A Twitterati question

March 11, 2008 • • Comments »

While reading through my Twitterstream this afternoon, I noticed an @leolaporte invasion. Leo had asked a question:

Getting ready to speak to radio executives at the Radio Ink conference. Q: Is radio dead? Discuss!

Since my friends on Twitter share my love of the Laporte, I was treated to a constant barrage of replies.

In its fairly short life, Twitter has moved from not much more than a public view of status messages to a close-knit way to read and reply to whatever happens to be taking up space in the minds of your friends. Leo’s afternoon query – and thousands of others from people all around the world – signal another space for everyone’s favorite 140-character addiction: a real-time polling service.

Advantage: popularity

The polling advantage is held by those with a huge following. While a user with a double-digit following may receive one or two responses a Twitter question, Leo (with over 9,000 followers) will naturally receive more.

Where does that leave users with a humbler following? In general Twitter users enjoy making connections and helping others. The missing link is a centralized place for people to ask (and answer) questions in the Twitterverse.

A possible solution

Twitter services such as @commuter have become an innovative way to extend the possibilities of microblogging. Could a centralized question and answer service be the answer for Twitter users who want to ask and answer questions?

Consider the following scenario.

A Twitter user sends a direct message (DM) to a question service/bot.
The service tweets the user’s question with the user’s name at the beginning of the tweet.
Other users reply to the question asker with their answer.

A very similar service already exists; @QNA takes a more reference-based approach. The social component of Twitter seems to be missing, though. Any sort of conversational question could be useful: What should I watch on TV right now? Anyone know how to change roles in WordPress? Where should I go for the best cheese steaks in Philly?

The biggest challenge of such a service would be convincing enough users to adopt it.

In his wonderful “Social Media & Networking Starter Guide” presentation at PodCamp Toronto, Chris Brogan (another member of the Twitter four-digit follower club) explained how his connections on Twitter helped him find his destination while he was lost in Manhattan. How long will it take before any Twitter user can have that sort of convenience?

Facebook profiles, take two

March 9, 2008

After realizing just how cluttered profiles become after adding everything from vampires to Grey’s Anatomy quotes to your family tree back to the times when woolly mammoths roamed the earth, Facebook is asking for feedback on a new, tab-based interface for user profiles. The comments on the preview’s page offer a really interesting look into considerations from all sorts of users. A lot of them remind me of the feedback they received on the site redesign last year (for example, the “Facebook is turning into MySpace” and “you’ll lose a lot of users if you do this” posts).

If you’re at all interested in the revision process of a site with tens of millions of users and the ensuing hurdles faced by making any sort of change, you’d probably be interested in following this group.

Link: Check out Facebook Profiles Preview

The iPhone SDK

March 9, 2008

Venture capitalist and unlikely “One more thing” presenter John Doerr may have said it best during his part of the SDK announcement:

“New platforms are very rare, but they can be transformational… in your pocket, you have something that’s broadband and connected all the time. It’s personal. It knows who you are and where you are. That’s a big deal, a really big deal. It’s bigger than the personal computer.”

Link: Apple Developer Connection – iPhone Developer Program

The Future Now

Not the same Apple and Microsoft

March 8, 2008 • • Comments »

I spent a good portion of the afternoon on Thursday listening to two of the season’s biggest tech presentations: the introduction of the iPhone SDK by Steve Jobs and company and Guy Kawasaki’s interview of Steve Ballmer. I noticed something interesting while listening: both companies realize that they have to change.

Help from Microsoft and developers

If there was any doubt that Apple wants as much market share as possible for the iPhone, Phil Schiller put them to rest as he ran through the features of iPhone Exchange support. As an attempt to break into the (often slow-moving) mobile corporate world, Apple plans to add an impressive new feature set geared towards corporate users in their June iPhone 2.0 software update.

The biggest tweak of Apple’s longtime philosophy came as a result of the upcoming iPhone SDK. Following the technical introduction of the new development platform, Steve Jobs extended an open-arms invitation to third-party developers by way of Apple’s new App Store. Apple’s use of a simplified software repository available to all seems to signal their confidence in developers to really use the iPhone’s technology in new and creative ways. The service isn’t free, though; in a move that is likely to generate as much discussion as the lack of an optical drive in the MacBook Air, Apple retains 30% of the revenue from any sales through the App Store and offers no other option for developers to have apps delivered to the device.

Did somebody say “innovation”?

“Innovation” would’ve been a good word for a drinking game during Guy Kawasaki’s interview of Steve Ballmer.

The interview between Guy and Steve was littered with reminders that Microsoft is now a player in a lot of markets with fierce competition, both on the offensive and defensive fronts. Their buyout attempt at Yahoo and their new focus on Flash competitor Silverlight show their intense interest in the Web. All the usual suspects were mentioned: Apple, Google, Firefox, Linux… would competitors’ names come up in a presentation during Microsoft’s heyday?

Ballmer’s position on many of their key market focuses seemed to concede that they have to change the way they do business, and they’re in a great position to be an even larger force in many tech markets with a few simple changes. Their success may be largely driven by openness, something that never would have been used as a descriptor for the company until recently.

Openness, in fact, seems to be an increasing force on both Apple and Microsoft, two companies known historically for tight control over their environments. Their moves toward open access may result in the success (or failure) of their latest ventures into new markets.