Visual.ly Graphic Profile of Me: Twitter Data-Generated Infographic

The embed code was too big for my blog, so I'm just posting a direct link until this is fix.

Update: Just inserting the graphic here...

Twitter Bashing, Is Ev Williams a Jerk?

Last week Twitter was getting a good amount of negative press:

"Trouble @Twitter" Fortune

"The Real History Of Twitter" Business Insider

"EXCLUSIVE: An Interview With Twitter's Forgotten Founder, Noah Glass" Business Insider

After reading these articles, Ev Williams comes off as a power-hungry, ego-maniac that is a bit shady. At a minimum a selfish jerk. You're left wondering if he did really screw over Blogger employees before Google acquired the company, and you're wondering why did he screw over Noah Glass? Also why didn't he and others give credit to Noah Glass? Sadly, he only does so after these articles placed him under the fire.

I've heard from people at Twitter that many like him, but wonder if that's simply a limited sample set or if he's selectively shady. Whatever the truth is, this is just a reminder that you have to be cautious when starting a company with others. Trust is essential and knowing their character is critical too. During the first sign of a fire or potential success, is your co-founder going to throw you under the bus or backstab you? Drink the water before you pour in the Kool-Aid mix.

Dick Costolo's Lessons Learned

I definitely enjoyed listening to Dick Costolo's talk at Vator Splash. Dick is the recently appointed CEO of TWitter and co-founder and former CEO of Feedburner.

"Twitter CEO Dick Costolo's lessons learned
Costolo, the first keynote speaker at Vator Splash September, shares a few lessons for entrepreneurs"

The complete review is in the link above, but here are the points I appreciated the most:

1. Have a voice

Costolo’s first lesson, which he seemed the most eager to impart, is to create a personality for your company. For example, even though deal-of-the-day sites are the easiest kind to copy and paste, Woot stood out from the rest by having the most funny and raunchiest descriptions of its daily deals. (Costolo recommends reading the Woot CEO’s post after Amazon acquired his company.)...

4. Think long-term

Not thinking about exits, however, doesn’t mean forgetting about the long-term. Relating an example from one of his earliest ventures, Costolo described how his company veered from their six-month business plan because one customer asked for one specific feature and backed up the request with the promise of good money. Though the business managed to make quick profits by pleasing this one customer, they shut out a large group of other potential customers by delaying their original plan three months. The company had traded in their vision for sub-optimal results by thinking in the short-term.

5. Launch late to launch often

Twisting the adage to “launch early and launch often,” Costolo advised that companies be patient with their product, even if that means launching late. Once a solid product is released, then the business can focus on launching updates often.

At the same time, Costolo warned against waiting to dump every single new feature on users, an experience that can be overwhelming. Even worse, waiting for absolute perfection before launching could be disastrous because perfection might never come; receiving feedback is key.

Lunsford Group Wireless Industry Snapshot 2010

I recently update an internal document for our firm that I made which serves as a wireless industry "cheat sheet," or quick reference guide. Nothing proprietary, so I thought I would share it with all of you.

Lunsford Group Wireless Industry Snapshot 2010

View more presentations from Bernard Moon.

Ah, Twitter, Lucky You’re Not in Ecommerce!

Down for Days? No Problem for Asynchronous Communication Platforms.

How many times have Twitter users seen the white whale? Definitely more than Captain Ahab. Maybe we should all be called “Ishmael”? Once again users are going through an epic period of downtime and other random mishaps. Rob DeMillo, CTO of 4INFO, recently experienced missing five days of mentions, which I experienced a few times over these recent months.

Taking a step back, isn’t it amazing that we all still stay with Twitter? Sure, there are scarce alternatives, but even when a direct competitor, such as Pownce, was around there were seemingly more rounds of downtime but Twitter still grew. Are Twitter users simply sadomasochists? Of course not.

I believe Twitter users have a high tolerance because we know this is an asynchronous communications platform. Sure there is the importance of timing in tweets, but we also benefit from the ability to respond (and even ignore) to direct tweets or conversations at our own leisure. Twitter is an asynchronous platform in real-time clothing.

Imagine if Amazon or eBay suffered this much downtime? Their business would be toast. Even IM platforms, such as Meebo, would suffer a mass exodus if they had half the downtimes that Twitter goes through. Twitter is in a unique space of user forgiveness and frustration without consequences that has made me think about how to apply this model in other areas.

Fast casual foods? Not really fast, but very casual. Order your burger (a very kickass burger) with no set delivery time. Just a range of 1-2 days. The burger is so awesome that consumers would be willing to deal with the random delivery time. Hmmm, maybe not. Asynchronous online radio? Select hundreds of songs that will be streamed to a desktop application in random order but might present pauses in your listening for up to 2 hours. Definitely a “no”. It seems Twitter’s model is unique to its short-form of online communication. I guess we have to just suck it up and deal. Or maybe Six Apart can revive Pownce or Kevin Rose can build another competing platform?

4 Emerging Trends of the Real-Time Web

My op-ed on the real-time web is up at Mashable. HatTip to Adrian Chan, Dave S. and John S. for providing their insights on this piece. Check it out, comment and retweet if you can :)

4 Emerging Trends of the Real-Time Web

There is a lot of hype surrounding the real-time web, and much of the feeding frenzy reminds me of the RSS space four years ago — though there is a lot of potential, there is also a lot of noise. How do you navigate through it all and which developments should you be paying attention to? What are the emerging trends for companies and entrepreneurs to watch for? Here are four real-time web trends that I’m tracking.

Real-Time Collaboration is Ripening
Real-time will play a major role in the future of online collaboration. We’ve seen all the hype around the new Google Wave platform, as well as the growth of Twitter and Twitter-like communications (such as Facebook status). On the business side, SAP’s Gravity, a prototype of real-time collaborative business process modeling within Google Wave, is a good example. But I see this as the tip of the iceberg.

Companies that are more efficient have an advantage whether within their walls or with their customers. Imagine being able to make real-time changes with your colleague in another city and graphic designer at your local Kinko’s to finalize a presentation and print it hours before your meeting. Or working with your manufacturer in Nanjing, China on changes to your new BBQ grill design and seeing if it’s possible in real-time. Or game developers in Korea and Dallas story boarding a new video game concept in a new real-time game development application. There is massive potential for real-time collaboration across almost every discipline, and I believe there are an incredible amount of exciting possibilities here... (full post)

Social Media Revolution

One of the better videos that provides an overview, facts and insights into how social media has changed our world.

Twitteleh, Twitter for Your Jewish Mother

HatTip to Net J. Love this. Someone should make one for Korean mothers called "Twittuh-ah." Their main questions would be:

1. Have you eaten yet?
2. Are you married yet?
3. Did you know Mrs. Kim's son... (e.g. got a 4.0, going to Hopkins Med)?

Lil'Grams Launches, The Baby Book for Modern Parents

Lil'Grams recently launched and looks like a Twitter for baby updates. It's is a company founded by Gregarious Narain and Ranvir Gujral. More from the press release:

Lil’Grams (lilgrams.com) announces the public launch of the Lil’Grams service, the easiest, most convenient way for parents to capture and organize their baby's most precious moments and share them with friends and family. Lil’Grams designed its service to deliver “Grams,” which are short messages or updates about special moments or milestones in a baby’s life.

“We are in business to make parents’ lives easier,” said Gregarious Narain, Lil'Grams co-founder. “Children create cherished memories everywhere and all the time, at home or on the go. We give parents peace of mind that those memories will be stored and that loved ones will get updates the way they want them.”

@Fakesacca is Friggin Hilarious

If you're in Silicon Valley and know of Chris Sacca, you'll find @fakesacca friggin hilarious.

Some favorites:

Could 470 of you stop following me? I promised Gisele & Tom they could be my 110,000th followers. Come back in right after the bride & groom
1:43 PM Mar 3rd from web

Wow, not sure what city i'm in. The food says London, the prices say Tokyo, and the women say Los Angeles. I'm going w/ Hong Kong.
10:39 PM Feb 19th from web

Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk

My op-ed at Mashable is up, "Twitter Spam: 3 Ways Scammers are Filling Twitter With Junk"

My first tech op-ed in 6 months! This correlates with our newborn girls sleeping through the night :) One of my hobbies had to give over these past six months.

Anyway, there were some minor edits to my piece, but one that I was sad that was taken out was my second poke at "joint venture marketing":

(Mashable post)
Do they even realize a joint venture is just a type of partnership a company might form with another company? That it isn’t a concept that deserves a whole category within marketing or corporate development? I was thinking of some equivalents to “joint venture marketing” in other fields. It would be like a chef trying to sell “deep fried cooking” or “charbroiled cooking” in an infomercial.

(original draft)
Do they even realize a joint venture is just a type of partnership a company might form with another company? That it isn’t a concept that deserves a whole category within marketing or corporate development? I was thinking of some equivalents to “joint venture marketing” in other fields. It would be like a chef trying to sell “deep fried cooking” or “charbroiled cooking” in an infomercial. Or claiming a “new” concept such as “foreplay sex.”

:)

Conan's Twitter Tracker

Not so funny, but a good poke at Twitter...

Stop Twitter Spam!

I came across Sean Percival's post on "Twitter Spam":

"Twitter Spam is getting worse and worse these days. If you use Twitter like I do, and follow everyone who follows you, then you’ve probably seen a lot of crap like the above tweet... Twitter would probably acquire any company who could help them better filter spam."

This is something I highlighted in my op-ed last May in Mashable when I predicted that Twitter would go mainstream:

"When (and if) this happens, the downside will be revealed. Spamming is already present on these micro-blogging platforms, but just wait until they hit the mainstream. By the time I left Korea in 2004, a quarter of my SMS was spam, and I blamed those online SMS broadcasting services. Let’s watch what happens in the U.S. over the next few years."

Just eyeballing my Twitter stream I would say it hasn't reached the annoying levels I experienced with SMS in Korea, but Twitter penetration isn't even close to South Korea's 90%+ wireless penetration rate and its high SMS usage so the total volume and Twitter usage rate probably isn't attractive to the overall spamming market. Maybe I see 2% or less of my incoming Tweets as spam, whether hard or soft spam (hard or soft sell)? Also I probably come across a similar percentage of spam profiles, which I frequently block to help cleanse the Twitter ecosystem of these toxins.

The uptake of spam in Twitter can potentially be more rapid than SMS networks since Twitter is naturally a broadcast system and where you can accumulate contacts rapidly beyond your circle of close friends. To blast a broadcast-like message through SMS, you have to tediously enter each contact or use a third-party application.

Let's watch to see how Twitter or the Twitter ecosystem deals with the spam problem as it become more ubiquitous.

Tweets by Time of Day & Day of Week

More navel gazing whether yours or mine... Steve Broback, 140 | The Twitter Conference organizer, promoted some random developer's Twitter project during the second session. If you plug in your Twitter account here or someone else's, you can see when he/she tweets during the time of day and days of the week. The panelists were joking that you can see users' sleep patterns too. Here's mine:

@ 140 The Twitter Conference

I'm at 140 | The Twitter Conference over the next couple days. It's held at Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, which is less than 10 minutes from home and right next to Google, where Christine works. The schedule is here and a snapshot here:

Keynote: The Business Value of Twitter
Alex Payne

In his keynote, Alex Payne will provide several real-world examples of how the Twitter API is delivering results for organizations large and small.

Best Practices Panel: I am a Twitter God(dess) and So Can You
Panelists: iJustine, Tara Hunt, Dave Peck Moderator: Steve Broback

Our panel of experts will discuss what strategies, tactics, and tools ahve taken them to the top of the twitosphere.

What Makes a Great Twitter App?
Panelists: Loren Brichter, Britt Selvitelle, Dom Sagolla, Moderator: Sudha Jamthe

This panel of successful developers will talk about the design and functionality choices they made

eMarketer's Twitter Tally

eMarketer has their latest projections on Twitter:

Tweety Bird would never believe this.

If media attention is any indication, Twitter has exploded into an all-out phenomenon. Celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs, business leaders and everyday users are flocking to the service en masse, generating a frenzy of activity and attention.

Everybody is talking about Twitter, but what do the numbers say?



All I can say is that I predicted Twitter would go mainstream last May :) I would estimate that it really didn't go mainstream until winter of 2008 when major media outlets began using it to interact with their viewers. If I only had more time to write my trend pieces :)

"Twitter, Tina Fey, and the Future of Micro-Blogging" Mashable

"Twouble with Twitters"

HatTip To Doris. Hilarious.

140: The Twitter Conference

Parnassus Group is hosting 140: The Twitter Conference on May 26th - 27th, 2009.

"140 is the place where developers, business people, and enthusiasts converge to find innovative ways to tap into the Real-Time Web."

"Social Media 'Experts' are the Cancer of Twitter"... Holy Hilarious Fanboy

Wow. Fanboy.com has a hilarious and spot-on post about Twitter. It's probably more amusing since I've been actively using Twitter over the past month, and I kept coming across people that are "social media experts." I would wince and wonder why are they an "expert"? I visit their blog or website and still wonder. So Fanboy.com has expressed similar thoughts but in public and has eloquently described the landscape for our enjoyment:

"The zombies then seek each other: You’ll always notice that of the 5,000 followers that a social media expert has that all 5,000 of them are also social media “experts”. Their only form of conversation is to quote each other and live tweet conferences where they gather...

On a related note there’s also a related clan of zombies which are the SEO “experts” — these creatures are a blue collar variation of the social media experts and usually have the term “web master” in their bio. Sometimes the social media and SEO zombies can mate to produce a marketing strategy monster, but most of these are harmless as they don’t use the auto-follow technique..."

Twitter Search By Authority?... MG Money

Loic Le Meur created a stir by asking for Twitter search by authority. Michael Arrington continues with a post here.

VentureBeat's MG Siegler at his personal blog, ParisLemon, has an amusing and money post on Loic's request, "Bitchmeme: On Twitter You Will Respect My Authori-tay":

"Second, this absolutely would ruin one of the most compelling things about Twitter: That it's completely democratic. If you want to know what someone has to say on a topic, follow them, no need to have their opinions forced in everyone's face because they are "more authoritative," that's subjective. Dave Winer and Jeremiah Owyang have the right idea for this: Make an option to search for topic within the people you follow...

But the reasons people are bitching about it so much is because Le Meur's actually onto something that is in fact a growing problem on Twitter (too much noise), but he proposes a solution without thinking it through."