Posts Tagged: twitter

Thoughts — 11 Comments
5
May 08

Twitter, Imagined Identity and Flux

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, and thanks to Techcrunch, I’ve finally got my excuse. TC describes a scheme for making Twitter “portable”, with a goal of solving the service’s technical problems. According to the post, if you glue enough “standards” together, a Twitter-killing Phoenix just might rise from the ashes, and service outages will be a thing of the past.

Part I: Economies of Cooperation

As someone who spent almost seven years working in open source, I’m the last person who will argue against openness, but there are a few things wrong with TC’s notion. Most important, “open standards” have to work in cooperation with business, not in fierce competition. As anyone who has worked in the industry knows, free software is anything but free. Both the cathedral and the bazaar have extensive present and built-in costs.

So what does this have to do with Twitter? The idea of the “open Twitter killer” is built on an open service model. Open services are the Web 2.0 version of open source software. Just like open source software, open services have built-in and present costs: hardware, data centers, staff and developers. Because open services are standards-based, there is implied future-protection justifying the provisioning costs. Putting it more bluntly, open services can’t exist without business, especially at Twitter-scale.

When the founder of DataPortability.org publicly brainstorms ways to kill Twitter on Techcrunch, he’s taking the movement backwards. Anyone with engineering skill can dream up a way to “open” a service; the real challenge is bringing companies in to the fold to support open services. Talking about how to kill them is not a good way to do this.

Part II: Interaction and Next-Gen Social Networks

This brings us to our second point: does an open Twitter work? Even if some large companies stepped up to support the cost of an open Twitter, one that never suffered downtime, would we migrate to it? Barring a complete failure by Twitter, the answer is an obvious no. Why? While the DataPortability folks and TechCrunch think Twitter is just a messaging service, the other 99.9 percent of us see Twitter for what it is – a social network service.

I’ve always had a big-tent approach when it comes to social networks; a social network is something you feel, rather than something born from a set of features. Twitter only marginally stands up to the boyd/Ellison definition: Is Twitter bound? Does a 140-character bio really count as a profile? I believe that Twitter forces us to rethink some of the assumptions around social networks. Here’s how Twitter pushes thinking on the subject forward:

  • Message-centricity, as opposed to Profile-centricity: The core of any social network is messaging/communication, as illustrated by Dunbar in Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. In profile-centric social networks (Myspace, Facebook), messaging has largely taken place through the profile (I talk through my profile, you respond through my wall/apps/etc.). By locating the network around the profile, we were really locating it around “communication”. In Twitter, the “profile” is our communication, an always-on, interactive wall.
  • Imagined Identity: In focusing on interaction and communication, Twitter has eliminated many of the social network profile elements that make people uncomfortable. In Twitter, you’re not expected to list your favorite movies and upload lots of pictures (which, to many late 20′s and 30′s users feels like online dating). Rather, your identity is imagined – constructed through your communication and relation to your followers. For those who aren’t in social network expansion, the imagined identity (as exposed to the explicit identity of dating sites/Facebook) is much more comfortable.
  • Close Community: I’ve often described Twitter as a “close” community. While outlying bloggers have thousands of followers, most of us are followed by far less than 100 people (not including spambots). The knowledge of one’s disclosure community in a social network makes interaction more personal. A close community prevents some of the context leakages of monolith social networks; of course, Twitter needs a better approach to scale close community forward.
  • Constant Flux: The previous three elements – message centricity, imagined identity, and close community – interact to create a constant state of flux in Twitter. This is Twitter’s killer feature. For those who use Twitter in a close network, you constantly renegotiate your friends’ “profiles” throughout the day. As your concept of a “profile” is your friend’s last few posts, each new post is new information. This is why you keep checking Twitter throughout the day – people you care about are updating, communicating, and sharing.

Twitter isn’t a platform, it is a unique social network. It is a social network stripped to its most essential elements. Twitter provides social network designers a roadmap forward, a way of thinking about social networks more fundamentally. An “open” clone offers very little by way of competition. Further, an open clone that lacks the design or interaction aspects of Twitter would actually feel very different. Twitter is really about the user experience – something that simply can’t be replicated via an open standard.

Noticed / Software / Thoughts — No Comments
21
Apr 08

Freedom and Close Networks

On Friday, I released Freedom, software that fights the oppression of the internet. Incredibly, through the power of del.icio.us, Reddit, Twitter, blogs and endless Tumblr’s, Freedom has spread widely, with tens of thousands of views. Even more incredibly, I received a donation for my efforts, proving that Freedom is truly on the march. Here’s some of my favorite Freedom coverage:

And while most traffic to Freedom came in from the web or blogs, a substantial bit of Freedom’s traffic and buzz came from Twitter (which I was able to track via Tweetscan’s great, real-time analytics).

Techcrunch and I agree that smaller, more personal networks are the next wave. This has large implications for social (viral) content distribution. First a caveat: By volume, blogs are still king. However, compared to blogs, with their monolith long-post form, and invisible audience, these “closer” networks better fit social content. What do people want to do on the internet? They want to share links. Twitter and Tumblr are precisely tailored to link-based message passing (the fuel of viral traffic), aligning perfectly with our desires.

The real value of “close” networks, in my opinion, is knowledge of one’s audience. Being able to look at one’s Twitter followers and know who is reading you is incredibly powerful, if for no other reason than the milieu of sharing is pre-established. Ever notice how people on Twitter don’t adopt personas? Knowing one’s audience frees users to create as themselves, which is the ultimate sustainable model. The fact that viral content has moved into these close networks is very significant – and we’ll only see more of it going forward.

Thoughts — 3 Comments
15
Apr 08

Social Software’s Curation Era

For the past few days, I’ve been playing around with Muxtape. For those who haven’t seen it, Muxtape is a website that allows you to create and share digital mixtapes. For those of us raised in the age of the mixtape, Muxtape is a wonderful find; it evokes warm memories of a youth spent hunched over a dubbing cassette deck, creating mixes for friends and (potential) loved ones. Muxtape is also surprisingly authentic – a “one name, one tape” policy is appropriately analog, and it also takes some time to create/upload (likely more a technical limitation than purposeful authenticity, but I like it).

Muxtape creator Justin Ouellette describes the project: “you can create a muxtape and upload up to twelve songs curated by you”. I’m particularly interested by the curation aspect, and not just because I’m in a LIS School. I see curation, and services built around curation as a tremendous emergent trend in social software.

Lets place things in a historical context. During Web 1.0, space was expensive, skills were limted, and digital media capabilities were nascent. The result was a curated web, but one with sub-par content that wasn’t personally engaging. Web 2.0 stood in sharp contrast to Web1; space was limitless, few skills were required, and rich media was everywhere. To our collective surprise, unlimited content proves an non-engaging as poor content. The curated web represents a reaction to this abundance: the re-introduction of curation (or editorship) is a very natural step towards making abundance engaging.

Look around at the software you love: your small, curated networks in Twitter stand in opposition to the monolith Facebook. Flickr, a product where norms enforce heavy curation, is a sense of pride for many. This trend continues in software like Tumblr, Seesmic, etc. – these exciting new networks create small, curated and close spaces for production/consumption. This stands sharply in opposition to the endless decontextualized mess of software-of-the-moment Friendfeed, as well as the market-centric ideologies of data portability. On a related note, Thomas Vander Wal elegantly addresses the context problem in a video he’s entitled “Granular Social Network.”

This is an exciting new direction for consumer web technologies. And while abundance works in some contexts (Google search), it doesn’t in most social contexts. How we dress, who we hang out with, etc. are all natural forms of curation – it only makes sense that our software should reflect this behavior. The market is not full of transparent-society ideologues like those who run venture capital firms.

Finally, I think there’s an important point to be made regarding form. Perhaps in reaction to the richness and complexity of Web 2.0, our production is increasingly embracing simplicity. The arms race on the web is no longer about technology, but about imagination. There are nearly countless forms into which small text, or mp3, or photos, can be assembled. To this extent, the fuel of the next web is bricolage, as opposed to the more inherently techno-capitalist notions of mashup and remix.

Oh yes, you can find my awesome muxtape here: http://chimprawk.muxtape.com.

Hacks / Software / Thoughts — 13 Comments
28
Mar 08

Fixing Information Overload in Twitter

As someone who has started or run a few web projects, I’m used to the complaining blogger. And because of that, I try to stay away from being the complaining blogger. But I think that Twitter is about to drive me crazy with information overload, and I think I know how to solve the problem. So here’s a go.

Increasingly, Twitter has begin to feel like a collection of RSS feeds. My Twitter home screen is my personal newsreader. Unfortunately, it is completely dysfunctional. Some people I follow for personal reasons, some people I follow for work. Some people post often, some people once a week. I want to read every single message written by some people, and others can float by. Sort of like any other inbox, I guess.

If you’ve used Twitter, however, you know that all your messages go into the same place. Everyone is treated equal. There’s no method to deal with the information overload inherent in the system, there’s no way to mute over-Tweeters, there’s no way to have any control over the information space.

This may have worked in the early days of Twitter, where the interaction was supposed to be ephemeral – some messages you caught, some float by, who cares. Unfortunately, Twitter has grown up as it became more mainstream. People are saying “Did you see my Tweet” just as they would say “Did you get my email.”

We know how to deal with this: Folders, labels, mute buttons, regular expressions, etc. We need Tweetboxes, we need Tweetfolders to separate contexts, we need better strategies to deal with the information overload. And this is just in regards to incoming information – the multiple-audiences problem is another, more difficult problem.

Looking around at Twitter clients, I don’t see any that support such functionality. But I’m not really interested in using a Twitter client – I just want Twitter’s web interface to work. Let me create some folders, or tag my contact into a few different bins, so I could sort my incoming messages. A mute button would be nice as well, but right now folders (or labels, if you want to be Gmail-y) would really help. Look at the existing patterns that work with RSS and inboxes, and give us that. Because this current all-or-nothing isn’t the right answer.

Research / Thoughts — 1 Comment
25
Mar 08

The Best Social Software

Over the past few days, I’ve been discussing the problems of multiple contexts in social software. While I am primarily covering this problem in the context of Facebook, this is a problem that affects all social software. I’m actually feeling this problem most acutely with Twitter these days.

When we use social software, we adopt a persona. Broadly speaking, that persona is mediated by the audience and publicness of the space. For example, this blog is hyper-public (Googlable) and the audience is mostly research- and tech-folk. As a result, I write on topic and try to stay away from stuff that is going to embarrass me too much down the road. A simple equation, but I think it works.

At some level, we all engage in this audience/publicness calculation when we craft our persona in social software. Blogs charted this territory; the central tenet of “successful blogging” is knowing one’s audience. But blogs are usually hyper-public, meaning the nuance of publicness is lost. Let’s consider private Twittering as an alternative.

When one elects privacy measures in Twitter, they limit their publicness. That is, they exercise control over who sees the persona they are creating, a persona that is a function of audience. As private Twitterers construct these trusted places – they understand their audience/publicness calculation – the persona becomes more personal, the content more engaging. Remarked to me via a private Twitter message, “it feels like we have insight into ppls thoughts thru-out the day.”

The best social software should make you feel like you’re amongst friends, encouraging you to create a more true persona. The best social software lets you be you – whatever that you happens to be at the moment. Facebook 2005 hit that sweet spot, and Twitter affords the more geeky of us that place today. Perhaps this is why every time I log into Facebook all I see are Twitter status messages; vibrancy lies in the more personal network.

As contexts collide, however, the audience/publicness calculation has to be reworked. I don’t dare look at the hundreds of Twitter follower requests waiting for me (most spam – I’m not that internet famous yet), because I know allowing more people in to my circle would force me to refactor myself in Twitter. And I don’t want to do that yet, not while the experience is still so great. Ultimately, though, I’ll have to, and that will be the death of Twitter for me. The publicness will force depersonalization, and my Twitter will become like my blog.

Is this process unavoidable? I’m not sure. But the expectation of hyper-publicness ultimately written into social software needs to be rethought. As we force users to constantly renegotaite the audience/publicness calculation, I think we lose more than we gain. Rather than ultimately forcing publicness, we need to think of ways for users to create private spaces for sharing. This is why so many people love and care about LiveJournal to this day – it allowed the creation of private spaces.

Most of us are not internet celebrities, but the social software we use assumes we are (or want to be). It’s time to rethink this, to build closets and spaces for whispering into social software.

Research / Thoughts — 11 Comments
11
Jan 08

Social Network Clutter

Over the past few months, I’ve found myself increasingly frustrated when I load Facebook. My Newsfeed is a cluttered mess of ads, application spam, and despairingly little real information about my friends. I’ve dutifully clicked the thumbs up/thumbs down icons hundreds of times, giving Facebook a decent preference set, but the problem persists. Newsfeed, which used to inspire me as one of the most innovative information spaces, has quickly lost its utility through this signal/noise imbalance.

When I talk to others, they echo my problems. Newsfeed is “spammy”, you have to squint to find real information. Personally, I’ve found that my visits to Facebook are down as a result – each time I log in it sort of feels like I’ve been given an inbox that’s full of spam and I have to sort it. That is not a good feeling. In an effort to improve Newsfeed (and argue the value of such information spaces), I thought I might work through some of the problems of the proposition.

The fundamental proposition of Newsfeed, like a head’s up display, is to project relevant information to the information consumer in a singular place. Implicit in the projection is editorial control, where certain types of information are promoted and others left to their traditional spaces. Relevance should always be the goals of these spaces; if they are not relevant they pose outlying ability to damage the product. If I am wincing every time I log in to Facebook and see a huge list of spam, it is clear that Newsfeed is damaging my impressions of the product as whole. Designers of Newsfeed-type spaces should understand and adapt to this reality.

Of course, the challenge of a Newsfeed is the multidimensional nature of relevance. You may want information about when friends have added new friends, and I may want information about upcoming events. Arguably, we’re all going to want some individual combination, and to that extent Facebook allows one to tune their Newsfeed preferences. The problem with tuning, however, is that Facebook fails to respect my preferences, sending me miscellaneous stories when the system lacks stories that match my preferences. These non-opted-in stories are spam. Imagine this scenario: you set up your RSS reader, and you read all of your feeds and mark them read. Then you update your reader, but there are no new stories. Instead of just telling you this, your RSS reader finds you a bunch of random stories from blogs you aren’t subscribed to. It’s a broken proposition.

Newsfeed was designed to keep you interested, to keep you logging in again and again. Each time you’d be greeted with fresh information. This is a failure of assumption. I recheck my newsreader after I’ve read all my feeds – people will naturally go back to good information sources, even if there isn’t much information there. We’d rather know that there’s none of the information we’re looking for than tons of the information we aren’t.

Facebook Social Ads Not That GoodTo add insult to injury, my Newsfeed finds itself increasingly inundated with advertisements, such as my favorite one that urges me to go to dental school (hey, maybe Facebook knows something my brain will only figure out ten years from now). Advertisements in the Newsfeed, be they social or not, are also a failed proposition. First of all, they completely lack context, which my brain involuntarily processes as being the least-important item in the Newsfeed. Second, they compete with “good” information. I’m much more likely to click on pictures of my friends than some random Verizon ad, and that’s just the way it’s always going to be. Finally, they pollute the feed, devaluing the information space. It’s as if Google included sponsored links in their organic search results. Any self-respecting Googler would be horrified at that proposition; yes, it would have been lucrative, but it would completely destroy the trust in that information space.

Unfortunately, Facebook’s already polluted Newsfeed, so I’m not sure the trust/value can be regained. And I’m also pretty sure that they’re not going to change their approach any time soon – this short-term revenue is eclipsing the long-term value of creating a useful information space. That doesn’t stop me from wishing for a revamped Newsfeed, one that followed my rules, acted like my RSS reader, and understood the value of a trusted, relevant information space. If Facebook really is in it for the long haul, the Newsfeed should be a space I enjoy, not one I wince at and try to avoid.

Thoughts — 1 Comment
18
Oct 07

The Directionality of Social Network Platforms

Myspace was the big news yesterday, announcing their API Platform – which one can assume will look much like Facebook’s initiative. While I think we all agree that social network platforms are sensible efforts, I find myself increasingly frustrated with Facebook’s implementation of their platform. I thought I might take a minute to explore the main problem, that being the unidirectional nature of the API.

Why does a web service implement an API? There are many reasons – one of the most consistent is that a service seeks to increase value by sharing its content beyond its boundaries. For example, Twitter leverages global programming and design skill to put their simple product into people’s hands on their terms. Google Maps, as another example, exports its data to enrich other applications, producing a transformative functionality.

And what governs a firm’s decision to produce said API’s? It’s simple economics; API’s are simply new routes to pre-deployed functionalities, and whatever costs the firm incurs (generally minimally-variable costs in terms of infrastructure) to provide the API is recapitalized in terms of market penetration, novel functionalities and user satisfaction. Thinking outside the firm, what drives outside adoption of API’s? For the external firm, the adoption of the API requires learning a new skill, data integration, programming, testing – not an unbearable cost to a mom-and-pop, but clearly not a simple decision for larger shops. Therefore, a promise that what one gets in return for time and resources spent figures rationally into the decision.

Lets wander back to Google Maps for a second. Putting aside the fact that Google Maps API is dead simple, perhaps the best in the Web 2.0 sphere, what does a firm know they are going to get by integrating? Answer: A fantastic, market-leading mapping functionality that will produce value almost instantly. In essence, there is a give-and-get with API’s; firms will expend resources if they know they are going to have value driven back into their products. This is a rational actor assumption. Is it irrational for firms to design for social network platforms?

Before we declare social network platforms a giant house of cards, let’s define the space a little. When one designs for Facebook, they are designing a tool to be run in a third-party space. That is, while the business logic of an application resides on the firm’s servers, the experience is entirely in Facebook. So what does the firm get by designing for Facebook? If the application becomes popular, one can expect name recognition, acclaim, an appearance on TechCrunch. But what about the other 99.9%? It is clearly a gamble with little guaranteed return.

This brings us to the idea of directionality in API’s. For a relationship between two companies to be successful, it must be mutually beneficial. With regards to the Facebook Platform, Facebook clearly benefits – the 5500 or so applications developers have created makes Facebook better, at minimal cost to Facebook. But what do third-party developers get, other than hopes and dreams that they might sell their app to Slide one day?

Third parties expend effort in designing for the Facebook Platform. But what is Facebook giving up? I’d argue that Facebook is giving up nothing. By implementing draconian terms of service, the API is essentially unidirectional. If you look at what is “storable” on the third party’s side, one sees that Facebook provides third parties no valuable data. And of course the users can’t override Facebook – you don’t own your data, your interests, your friend list or your photos, so you can’t provide that information to third-parties via the API.

My profile data, my “social graph” – all of this data could go a long way towards enriching other applications. Since the Facebook API only flows into the service, not out of it, third parties can’t leverage this value – they must simply bet on their applications being a hit in the service. Looking over the most popular apps, what do we see? A set of fluffy, fun, particularly useless applications – Kara Swisher echoes. Stepping back a bit, I realize these apps are valuable – people like them, they’re fun – but the ecosystem needs more than fluff, especially if we’re going to start talking about the “social operating system.”

A few weeks ago Anil Dash wrote about another unidirectional system, declaring that Facebook will eventually blend into the web at large. I agree, and I propose this will occur when Facebook realizes that it must bidirectionalize its API. Although interest in the Platform may have peaked, we’re simply not going to see truly rich applications (that require substantial third-party investment) until Facebook starts giving back to those who use the API. Looking at limited uptake by presidential candidates, one can only imagine the incentive these candidates would have to create awesome applications if Facebook bidirectionalized the API.

Right now, Facebook can get away with their stance due to their advantage in the marketplace. As Myspace chases their heels, and third parties realize the limited value in a unidirectional API, perhaps this will change soon. If nothing, Facebook should support identity rights – let me control my data and decide where it goes. If they don’t, perhaps the market will chart a new course for them.

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