My Twitter Tipping Point

Posted by Darren on Jan 8, 2010 • (Comments)

One of my tweets today was:

TweetI got a few immediate responses from @adventurista, @jbguru, and @mediahorizons asking me what the tipping point was.  My tipping point was when I started exploring the apps ecosystem surrounding Twitter to fully understand what a platform is, and thought I’d use this post as a way that I’ve navigated the waters.

I joined twitter 1026 days ago (March 19, 2007) which was during SXSW 2007.  My first tweet is below:

My first tweet

I did not really know what Twitter really was- other than a way for the TechCrunch crowd to communicate back and forth with each other and in some ways, use it as an ego machine.   @HowardLindzon always put smiles on my face with his obnoxious and ridiculous tweets and in stark contrast to Howard, @andrewparker was sharing IMHO very interesting insight and links.    Twitter became a firehose of content, so controlling who I was following was critical.

Fast forward to today, I am following around 195 people.  While I probably would follow more than 195 people, the firehose of content becomes so great that there is no way I can keep up with everyone.   Only today are the tools being built to help filter and manage the billions of tweets.

I very rarely use Twitter.com as the source of where I write my tweets.   Only 1 in my last 20 tweets (5%) were written at Twitter but the majority are written from a communications platform such as TweetDeck, Seesmic, and mobile versions of TweetDeck and Tweetie.  The reason why I use these communications platforms are because they help me quickly navigate the content by directing me to all of my friends content, direct messages, and mentions and recently, I setup ways to keep tracking of certain keywords to see what people are saying.  It’s a very simple social monitoring tool.  A few keywords I’m tracking today are KBS+P, Cliqset and Snackr through programs like TweetDeck and Squawk.

As I deepen my experience with Twitter, the more I understand the ecosystem and how multi-dimensional it has become.

I have not seen statistics as to how many people are using these communications platforms but being that TweetDeck is being mentioned at BestBuy for an Interscope promotion, I can imagine that there have been quite a few downloads.

To fully understand Twitter as a platform, you need to dig deeper into the developer movement.  I’ve been spending some time with some developers recently and want to highlight one or two which have really helped me understand the capabilities.

Meet wow.ly – Kevin Marshall, a.k.a. Falicon

Kevin has been building a few apps around Twitter under the wow.ly name with partner Whitney McNamara.   Think of wow.ly as a collection of apps which utilize the manipulation of twitter and other content (accessed thru an API) to provide value to its users.  wow.ly has started with Twitter because it’s the most easily accessible and has scale.

ConversationaList is an application that is a Twitter list of the people that you talk to (and about) on Twitter. The list is automatically updated daily, so that it always reflects the people that you are paying attention to right now. If you @reply (or @mention) someone, they’re added to your list. If you stop talking to that person, they drop off your list.

This provides lots of value as it helps me navigate my personal firehose and allows me to find very relevant information.

Another app they have built out is Hivemind.

Hivemind shows you who you’re missing on Twitter. Give hivemind up to five Twitter users that interest you, and it will report back on who those people as a group are all following that you aren’t.

If you respect a few folks and want to find out who they are all following that you are not?  This is a great way to add folks to your following list.   You are using people as “curators.”

So the above two examples are from wow.ly which tend to use people’s following/followers lists as proxies to analyze data from, but there are other people building some other projects.

Unmasking Masked Links

Check out TweetMeme.   If you are familiar with Digg, then you’ll quickly understand TweetMeme.  Their tagline is “check out the top links on Twitter.”  They break down the links by a few different categories as well, so navigation through these links become easier.  This is a nice compliment to TechMeme and worth a check every so often.

A project that I came across is called Bitme.me, a name I don’t understand but useful nonetheless.  I had this idea as well, but Dan Lewis actually took the steps to build this site.  Bitme pulls the most clicked links across Bit.ly (though not all links are on Twitter) confined to a curated list of sites.

Example:  For BitMe’s Technology section, he is pulling the top clicked bit.ly links from Mashable, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, and a few other sites.  Extremely helpful.

Twitter In Itself is “Dumb”

It’s not dumb in the sense that I’m not going to use it, it’s dumb in the sense that it is much more intelligent when your interface with it through the apps.  That in itself is a definition of a platform.   I believe that Twitter will ultimately succeed if remains a platform and allows developers to continue innovating through the APIs.  If Twitter starts to make acquisitions that limits the amount of companies accessing the APIs, then the pace of innovation may slow.  ReadWriteWeb had a great article about Twitter’s API rate change that could lead to significant innovation and I’m all for it.

As mentioned, my tipping point was when I started exploring the apps ecosystem surrounding Twitter.  This tipping point is the true understanding of what a platform really is.  If you are inspired and want to learn more, check out John Borthwick’s Charting the Real Time Web.  If the ecosystem of the real time web is inspiring to you, check out Betawork’s network of companies to see how the space is playing out.

From me, I’ve made a recent investment in this space (company not listed in this post) that should surface in February/March 2010.   I’ve been inspired by streams of content and believe there are simple ways to consume content that can be leveraged by the masses.  Look out for more posts like this one, and yes, I’ll be tweeting about it too.  You can follow me on twitter here.

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , + Categorized as Internet & Web X.0, Technology
  • Darren - Great post (and sorry for being late getting to it!). As I read your post, it sounds like you are bullish on Twitter as a platform, but not necessarily a business (you don't indicate one way or the other).

    I feel the same way. I flip flop on whether I'm bullish or not on Twitter's potential as a $-making business (the VC in me :). I'm sure the employees of Twitter are a lot smarter than I am and have some genius plan to make tons of mulah, but right now it just feels like Twitter is the last stop on the $ value chain. This great ecosystem you speak of is standing on Twitter's shoulders and it feels like they are going to make money before Twitter ever does. Even if Twitter starts integrating ads a-la Ad.ly into your Twitter stream, it still feels like incremental revenue. What else can they do?

    Google's platform was and is so freaking valuable because Google's equivalent of "tweeting" is "searching" aka one of the simplest and most effective moneymakers out there.

    Twitter won't ever be a Google, but can it ever reach the revenue potential of a Facebook? I'm skeptical.

    So what is it then besides just a stream of user generated content?

    st
  • a bunch of incremental revenue streams start to add up significantly, no?

    I like your comment re: Google's equivalent of tweeting is "searching" -> hadn't heard it phrased that way.

    Isn't this whole world user generated content? It's how we package it up and "position/sell" it that creates different ways of "status"
  • While that's true that a bunch of incremental revenue streams start to add up significantly, it's rare that a company not have one dominant revenue stream. I suppose some form of in stream advertising could be just that, but I think it's going to take an out of the box idea.

    Yes, a lot of this world is UGC, but so are IMs, and try monetizing those!
  • It's all how you package the content

    ---
    Darren Herman / 914 912-7992
  • interesting post Darren -- going to go check out hivemind
  • Thanks Giff! Let us know what you think.
  • simple tool (good thing) and while it gave me some big names that many people follow (thus unsurprising suggestions), it also led to some cool discoveries. Would be cool to combine their two tools so that they automatically create a hive suggestion list from the people who are in my "conversationlist".

    More feedback: would like to click on a suggestion and open a new tab to their twitter feed. I always check out tweets before following. Devs tried to do that with the highlight box on the right, but the rollovers work such that this is ineffective for ppl in left two columns, plus when you click on twitter stream, it opens within same tab not new tab, making it a pain to get back (slowww as it re-processes). ok, this comment is now officially too long so will stop here :)
  • API driven platforms thrive when they are being used to make money on both sides (as an example think of all the bid management systems in Search that use Google's AdWords API). I think a great challenge lies ahead for this ecosystem when and if revenue generation gets layered on top of the platforms or apps. The attribution and valuation problems using APIs and mashed up data may dwarf what we're experiencing now with search & display. Open may not stay open when it means not getting a piece of the pie.

    My prediction, Twitter stays open as long as it needs to find a business model(s) that can get layered on top of it (ala The Facebook) and then will slowly but diligently close the kimono. A few big winners will emerge (ala Zynga). Fortunes become intertwined and then made. Of course the geeks get pissed off -- but this is a killer strategic business model.
  • "Twitter stays open as long as it needs to find a business model(s) that can get layered on top of it (ala The Facebook) and then will slowly but diligently close the kimono"

    I disagree, if for nothing else than I think Twitter's DNA thus far has been as "open" (with the ecosystem) as I've ever seen a company be. For example, in essence they have thru the API outsourced their UI (to Seesmic, Tweetdeck, dozens others), traditionally thought to be any services core competency (and the hardest and most expensive thing to get right). It is hard - even should they so desire - to pull this sprawling mass of apps, services, hacks and goodness inside, or shut them out.

    Also, I have a sense that they could at its simplest monetize search. Which wouldnt necessarily impact the ecosystem in a negative way. Might indeed help.
  • A viewpoint that we both share. If they can remain true to being a "platform" then a very broad and deep ecosystem can evolve. I think what Jonathan writes above would scare off the developer world and Twitter then becomes yet another service/communications provider.

    Andrew, really appreciate you dropping by.
  • as they used to say in the good ole days, long time listener, first time caller
  • Very true - expectation is if Google acquires a DSP, will they remain as open as they are with their exchange?

    Great thoughts as always.
  • I think Google is more likely to turn DART into the Google DSP through a tight AdEX integration, rather than acquire an independent DSP.
  • I love how you walk through your thinking here and I think a lot of us have gone down sim. paths...myself included. A few years back I really couldn't get into using Twitter but eventually got pulled in by some friends...once I was in, I quickly became frustrated with how useful it could be at certain points and how annoying it could be at others...it was really the combination of these two feelings that initially motivated me to start building with the API. There's a ton of data and so there's a ton of potential...there's an open API...if I'm annoyed about something enough, I actually have the freedom/power to build my own thing to fix my problem! I started trying to work out my own issues and was hooked. Clearly others are doing the same thing.

    Can't wait to hear more about the investment and see what you roll out in Feb./March!
  • I went back and re-read this post this morning (I wrote it last night and time-delayed the launch) and the more I read it, it's not really about Twitter (by product) but it's about platforms. What you are doing with wow.ly is flat out cool.

    As for the investment... stay tuned!
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