I have a soft spot for Mike Arrington. I think it is because we put down the same first four letters when naming our blogs: tech. Michael seems to think technology is a four letter word.
Kevin Rose once said on TV that Mike Arrington was a "d____." Sometimes he is, but I would not make such a blanket statement. At the end of the day he is a great guy with a great blog.
Chris Dixon is a great entrepreneur and investor, and he has a great blog (it's on my blogroll), but his latest post on Twitter I did not find all that impressive. The guy comes across as high on diligence, not so high on vision.
This morning when I showed up at AVC.com for my morning coffee - I am not much of a coffee drinker, by the way, beer and coffee are strictly social for me - Fred Wilson had mentioned Chris Dixon. Obviously the two have a mutual admiration thing going on.
And what's up with bloggers who flash this road sign on their old posts? "Comments for this page are closed." I don't do it, I don't get it. It is not like your blog post can not be found a few weeks later. Unless you are someone who makes a point to read every comment that was ever left at your blog. That might be Fred's rationale behind flashing that road sign. I don't flash it. I use my Disqus dashboard to manage my comments. It probably helps that I don't get all that many. Looks like Fred and Chris have a high class problem to have: many, too many comments.
Chris was already on my blogroll. He does have a swell blog. But this attention from Fred made sure he got promoted to the A1 section on my blogroll. These are bloggers that if they post something new, I have to go read it if I spot it. There are too many white males in that section. And a disproportionate number of Indians, but that is understandable.
Fred and Chris should have been there when they ran me out of the Sun building: Presenting At The Dot Com Hatchery. I came from the narrative angle, and they came from the not-ready-for-prime-time, the-guy-does-not-have-numbers angle.
Anyways, so I am thinking, I have not been to Chris Dixon's blog in a while, let me go look at some fresh stuff. And I found this.
Twitter is perhaps - not perhaps, it is - the most talked about company at my blog. That is why I think I would be a great addition to the Union Square Ventures team: Union Square Ventures Job Opening: I Am Applying. Twitter is the best investment Fred ever made, in my opinion.
This is the Twitter narrative: Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter. Either you get it or you don't get it. If I were to write that blog post today, I'd probably add FourSquare at the end. But I will admit I did not see FourSquare coming. I was at FourSquare's demo at the NY Tech MeetUp I believe in March 2009. I remember not being impressed. Although I made a point to say hello to the Indian looking guy Naveen, who sensed it and was not impressed.
Fred Wilson imagined a Twitter like service before he actually came across Twitter, and it was slightly different from what he had imagined, it was better than what he had imagined, it was a case of reality being stranger than fiction. But scientists knew of Pluto, before they actually pinned it down. Fred Wilson and Esther Dyson are visionaries. Every time I get to meet Esther she makes my day. And I have met her at a few different NY Tech MeetUps. I don't think she knows me, but I could care less. The first time I saw her, I immediately recognized her, I could not believe it was her I was seeing. I thought the NY Tech MeetUp was for mere mortals like myself.
This is what I am looking at for the first half of this year. I guess this could go on for all of this year, and maybe even some of next year, but I don't feel confident projecting too far ahead. 2010 is definitely location's buzz year. Next year the space will have matured and receded from the headlines a little.
So coming back to Chris Dixon and Twitter.
Twitter having sent mixed signals over the past few years..... somehow Twitter had convinced the world they were going to “let a thousand flowers bloom” – as if they were a non-profit out to save the world, or that they would invent some fantastic new business model that didn’t encroach on third-party developers...... Twitter has yet to figure out a business model..... Twitter search will monetize poorly ..... Twitter’s move into mobile clients and hints about a more engaging website suggest they may be trying to mimic Facebook’s display ad model. ...Facebook’s ad growth is being driven largely by companies like Zynga who are in turn monetizing users with social games and virtual goods..... Facebook’s model depends on owning “eyeballs,” which is entirely contradictory to the pure API model Twitter has promoted thus far. ....Hopefully Twitter “fills holes” through acquisitions instead of internal development. ..... but on the product development front has been underwhelming ....Now that Twitter seems to be mimicing Facebook...Facebooker Ivan Kirigin tweeted yesterday: “I suppose when your competition is making huge mistakes, you should just stfu.”
Other than the fact that this guy is running a few days behind, obviously he has not blogged since Twitter made its big announcement. That is curious because the Twitter announcement was the biggest announcement in tech this past week. As far as I am concerned, the Twitter announcement is bigger than the iPad release. Twitter affects and will affect far more people. Steve Jobs, the Pied Piper. (The iPad Is No Laptop Killer)
Twitter has not sent any mixed signals. There is an almost total overlap between the Twitter path and the Google path. First build the product. Worry about monetization later. Just like there is a Google ecosystem (and this blog - Netizen - is part of it), there will continue to be a Twitter ecosystem. But Google bought Blogger and YouTube. Twitter will make its purchases. Twitter never pretended to be a non profit. If there are people who ever thought Twitter was a non profit, that can't be Twitter's fault.
Twitter search will monetize poorly? Chris, Twitter is second only to Google in the search arena. That has to ring a bell.
Twitter could not imitate Facebook even if it wanted to. Google could not become Facebook. Facebook can not become Twitter. Facebook and Twitter can add location, but FourSquare will thrive. Vision 101.
Facebook has not in earnest started to monetize. Their ad model will rely on the social graph and the social interactions. In a sense Facebook has not yet done what Twitter has done already. (Facebook's Ad Space Is Different)
The "API model" has been about extending Twitter's reach and making tweets fundamental to the web experience. It has been part of product development. It was never a business model.
It is not a choice between buy or build. Twitter has to do both. Each situation is slightly unique. My suggestion has been to go for an IPO, and then go on a buying spree: Twitter Should Go For A Netscape-Like IPO.
Twitter deserves credit for Twitter.com, but it also deserves credit for the Twitter ecosystem. I could complain Google did not give me Gmail on day one, or I could say thanks, they finally did it.
How is Twitter mimicking Facebook? The Facebook Ivan dude is making even less sense. Twitter is in the best shape it has ever been after its Chirp announcements. And there are people who think Twitter is imploding? Wet dreams.
We need to talk some resonance sense into this guy.
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Four squared is 16, get it? Hence April 16. That was a grassroots recognition, not a Team FourSquare recognition. FourSquare just had its RT moment. The RT - retweet - did not come from Team Twitter.
"I am interested in understanding why you chose the title General Manager. It does not seem that you need one person to manage the small and largely self-motivated team."
Union Square Ventures: We Are Hiring"we have envisioned an Investment Analyst and a General Manager of the Union Square Ventures Network"
Fred Wilson and USV first put out a post weeks back saying Farewell Andrew Parker, or something along those lines. And someone commented, in all earnesty, who died? He did not say who died, he said I came over here huffing and puffing hoping noone had died or anything like that. Oh no, Andrew is thankfully alive and well, Fred had to respond.
And now this even more earnest comment on the management position. These two comments have so far stood out as the hiring process rolls on at USV.
Look at this article from Time 1937. The richest man in the world at the time was an Indian. Hello Bill Gates. It was empowering to get to read the article in the raw. I think this is the model I have in mind when it comes to Twitter. What is being said right now in real time is important. But the Twitter archives are also important.
This is not Twitter giving the farm away. This is Twitter bringing in Google to enhance the value of every single tweet. Suddenly every tweet in the Twitter archive has become worth so much more. This is a huge boost to Twitter's monetization efforts. (Twitter Does The Deed: Ads)
Being able to search every tweet ever is great. But there is one missing link: visualization. Tweets are not meant to be read one at a time. And visualization is perhaps the best way to read many tweets at once. Google has work cut out for it in the presentation department. Searching through tweets is not the same as searching through webpages. Tweets are a different animal.
What I say today about Obama's victory in November 2008 is a different animal from what I said about Obama's victory as it happened. It is still me saying it, but real time is a different dimension.
This ability to dig through the Twitter archives is going to be a great tool for many players to go out there and see what people are saying about them, or how what they have been saying has changed over time.
Right now the archives go back only to February. It has to go all the way back. And Google has not even started work on doing the best possible job on presentation. Don't treat tweets like they are webpages. They are not.
Why will Facebook itself not do Facebook Enterprise? That is a question I have asked a few different times. The Salesforce guy had a guest post in TechCrunch not long back. A friend of mine emailed me that post through Google Reader. (Ignite, Set It On Fire) And I posed him the question on Buzz. Why will Facebook itself not do Facebook Enterprise?
The dichotomy between consumer software and enterprise software is vapid. It is unreal. It is an inconvenience that ought not last too long.
In his post today Fred Wilson is making the point that software should be as easy to use as media. He has not quite spelled it out, but I don't think he is trying to say he is only talking about consumer software. Software should be as easy to use as media also applies to enterprise software.
Salesforce trying to imitate Facebook to offer enterprise software: is that better than Facebook itself offering an enterprise version of itself? I don't think so.
The inbox was not copyrighted by Hotmail. The status update has not been copyrighted by Twitter. Similarly the stream is not Facebook property. Check in is similarly going to be a commodity feature.
Twitter should offer a Twitter Enterprise, and Facebook should work on a Facebook Enterprise. It just makes sense.
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