have been in my
> plans for a long time, but open source in no way means people want to
> help you. No one will be even close to your own interest level.
Open source depends on the fact that it is in the interest of major
corporations like IBM, Novell, Oracle, Google, Dell and others to
support it. I quite frankly don't know why some other large corporations
don't join the party - there are just so many wheels you can re-invent
before your bottom line goes to Hell in a hand-basket.
> FWIW, I'm leaning towards deploying Spaz as a hosted FOSS web app --
> that is, you could use my server, or DL and host it yourself. It would
> focus on providing a good experience for touch-based clients
> particularly. When that will happen is pretty much dictated by who
> else takes interest.
I should look at Spaz, I guess, although I'm dead-set against ever
installing AIR again. I loaded one of the AIR-based Twitter desktops - I
don't remember which one - and the process was brutal. The client itself
sucked too, so there was no reason to keep it or AIR.
I'm not sure I'd use a web-based client other than Twitter's at this
point. HootSuite and CoTweet are moving towards being marketing / CRM
add-ons to all the social networks. If that was what I was doing, I'd
simply use SugarCRM (another fine open-source corporate project) with
Twitter and Facebook plug-ins. ;-)
>
> Integrating well with StatusNet's server software seems pretty
> appealing right now.
Yeah, I keep meaning to look at StatusNet, although I'm not sure when
I'll find the time. They've got a huge wall to climb.
--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
borasky-research.net @znmeb
funkatron
have to, compete directly with Twitter. Offering both SAAS and self-
hosted opportunities is compelling, and they have a pretty strong dev
community. They already have Twitter and Facebook two-way bridges
built in, which means you can run your own thing and still interact
with both of those services.
I'm interested in the idea of complementing StatusNet in a similar
fashion on the client side, as a true FOSS tool, extensible via a
plugin architecture.
--
Ed Finkler
http://funkatron.com
@funkatron
AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funk...@gmail.com
On Apr 9, 11:42 pm, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <zn...@comcast.net>
wrote:
Raffi Krikorian
- don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365. while i love to scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content. can you summarize it for me? can you do something better than chronological sort?
- want to understand what's going on around them. how do i discover people talking about the place i currently am? how do i know this restaurant is good? this involves user discovery, place discovery, content analysis, etc.
- want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time. how can twitter be a "second/third/fourth screen" to the world?
Justyn
Yes, the desktop app will follow. Then likely a Windows version. I've
got no vested interest in being right or wrong, but it makes sense,
and it's been inevitable for quite a while. Ever since the hint of an
ad model. Organic eyeballs mean less money out the door to other
publishers/apps/etc. Good business means Twitter will want as many
eyeballs as possible on their own products.
I feel for any developers who are impacted, I hope they pivot
successfully and prosper from here. I hope I'm never in the same
situation. That said, this should not be surprising to anyone.
At the very least, the strategy is more apparent now and everyone can
act accordingly.
funkatron
come up with ideas that could work. I certainly am not debating that.
But you have to admit that this is a big, big bomb to drop in the
development community; bigger than anything since *maybe* the Summize
acquisition, and the whole shebang was a lot smaller then. And
Summize was doing work that most developers couldn't do, because of
the technical issues involved.
And I might also suggest that choice and diversity is generally a good
thing, even in areas you personally find boring. But perhaps not in
the financial sense for Twitter, which is why stuff like this happens.
It's not really just what was done, but *how* it was done that was
most disappointing. And I bet you didn't have anything to do with
that, so not much to say there.
Actually, I suspect iTunes is a great analogy, even with the other
apps you suggest. iTunes did destroy any competition in the primary
music playback app market, and I believe (anecdotally though) that it
dominates the lowest common denominator market -- also the largest
part of the market. I'll be happy to buy you a drink when Spotify and
and last.fm combined hit 50% of iTunes usage. They are the niche apps
along the lines you suggest we should be making.
--
Ed Finkler
http://funkatron.com
@funkatron
AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funk...@gmail.com
On Apr 10, 12:20 am, Raffi Krikorian <ra...@twitter.com> wrote:
> the way that i usually explain twitter.com (the web site) is that it
> embodies one particular experience of "twitter". twitter.com needs to
> implement almost every feature that twitter builds, and needs to implement
> it in a way that is easy to use for the* lowest common denominator of user*.
> this now also holds for the iphone. so, one possible answer for how to
> innovate and do potentially interesting/lucrative/creative things is to
> simply not target the lowest common denominator user anymore. find a
> particular need, and not the generic need, and blow it out of the water.
>
> what i am most interested in seeing is apps that break out of the mold and
> do things differently. ever since i joined the twitter platform, our team
> has built APIs that directly mirror the twitter.com experience -- 3rd party
> developers have taken those, and mimicked the twitter.com experience. for
> example, countless apps simply fetch timelines from the API and just render
> them. can we start to do more creative things?
>
> i don't have any great potentials off the top of my head (its midnight where
> i am now, and i flew in on a red-eye last night), but here are a few
> potential ones. i'm sure more creative application developers can come up
> with more. i want to see applications for people that:
>
> - don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365. while i love to
> scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content. can you
> summarize it for me? can you do something better than chronological sort?
> - want to understand what's going on around them. how do i discover
> people talking about the place i currently am? how do i know this
> restaurant is good? this involves user discovery, place discovery, content
> analysis, etc.
> - want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news
> article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time. how can
> twitter be a "second/third/fourth screen" to the world?
>
> perhaps the OS X music playback app market is a poor example? sure itunes
> is a dominant app, but last.fm, spotify, etc., all exist and are doing
> things that itunes can't do.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 7:26 PM, funkatron <funkat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Twitter did this to BB clients too, today.
>
> > You think this is the last platform they'll do an Official Client on?
>
> > Take a look at the OS X music playback app market to see the future of
> > Twitter clients.
>
> > Here's the shirt for the Chirp keynote:http://spaz.spreadshirt.com/
>
> > Have fun in SF next week, everybody!
>
> > --
> > Ed Finkler
> >http://funkatron.com
> > @funkatron
> > AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.com<XMPP%3Afunkat...@gmail.com>
Rich
achieved...
As a Twitter API and iPhone developer I'm shocked and feel like it's a
kick in the teeth to us all.
On Apr 10, 5:59 am, funkatron <funkat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> It is, of course, possible to find niches here, and we can of course
> come up with ideas that could work. I certainly am not debating that.
>
> But you have to admit that this is a big, big bomb to drop in the
> development community; bigger than anything since *maybe* the Summize
> acquisition, and the whole shebang was a lot smaller then. And
> Summize was doing work that most developers couldn't do, because of
> the technical issues involved.
>
> And I might also suggest that choice and diversity is generally a good
> thing, even in areas you personally find boring. But perhaps not in
> the financial sense for Twitter, which is why stuff like this happens.
>
> It's not really just what was done, but *how* it was done that was
> most disappointing. And I bet you didn't have anything to do with
> that, so not much to say there.
>
> Actually, I suspect iTunes is a great analogy, even with the other
> apps you suggest. iTunes did destroy any competition in the primary
> music playback app market, and I believe (anecdotally though) that it
> dominates the lowest common denominator market -- also the largest
> part of the market. I'll be happy to buy you a drink when Spotify and
> and last.fm combined hit 50% of iTunes usage. They are the niche apps
> along the lines you suggest we should be making.
>
> --
> Ed Finklerhttp://funkatron.com
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
> - don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365. while i love to
> scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content. can you
> summarize it for me? can you do something better than chronological sort?
Yeah ... I think a fair number of people want something like that. If
Twitter would like to build it, grab me at Chirp and I'll give you some
pointers to the relevant NLP literature. It's not a small enough project
for a single-man shop like myself.
> - want to understand what's going on around them. how do i discover
> people talking about the place i currently am? how do i know this
> restaurant is good? this involves user discovery, place discovery, content
> analysis, etc.
I think that ship has sailed, and the liner companies are Google, Yahoo,
Yelp, Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, etc. Twitter's way late to that
party. I'm not saying there aren't opportunities in location-based
services - in fact, I think Twitter's cautious approach to a subject
that others seem to be gung-ho about is the strategically correct one.
But Twitter had a really cool location demo at SxSW and just about
everybody ignored it and focused on the Foursquare / Gowalla smackdown.
And everyone is waiting for Facebook to drop the other shoe.
Then again, I haven't heard about @anywhere yet. ;-)
> - want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news
> article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time. how can
> twitter be a "second/third/fourth screen" to the world?
Now *that* one I like! Twitter as the world's real-time newspaper,
complete with weather, sports, traffic, celebrity gossip, letters to the
editor, etc. I think you could wipe "USA Today" off the map (pun intended).
janole
> But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it.
you're not the only one seeing it ;-)
I guess the fact that Twitter clients played a major role in Twitter's
"success" is making this move so special. On the other hand, I think
it was inevitable, wasn't it? Twitter needs to make money some time
soon - and with so much traffic coming in via "uncontrollable"
clients ...
Anyway, I'm happy for Loren and Tweetie. Looks like a fair game on the
iPhone platform at least - where any of the top clients could have won
the "jackpot" :-)
@janole / #Gravity
--
Jan Ole Suhr
su...@mobileways.de
Dewald Pretorius
developer ecosystem.
The ecosystem is encouraged to innovate, to expend time, effort, and
money to come up with new ideas and build services. When that
particular space proves to be successful and potentially rewarding,
the predator pounces and screws everyone but the one picked as the
winner.
In the long term, the acquisition of Tweetie was a penny-wise pound-
foolish move, and here's why:
1) From now on, everyone will know, or at least wonder, whether
encouragement and support for the ecosystem is genuine, or simply a
facade to cultivate the next space that Twitter can plunder.
2) Innovation is stifled, because to many it now is not worth their
effort, time, and money to develop services that stand a very good
chance of receiving a similar kick in the teeth.
3) In one single day, in one fell swoop, many developers have been
turned away from Twitter. Few people have the level of imagination
required to build new mouse traps, and fewer have the resources to
build sophisticated new mouse traps. You will never hear from these
developers who have been turned away. You will never know who they are
and how many there were. They've just disappeared in the mist.
You don't do this. You don't ride to success on the coattails and
efforts of others and then turn around and plunder them. It is wrong.
Twitter is not the first to do this, but it still does not make it
right.
PS. Sorry for the duplicate. I initially posted this to the incorrect
thread.
Dewald Pretorius
http://dld.bz/PGz
As well as this NY Times article:
http://dld.bz/PG5
where Evan Williams says, "Twitter will continue to buy or develop
apps and features it needs, even if third-party developers already
provide them."
Jesse Stay
Dewald Pretorius
There is a lot of merit in your point of view with regards to one's
core.
But, what that also means is the death of the ecosystem as we know it.
The ecosystem as we know it used to develop "for" Twitter, enhancing
the Twitter offering.
What you're proposing is a radical change, where one does not develop
"for" Twitter to enhance their service, but where one simply exploits
their service to enhance your own core (it's a very good strategy, by
the way).
Coming back to the acquisition, if this strategy of Twitter runs its
course, innovation of Twitter is going to be greatly stifled. Most
developers will stop developing new things that enhance the Twitter
service.
Apart from the initial 140-character service, Twitter has not yet
innovated anything. Everything they have, subsequent to the initial
base service, has been things others have innovated for them, or ideas
they got from somewhere else. And now they've stifled or at least
discouraged those innovators. Oh, look, is that a hole in Twitter's
foot?
On Apr 10, 12:44 pm, Jesse Stay <jesses...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In support of what Raffi is saying, I think too many apps are "supports" for
> Twitter (some call it "filling holes"). I think the more beneficial, and
> long-term advantageous approach is instead to make Twitter a "support" for
> your application. I hope this isn't seen as spam, but I wrote about this
> last night in where I suggest we re-evaluate what our "cores" are based on:http://staynalive.com/articles/2010/04/10/what-is-your-core/
>
> The Twitter app ecosystem is far from dead, is still thriving - we just need
> to re-evaluate where our cores are based. I think Twitter has drawn the
> line in the sand on what their core is. It's time we adjust ours so we're
> using Twitter as a complement, rather than the other way around. Just my
> $.02 - see you at Chirp!
>
> Jesse
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 10:20 PM, Raffi Krikorian <ra...@twitter.com> wrote:
> > the way that i usually explain twitter.com (the web site) is that it
> > embodies one particular experience of "twitter". twitter.com needs to
> > implement almost every feature that twitter builds, and needs to implement
> > it in a way that is easy to use for the* lowest common denominator of user
> > *. this now also holds for the iphone. so, one possible answer for how
> > to innovate and do potentially interesting/lucrative/creative things is to
> > simply not target the lowest common denominator user anymore. find a
> > particular need, and not the generic need, and blow it out of the water.
>
> > what i am most interested in seeing is apps that break out of the mold and
> > do things differently. ever since i joined the twitter platform, our team
> > has built APIs that directly mirror the twitter.com experience -- 3rd
> > party developers have taken those, and mimicked the twitter.comexperience. for example, countless apps simply fetch timelines from the API
> > and just render them. can we start to do more creative things?
>
> > i don't have any great potentials off the top of my head (its midnight
> > where i am now, and i flew in on a red-eye last night), but here are a few
> > potential ones. i'm sure more creative application developers can come up
> > with more. i want to see applications for people that:
>
> > - don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365. while i love to
> > scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content. can you
> > summarize it for me? can you do something better than chronological sort?
> > - want to understand what's going on around them. how do i discover
> > people talking about the place i currently am? how do i know this
> > restaurant is good? this involves user discovery, place discovery, content
> > analysis, etc.
> > - want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news
> > article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time. how can
> > twitter be a "second/third/fourth screen" to the world?
>
> > perhaps the OS X music playback app market is a poor example? sure
> > itunes is a dominant app, but last.fm, spotify, etc., all exist and are
> > doing things that itunes can't do.
>
> > On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 7:26 PM, funkatron <funkat...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Twitter did this to BB clients too, today.
>
> >> You think this is the last platform they'll do an Official Client on?
>
> >> Take a look at the OS X music playback app market to see the future of
> >> Twitter clients.
>
> >> Here's the shirt for the Chirp keynote:http://spaz.spreadshirt.com/
>
> >> Have fun in SF next week, everybody!
>
> >> --
> >> Ed Finkler
> >>http://funkatron.com
> >> @funkatron
> >> AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.com<XMPP%3Afunkat...@gmail.com>
>
> >> On Apr 9, 10:18 pm, Dewald Pretorius <dpr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > It's great for Loren.
>
> >> > But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it.
>
> >> > Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone
> >> > (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products
> >> > compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and
> >> > that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further
> >> > development.
>
> >> > It's really like they're saying, "We picked the winner. Thanks for
> >> > everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you."
>
> >> > This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem
> >> > did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is
> >> > today.
>
> >> > Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
> >> > On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, Tim Haines <tmhai...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > > Before anyone rants, let me say congratulations Loren, and
> >> congratulations
> >> > > Twitter. Awesome! Totally awesome!
>
> >> > > :-)
>
> >> > > Tim.
>
> > --
> > Raffi Krikorian
> > Twitter Platform Team
> >http://twitter.com/raffi- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Chad Etzel
> Twitter has now displayed a distinctive predatorial stance towards the
> developer ecosystem.
Whoa now.
If by "predatorial" you mean "makes strategic acquisitions in line
with their business goals" then sure. See also: Google, Facebook,
Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, and countless others who are equally
"preditorial." Their ecosystems just happen to be broader at this point.
Welcome to Capitalism and Corporate America.
All that has happened is the bar for competition/innovation has been
significantly raised. Sure it will weed-out lesser developers, but it
will be a net positive for the end users (according to theory).
-Chad
Zhami
<snip>
> I think the more beneficial, and long-term advantageous approach
> is instead to make Twitter a "support" for your application.
Spot On!!
Dewald Pretorius
That's what I meant by predatorial.
All the past rethoric around how appreciative Twitter was of the
developer ecosystem, and how they valued the developer ecosystem, has
taken on a brand-new tone and color today.
> > To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.- Hide quoted text -
Nigel Legg
If you as a user, as a supplier to users, cannot find something that tweetie doesn't do then maybe you haven't got your ear to the ground of what twitter users want to see. My aim is to carry on with what I'm doing, and [hopefully] do it well before twitter can do it; if twitter then want to come knocking, that's up to them; if they want to replicate my service, that's up to them; hopefully I'll have enough users to survive.
To me, this just ups the ante, and makes the environment just a little bit more edgy and competitive. Which is great, if you don't see the people you're competing with. Not sure how I'd feel if I was going to #chirp.
Dewald Pretorius
Other Twitter iPhone clients are now kaput. You cannot compete with
the official Twitter iPhone client, which is given away free of
charge. There are quite a few "valued" developers who are having a
very ruined day.
Clients like TweetDeck and Seesmic should still be okay, because they
are more general social media clients.
One would be very disrespectful of the value of one's own time, if one
now starts developing something that's exclusively a Twitter service.
Please read what Jesse wrote. It is an extremely smart strategy. One
such definition of "your core" might be "multi social services XYZ,"
which would describe the "core" of TweetDeck and Seesmic.
Chad Etzel
> Surely all twitter developers are getting their success on the coattails of
> Twitter, rather than twitter getting success on the coattails of the
> developers?
This is a good point (is applies in my case, anyway). Had it not been
for my hobby-ist desire to hack around on the Twitter API, I would not
have a lot of the relationships I have today (whether it be with users
and new friends in my local town or across the internet with other
developers). By fostering those connections over the last few years I
have been able to do things I would not have otherwise been able to
do, and I would probably still be a cube-monkey instead of a founder
of my own company (which is also a platform, so I'm taking notes).
So, there are other benefits to playing in this sandbox other than to
strike it rich with a Twitter app or become internet famous. Other
opportunities arise from relationships you create with this diverse
developer world.
Of course, being acquired by Twitter doesn't hurt your resume, either.
-Chad
Allan Hoving
Nigel Legg
Nigel Legg
Jesse Stay
Jesse,
There is a lot of merit in your point of view with regards to one's
core.
But, what that also means is the death of the ecosystem as we know it.
The ecosystem as we know it used to develop "for" Twitter, enhancing
the Twitter offering.
Arnaud Meunier
has deliberately kept a lot of holes opened, encouraging us to fill
them (and lots of applications have been doing it with innovation, by
the way).
Now we’re supposed to dig, create new holes, and fill them. Okay!
There are a lot of ideas to have around Twitter, lots of new holes to
dig.
But the question is still the same: "What will be left up to the
ecosystem and what will be created on the platform?"
I think I'm not the only one here to fear that Twitter itself begins
to compete with the applications I created (or I plan to create). Yes,
it's fun to dig holes and to fill them. But it also takes time and
money, and it's like the game was going to be much more risky than it
used to be.
Arnaud - http://twitter.com/twitoaster
Twitoaster - http://twitoaster.com
Abraham Williams
--
To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
Dewald Pretorius
Reread what Evan Williams said here:
http://dld.bz/PG5
"Twitter will continue to buy or develop apps and features it needs,
even if third-party developers already provide them."
It clearly means Twitter intends to directly compete with its
developer ecosystem.
It's not coincidental and it is not accidental. It's a conscious and
deliberate management decision.
On Apr 10, 3:51 pm, Abraham Williams <4bra...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This also adds the question of if we developers start digging new holes what
> is to stop Twitter from filling them in themselves?
>
> Abraham
>
> On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 11:45, Arnaud Meunier <arnaud.meun...@twitoaster.com
>
>
>
>
>
> > wrote:
> > We shouldn’t “fill holes” anymore, Wilson said. The thing is Twitter
> > has deliberately kept a lot of holes opened, encouraging us to fill
> > them (and lots of applications have been doing it with innovation, by
> > the way).
>
> > Now we’re supposed to dig, create new holes, and fill them. Okay!
> > There are a lot of ideas to have around Twitter, lots of new holes to
> > dig.
>
> > But the question is still the same: "What will be left up to the
> > ecosystem and what will be created on the platform?"
>
> > I think I'm not the only one here to fear that Twitter itself begins
> > to compete with the applications I created (or I plan to create). Yes,
> > it's fun to dig holes and to fill them. But it also takes time and
> > money, and it's like the game was going to be much more risky than it
> > used to be.
>
> > Arnaud -http://twitter.com/twitoaster
> > Twitoaster -http://twitoaster.com
> This email is: [ ] shareable [x] ask first [ ] private.- Hide quoted text -
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
> We shouldn’t “fill holes” anymore, Wilson said. The thing is Twitter
> has deliberately kept a lot of holes opened, encouraging us to fill
> them (and lots of applications have been doing it with innovation, by
> the way).
I don't know that it's "deliberate" - a lot of it has to do with the
growth dynamics of the Twitter ecosystem in particular and "social
media" in general. I've been on Twitter since early 2007 - in fact,
@znmeb predates @twitter. ;-) It was an "exclusive club" and something
that relatively few people knew about.
I used Twitter rarely until the "financial crisis" of fall 2008. Maybe
it's a coincidence, but I don't think it is, that the main growth spurt
in Twitter user IDs (http://meb.tw/b6WCzv) began towards the end of 2008
after the election of Barack Obama brought national media attention to
Twitter. That was when I discovered the Portland Twitter community and
began using Twitter "in earnest."
Wilson is a venture capitalist - he takes *calculated* risks. He blogs
to help his investments pay off, so his clients make money, thereby
attracting more money to his firm. He is on the board of *directors* of
Twitter. Directors *direct*. They may also advise, but I'm not privy to
the exact mix of direction and advice he provides. In any event, he is
no doubt keenly aware of the dynamics of the ecosystem. His advice, as
expressed in his blog post, is worth consideration.
>
> Now we’re supposed to dig, create new holes, and fill them. Okay!
> There are a lot of ideas to have around Twitter, lots of new holes to
> dig.
There are also numerous open positions at Twitter. Some of the holes
Twitter wants to fill appear to be "revealed" in the job descriptions. ;-)
> But the question is still the same: "What will be left up to the
> ecosystem and what will be created on the platform?"
Because of the growth dynamics in social media, I don't think anyone, in
the Twitter ecosystem or outside of it, can answer that. There are some
(fairly) simple models of such things, but human behavior is hard to
predict and bloggers and pundits and VCs can only speculate, collect as
many hard numbers as possible and build models with them.
> I think I'm not the only one here to fear that Twitter itself begins
> to compete with the applications I created (or I plan to create). Yes,
> it's fun to dig holes and to fill them. But it also takes time and
> money, and it's like the game was going to be much more risky than it
> used to be.
Again, that's not necessarily certain as long as there are uncertainties
in Twitter usage patterns and in the competitive landscape of "social
media". Wilson's blog post is, I believe, a pretty good overview of the
current state of the ecosystem, but how it evolves is not independent of
the competition and the consumer. And neither is the allocation of
resources between the Twitter entity and third party developers, large
and small.
--
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
http://borasky-research.net/about-smartznmeb/ @znmeb
Dewald Pretorius
ever accept investment capital.
Investors could not give a shit about your ethical qualms or
objections, and they are most certainly not going to accept a lower
exit because of them If you don't play ball, they simply replace you
with someone who will.
Whenever I read about an entrepreneur joyously announcing that he got
such-and-such amount of venture capital, I think to myself, "Dude (or
dudess), I hope you realize that you have just sold your soul and
handed over control of your destiny to someone else."
On Apr 10, 4:23 pm, "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <zn...@comcast.net>
wrote:
Marco Kaiser
Chad Etzel
> If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never
> ever accept investment capital.
You cannot be serious.
Believe it or not there are ethical investors out there. Also,
bootstrapping a company that goes huge is almost impossible,
especially for the younger entrepreneurial crowd that can afford the
time and lifestyle that it would entail but probably does not have
tons of cash in the bank. Can you please site such a company that
received zero outside investment dollars?
-Chad
Dewald Pretorius
Sometimes (well, okay, almost always) I just don't feel like citing
all possible caveats to what I'm saying. I'm not writing here with
visions of possible literary grandeur, potential book deals, or
speaking engagements. I call shit like I see it. Sometimes I'm right,
sometimes I'm wrong. It's just my opinion. Don't take what I say as
gospel.
Yes, there are ethical investors too. But, when the entrepeneur's
ethics clash with the investor's ethics, or lack thereof, guess who is
going to win. It does not require board level action or majority vote
to put pressure on an entrepreneur. Simple verbal threats regarding
current and future investments often suffice.
Dewald Pretorius
done that, and have discovered that the top looks so green because of
all the crap that lies and flies there, that I hold the opinions that
I do.
I can understand folks' ambitions to "make" it. I guess in a way it's
like a green recruit versus a veteran soldier. When you ask a green
recruit about war, you will get answers about glorious deeds, killing
the evil enemy, the honor of dying for your country, great adventure,
and the like. When you ask a veteran soldier about war, you will get
answers about rotting corpses, pieces of human meat splattered
everywhere, being shit scared, losing your best buddies, and fighting
and taking risks only to protect your buddies.
Someone couldn't pay me enough to be at the "top". The lifestyle is
not worth the other sacrifices you need to make.
> > -Chad- Hide quoted text -
Jesse Stay
zn...@comcast.net
----- "Jesse Stay" <jess...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Why are you filling holes in Twitter? Why not rather create your own
> holes and use Twitter to fill them. When you own the dirt you have
> control over what grows in that dirt.
I think we've pretty much exhausted the holes and dirt metaphor, and I'd like to propose a different one. A business is defined by the answer(s) to the question, "Who is going to sell what to whom?" So, what are the needs of the Twitter "customer base?"
Raffi has posted some things he'd like to see, and I read the blogs regularly and have some clues as to what people like @scobleizer, @mashable, etc. think Twitter should become. And it all boils down to what real problems people have, what costs them money and time, what they don't know that could hurt them, and so on. Once we know what the problems are, how can the *Twitter* ecosystem solve them?
@znmeb
Arnaud Meunier
We all know what Twitter would like to see. No surprise here, nothing
extraordinary, just advices we already were aware of. I mean... Who
intended to code another photo sharing service or another desktop
client before these annoucements? I guess nobody.
Anybody who has been seriously thinking about starting a project
around Twitter in the last year already knew he'd have to make
something innovative enough to drag attention, customers, whatever
he's looking for...
In a word, there's nothing new with these annoucements and this
acquisation. The only thing "new" is simply the fact that it's now
"officially said". Quite annoying for all the "old school
apps" (thinking to existing clients, analytics services, media sharing
tools...) Even for some of the new one, by the way, as a part of the
applications who's going to emerge will probably wonder "what if
Twitter decides to make a product of my concept?"
Inherent risk of a business based (even partly) on an existing
platform? Yes!
And the thing is I'm very curious to see how Twitter is going to deal
with this at Chirp, and what (really new, this time) they're going to
announce. For example, a smart monetization policy (around advertising
or sponsored tweets) linked to the API could be an answer for most of
the "old school apps".
Arnaud - http://twitter.com/twitoaster
Twitoaster - http://twitoaster.com
Le 11 avr. 2010 à 01:04, "zn...@comcast.net" <zn...@comcast.net> a
écrit :
PJB
+1 for Dewald getting his own session at Chirp! ;) (Seriously!)
Dewald Pretorius
tomatoes.
On second thoughts, I could toss a mean salad if I just remember to
bring the lettuce.
Nigel Legg
46Bit
> Dewalt, surely it's a bit early to say they are kaput? As far as I can see,
> all twitter clients have their merits, and people tend to stick with the one
> that does what they want it to do in the way they want it to do it. I find
> it odd that, even though twitter has been directly competing with twitter
> clients through it's website for as long as the API has been around, the
> fact of twitter buying out a client means clients are dead. Personally, I
> think you have over reacted to this.
Whilst it's fair to say that people broadly stick with what they've
got, any ordinary user that is using a different twitter-only client
is quite likely to hear about this and look into the official app, and
any new users/people just getting an iphone will immediately spring
for the official app. Why? It's *free*, it's got loads of publicity,
it's well known as a good app in it's former Tweetie form, and in
developing it using new API features (even presuming it's kept to use
of the public APIs) before they are announced it will have a very
major head start as compared to apps made by anyone else.
Whilst yes free apps may well survive this by virtue of being free,
there's little chance of them growing much in user counts, or being
able to put ads on to get some payoff from their hard work unless
Twitter does with ex-Tweetie (which whilst not impossible I'd say is
perhaps unlikely) since ads would detract from the UX and so
potentially push people towards Twitter's client.
Having said all that though, I have to say that realistically this is
what you have to be prepared for when working with third-party
services - iPhone, Android, Twitter, Facebook, etc etc all have the
same weakness: if the company takes a fancy to your competitor, or
clones your functionality, then you're likely toast.
Zhami
> I think we've pretty much exhausted the holes and dirt metaphor, and I'd like to propose a different one. A business is defined by the answer(s) to the question, "Who is going to sell what to whom?" So, what are the needs of the Twitter "customer base?"
Looking for needs in the Twitter "customer base" may not (in fact,
likely doesn't) lead to product ideation that is safe from Twitter
"predation" -- yes, I use a heavily loaded term (predation), but do
not mean it in any negative way at all. If one looks for needs in the
Twitter customer base, solutions should clearly be understood as being
in the realm of what Twitter will asses and potentially directly
provide. After all, definitionally these have been called Twitter's
customer base.
The (relative) newness of Twitter-type functionality coupled with the
(relative) openness of the API has brought many devs into the
community. It is perhaps fun or perhaps intellectually interesting to
build Twitter-centric "inward facing" apps, but I pose the question of
whether these are providing the kind of services that are
intrinsically able to support a business? If not, these are apps that
one can't expect to monetize, except perhaps indirectly (e.g. ads
based on traffic to a Web site). --> If Twitter is having a long road
to revenue why should it be any different for a Twitter "hole
filler" ?
An alternative is to look for needs in a customer segment that isn't
directly a Twitter segment, but one in which the use of Twitter
enables functionality that serves that segment with a product/service
that is better than what that customer segment presently has available
(if there even is any equivalent offering). This, I believe, is what
Jesse Stay was imploring in his post.
This is not to say that there isn't room for Twitter client apps that
provide access to the Twitter tweet stream -- if-and-only-if done in
some compellingly unique way(s). But the mere existence of any such
"tool" does not imply that it is a monetizable tool. Adoption,
monetization, and resistance to predation require that a tool have a
layer of value-add that is not directly (nor easily) emulated.
I propose that far too many devs in the Twitter community have labored
to build Twitter-centric services but haven't abided by the precepts
the "fast startup" movement. In particular, put out a MVP (Minimally
Viable Product) early, and get customer feedback especially against
the question: will anyone pay? --- at least if one is not expecting to
provide their tool or service long-term without revenue. To do that
requires very deep resources, of the likes that Twitter has, and few
if any of us independent devs can sustain in that context.
In my mind, don't think of Twitter now having Tweetie as locking up,
say, the iPhone market (and by extension - please don't be surprised -
the iPad market), but rather this is a wake-up call to envision a
product for the iPhone/iPad/Android/xxx that gives some customer
segment an ability it presently does not have, a service which may use
Twitter but isn't *about* Twitter. Such will be market-spaces that
Twitter likely won't pursue, and even if they did, market dominance
can be retained by an independent dev because the product isn't about
Twitter, but about the needs of that market segment. For example: help
some group, say doctors in a practice, or delivery people, or in-field
service technicians, better coordinate using real-time messaging --
don't consider this "Twitter" even though Twitter may be an (or even
be "the") underlying enabling technology. This, I suggest, is what
Fred Wilson was writing about.
In summary, my exhortation here, in advance of Chirp, is: it's about
time for the community to become "outward facing" rather than "inward
facing."
My $0.02. Hope it's helpful. No offense meant to anyone.