[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
There are some faulty premises in operation here. While these don't affect the substance of the answer to the OP's question, you do tend to follow them beyond to some unnecessary conclusions. On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 15:21:38 -1000 Kevin Mesiab ke...@mesiablabs.com wrote: You're asking the wrong folks. Most of the developers here do not have any real capital investment in their projects to speak of. Fewer still have a profit model. I don't have a profit model, but I do have a revenue model. It's a non-profit model built around free will donations, a value added service and a niche community. I run a self-supporting hobby server that is at the low end of its scalability. In other words, I can add additional services and 10 times as many users on the current hardware. A profit model is not necessary. A revenue model is. Is Twitter a Fad? The easy answer, yes. The long answer? Yes, but it needn't be... Unless Twitter makes a very real move to legitimize itself as a stable and growing (relevant) platform for end users, you will be better off focusing your capital on social media projects with more long term sustainability. Or diversify. Don't develop for just one Social Media Site. My strategy is to pick low hanging fruit like Twitter and MeetUps, but concentrate on OpenSocial for long term. Be aware, very few actual businesses have invested real dollars and labor into integration w/ Twitter (sales force, dell, whoot, et al) as opposed to the thousands who have adopted Facebook's API. And that's a concern. I think Twitter has hinted at a revenue model in the past couple weeks. Tightening security and making the Tweet stream accessible on a metered basis while providing the means for businesses to extract meaningful data is potentially viable. I think that there probably needs to be some additional progress made in natural language processing and AI agents for much of that value to be realized, but the value is there and at least partially monetizable. The reason is not a matter of playing favorites, it's a matter of mitigating risk. Presently, Twitter is a fad. It's popularity and its current growth pattern is a result of novelty and a media bubble. Microblogging is here to stay. The question is whether it is enough or whether users will want Statuses plus, for some value of plus that means plus polls, plus features, plus complications. There is a niche, currently close to 45 million users large, for just microblogging. Doing that and doing it well is one path to success. Speaking as someone building a Social Networking site for an existing game application, I don't care about Facebook statuses or similar features on other sites. I want to push and pull statuses with Twitter first because that's where the users who care about that feature live. I'll add the ability to work with other similar feeds later. However, Twitter has a very real chance to galvanize that momentum into a serious business (one that includes us third party developers), but it must move swiftly. Facebook is posturing to take over Twitter's market space. Not because it wants to obliterate Twitter as a competitor, but because they know what we know. The 'correct' social network exists somewhere between FB and Twitter. The quotes are good, but not good enough. There won't ever be a correct social network. 'Correct' is different things for different people at different times. It's only network effect that makes it worthwhile to accept a sub-optimal feature set for individual needs. FB has plus. That's a good place for them. They can't plus simplicity, however, and that's what Twitter has going for it. Both companies _should_ be racing towards that space. Whoever dominates it (and thusly deserves our investment) will be the one who a.) gets there first and b.) properly courts the developer community to enrich it. I'm originally from Maine. There's an expression there that says, You can't get there from here. The 're' in there and here as well as the word you are pronounced -uh, that's a voiced glottal aspirate followed by a schwa. Race is the wrong word. Facebook can't get there. It's too hard to get simpler. Twitter needs to set its own course into that space and take just as much of that space as needed to serve its core functionality. If it gets away from core function then the revenue model issue becomes pathological. There are only two ways to convince real companies to invest real capital: 1.) Prove the users are there 2.) Guarantee a market The users are here, but they may not stay if they are treated like a market. Marketing with social media is entirely different than using broadcast media. It's viable and monetizable, but it is not easy to scale. The challenge will be to see if Twitter can become a financial success without become a soulless waste of electrons like MySpace. Apple has shown us this model at scale. Models from hardware vendors may not apply. The only
[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
First, Why you are here??? For me, i'm trying to develop with twitter api for fun and learning. Now i know more about php that a month ago. I'm doing this with the hope of doing a best site that twitter, giving more options to cuztomize to the user and new services (and the hope of winning some money). You're asking the wrong folks. Most of the developers here do not have any real capital investment in their projects to speak of. Fewer still have a profit model. - Kevin Mesiab Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
I just accidentally banned someone posting to this thread from the group. If you find it was you please email me offlist and I will get you back on. My apologizes, Abraham -- Abraham Williams | Community Evangelist | http://web608.org Hacker | http://abrah.am | http://twitter.com/abraham Project | http://fireeagle.labs.poseurtech.com This email is: [ ] blogable [x] ask first [ ] private.
[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
yea, like fb and ytube and ggle On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 9:41 AM, ka...@sbcglobal.net kakm...@gmail.comwrote: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts? -- Dale Merritt Fol.la MeDia, LLC
[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
Yeah, it's a fad, just like vowels and capitalization are. On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 1:38 PM, Dale Merritt mogul...@gmail.com wrote: yea, like fb and ytube and ggle On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 9:41 AM, ka...@sbcglobal.net kakm...@gmail.comwrote: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts? -- Dale Merritt Fol.la MeDia, LLC
[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
Yes. On Sep 3, 2009, at 9:41 AM, ka...@sbcglobal.net wrote: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts? -- Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *
[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
Sometimes. On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:45 PM, Scott Hanedatalkli...@newgeo.com wrote: Yes. On Sep 3, 2009, at 9:41 AM, ka...@sbcglobal.net wrote: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts? -- Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *
[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
Ask Again Later On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 16:54, Andrew Badera and...@badera.us wrote: Sometimes. On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:45 PM, Scott Hanedatalkli...@newgeo.com wrote: Yes. On Sep 3, 2009, at 9:41 AM, ka...@sbcglobal.net wrote: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts? -- Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ * -- Internets. Serious business.
[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
Kinda asking the wrong group, aren't you? Ted Neward Java, .NET, XML Services Consulting, Teaching, Speaking, Writing http://www.tedneward.com -Original Message- From: twitter-development-talk@googlegroups.com [mailto:twitter- development-t...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of ka...@sbcglobal.net Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 9:42 AM To: Twitter Development Talk Subject: [twitter-dev] Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts? Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
if you're a developer... and u love to code... then i don't think it's a hard decision. #my2cents On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 5:54 PM, Andrew Badera and...@badera.us wrote: Sometimes. On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 6:45 PM, Scott Hanedatalkli...@newgeo.com wrote: Yes. On Sep 3, 2009, at 9:41 AM, ka...@sbcglobal.net wrote: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts? -- Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *
[twitter-dev] Re: Is twitter a fad or worth development efforts?
You're asking the wrong folks. Most of the developers here do not have any real capital investment in their projects to speak of. Fewer still have a profit model. Is Twitter a Fad? The easy answer, yes. The long answer? Yes, but it needn't be... Unless Twitter makes a very real move to legitimize itself as a stable and growing (relevant) platform for end users, you will be better off focusing your capital on social media projects with more long term sustainability. Be aware, very few actual businesses have invested real dollars and labor into integration w/ Twitter (sales force, dell, whoot, et al) as opposed to the thousands who have adopted Facebook's API. The reason is not a matter of playing favorites, it's a matter of mitigating risk. Presently, Twitter is a fad. It's popularity and its current growth pattern is a result of novelty and a media bubble. However, Twitter has a very real chance to galvanize that momentum into a serious business (one that includes us third party developers), but it must move swiftly. Facebook is posturing to take over Twitter's market space. Not because it wants to obliterate Twitter as a competitor, but because they know what we know. The 'correct' social network exists somewhere between FB and Twitter. Both companies _should_ be racing towards that space. Whoever dominates it (and thusly deserves our investment) will be the one who a.) gets there first and b.) properly courts the developer community to enrich it. There are only two ways to convince real companies to invest real capital: 1.) Prove the users are there 2.) Guarantee a market Apple has shown us this model at scale. A rich developer community, incentivized by a Twitter regulated app store, and a firm developer bill of rights will ensure Twitter stays relevant (and its users enjoy a rich experience) for a lot longer than it should. It also gets to 'grow up' into a real company and earn revenue from a reseller split (again, via Apple). -- Kevin Mesiab CEO, Mesiab Labs L.L.C. http://twitter.com/kmesiab http://mesiablabs.com http://retweet.com
