[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
+1 for Dewald getting his own session at Chirp! ;) (Seriously!) On Apr 10, 2:49 pm, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: Maybe it's because I'm of the older generation, have been there and done that, and have discovered that the top looks so green because of all the crap that lies and flies there, that I hold the opinions that I do. I can understand folks' ambitions to make it. I guess in a way it's like a green recruit versus a veteran soldier. When you ask a green recruit about war, you will get answers about glorious deeds, killing the evil enemy, the honor of dying for your country, great adventure, and the like. When you ask a veteran soldier about war, you will get answers about rotting corpses, pieces of human meat splattered everywhere, being shit scared, losing your best buddies, and fighting and taking risks only to protect your buddies. Someone couldn't pay me enough to be at the top. The lifestyle is not worth the other sacrifices you need to make. On Apr 10, 6:25 pm, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: Chad, Sometimes (well, okay, almost always) I just don't feel like citing all possible caveats to what I'm saying. I'm not writing here with visions of possible literary grandeur, potential book deals, or speaking engagements. I call shit like I see it. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong. It's just my opinion. Don't take what I say as gospel. Yes, there are ethical investors too. But, when the entrepeneur's ethics clash with the investor's ethics, or lack thereof, guess who is going to win. It does not require board level action or majority vote to put pressure on an entrepreneur. Simple verbal threats regarding current and future investments often suffice. On Apr 10, 6:13 pm, Chad Etzel jazzyc...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never ever accept investment capital. You cannot be serious. Believe it or not there are ethical investors out there. Also, bootstrapping a company that goes huge is almost impossible, especially for the younger entrepreneurial crowd that can afford the time and lifestyle that it would entail but probably does not have tons of cash in the bank. Can you please site such a company that received zero outside investment dollars? -Chad- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
My twitter client will be ready in about a month. I hope I have unique enough features to survive. On 11 April 2010 02:27, Arnaud Meunier arnaud.meun...@twitoaster.comwrote: +1 for the metaphors :) We all know what Twitter would like to see. No surprise here, nothing extraordinary, just advices we already were aware of. I mean... Who intended to code another photo sharing service or another desktop client before these annoucements? I guess nobody. Anybody who has been seriously thinking about starting a project around Twitter in the last year already knew he'd have to make something innovative enough to drag attention, customers, whatever he's looking for... In a word, there's nothing new with these annoucements and this acquisation. The only thing new is simply the fact that it's now officially said. Quite annoying for all the old school apps (thinking to existing clients, analytics services, media sharing tools...) Even for some of the new one, by the way, as a part of the applications who's going to emerge will probably wonder what if Twitter decides to make a product of my concept? Inherent risk of a business based (even partly) on an existing platform? Yes! And the thing is I'm very curious to see how Twitter is going to deal with this at Chirp, and what (really new, this time) they're going to announce. For example, a smart monetization policy (around advertising or sponsored tweets) linked to the API could be an answer for most of the old school apps. Arnaud - http://twitter.com/twitoaster Twitoaster - http://twitoaster.com Le 11 avr. 2010 à 01:04, zn...@comcast.net zn...@comcast.net a écrit : - Jesse Stay jesses...@gmail.com wrote: Why are you filling holes in Twitter? Why not rather create your own holes and use Twitter to fill them. When you own the dirt you have control over what grows in that dirt. I think we've pretty much exhausted the holes and dirt metaphor, and I'd like to propose a different one. A business is defined by the answer(s) to the question, Who is going to sell what to whom? So, what are the needs of the Twitter customer base? Raffi has posted some things he'd like to see, and I read the blogs regularly and have some clues as to what people like @scobleizer, @mashable, etc. think Twitter should become. And it all boils down to what real problems people have, what costs them money and time, what they don't know that could hurt them, and so on. Once we know what the problems are, how can the *Twitter* ecosystem solve them? @znmeb -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Nigel Legg wrote: Dewalt, surely it's a bit early to say they are kaput? As far as I can see, all twitter clients have their merits, and people tend to stick with the one that does what they want it to do in the way they want it to do it. I find it odd that, even though twitter has been directly competing with twitter clients through it's website for as long as the API has been around, the fact of twitter buying out a client means clients are dead. Personally, I think you have over reacted to this. Whilst it's fair to say that people broadly stick with what they've got, any ordinary user that is using a different twitter-only client is quite likely to hear about this and look into the official app, and any new users/people just getting an iphone will immediately spring for the official app. Why? It's *free*, it's got loads of publicity, it's well known as a good app in it's former Tweetie form, and in developing it using new API features (even presuming it's kept to use of the public APIs) before they are announced it will have a very major head start as compared to apps made by anyone else. Whilst yes free apps may well survive this by virtue of being free, there's little chance of them growing much in user counts, or being able to put ads on to get some payoff from their hard work unless Twitter does with ex-Tweetie (which whilst not impossible I'd say is perhaps unlikely) since ads would detract from the UX and so potentially push people towards Twitter's client. Having said all that though, I have to say that realistically this is what you have to be prepared for when working with third-party services - iPhone, Android, Twitter, Facebook, etc etc all have the same weakness: if the company takes a fancy to your competitor, or clones your functionality, then you're likely toast. -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Hi Dewald, But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. you're not the only one seeing it ;-) I guess the fact that Twitter clients played a major role in Twitter's success is making this move so special. On the other hand, I think it was inevitable, wasn't it? Twitter needs to make money some time soon - and with so much traffic coming in via uncontrollable clients ... Anyway, I'm happy for Loren and Tweetie. Looks like a fair game on the iPhone platform at least - where any of the top clients could have won the jackpot :-) @janole / #Gravity -- Jan Ole Suhr s...@mobileways.de -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Twitter has now displayed a distinctive predatorial stance towards the developer ecosystem. The ecosystem is encouraged to innovate, to expend time, effort, and money to come up with new ideas and build services. When that particular space proves to be successful and potentially rewarding, the predator pounces and screws everyone but the one picked as the winner. In the long term, the acquisition of Tweetie was a penny-wise pound- foolish move, and here's why: 1) From now on, everyone will know, or at least wonder, whether encouragement and support for the ecosystem is genuine, or simply a facade to cultivate the next space that Twitter can plunder. 2) Innovation is stifled, because to many it now is not worth their effort, time, and money to develop services that stand a very good chance of receiving a similar kick in the teeth. 3) In one single day, in one fell swoop, many developers have been turned away from Twitter. Few people have the level of imagination required to build new mouse traps, and fewer have the resources to build sophisticated new mouse traps. You will never hear from these developers who have been turned away. You will never know who they are and how many there were. They've just disappeared in the mist. You don't do this. You don't ride to success on the coattails and efforts of others and then turn around and plunder them. It is wrong. Twitter is not the first to do this, but it still does not make it right. PS. Sorry for the duplicate. I initially posted this to the incorrect thread. -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Here's an interesting related thread on Twitter: http://dld.bz/PGz As well as this NY Times article: http://dld.bz/PG5 where Evan Williams says, Twitter will continue to buy or develop apps and features it needs, even if third-party developers already provide them.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
In support of what Raffi is saying, I think too many apps are supports for Twitter (some call it filling holes). I think the more beneficial, and long-term advantageous approach is instead to make Twitter a support for your application. I hope this isn't seen as spam, but I wrote about this last night in where I suggest we re-evaluate what our cores are based on: http://staynalive.com/articles/2010/04/10/what-is-your-core/ The Twitter app ecosystem is far from dead, is still thriving - we just need to re-evaluate where our cores are based. I think Twitter has drawn the line in the sand on what their core is. It's time we adjust ours so we're using Twitter as a complement, rather than the other way around. Just my $.02 - see you at Chirp! Jesse On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 10:20 PM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: the way that i usually explain twitter.com (the web site) is that it embodies one particular experience of twitter. twitter.com needs to implement almost every feature that twitter builds, and needs to implement it in a way that is easy to use for the* lowest common denominator of user *. this now also holds for the iphone. so, one possible answer for how to innovate and do potentially interesting/lucrative/creative things is to simply not target the lowest common denominator user anymore. find a particular need, and not the generic need, and blow it out of the water. what i am most interested in seeing is apps that break out of the mold and do things differently. ever since i joined the twitter platform, our team has built APIs that directly mirror the twitter.com experience -- 3rd party developers have taken those, and mimicked the twitter.comexperience. for example, countless apps simply fetch timelines from the API and just render them. can we start to do more creative things? i don't have any great potentials off the top of my head (its midnight where i am now, and i flew in on a red-eye last night), but here are a few potential ones. i'm sure more creative application developers can come up with more. i want to see applications for people that: - don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365. while i love to scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content. can you summarize it for me? can you do something better than chronological sort? - want to understand what's going on around them. how do i discover people talking about the place i currently am? how do i know this restaurant is good? this involves user discovery, place discovery, content analysis, etc. - want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time. how can twitter be a second/third/fourth screen to the world? perhaps the OS X music playback app market is a poor example? sure itunes is a dominant app, but last.fm, spotify, etc., all exist and are doing things that itunes can't do. On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 7:26 PM, funkatron funkat...@gmail.com wrote: Twitter did this to BB clients too, today. You think this is the last platform they'll do an Official Client on? Take a look at the OS X music playback app market to see the future of Twitter clients. Here's the shirt for the Chirp keynote: http://spaz.spreadshirt.com/ Have fun in SF next week, everybody! -- Ed Finkler http://funkatron.com @funkatron AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.comxmpp%3afunkat...@gmail.com On Apr 9, 10:18 pm, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: It's great for Loren. But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further development. It's really like they're saying, We picked the winner. Thanks for everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you. This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is today. Please correct me if I'm wrong. On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, Tim Haines tmhai...@gmail.com wrote: Before anyone rants, let me say congratulations Loren, and congratulations Twitter. Awesome! Totally awesome! :-) Tim. -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter Platform Team http://twitter.com/raffi -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Jesse, There is a lot of merit in your point of view with regards to one's core. But, what that also means is the death of the ecosystem as we know it. The ecosystem as we know it used to develop for Twitter, enhancing the Twitter offering. What you're proposing is a radical change, where one does not develop for Twitter to enhance their service, but where one simply exploits their service to enhance your own core (it's a very good strategy, by the way). Coming back to the acquisition, if this strategy of Twitter runs its course, innovation of Twitter is going to be greatly stifled. Most developers will stop developing new things that enhance the Twitter service. Apart from the initial 140-character service, Twitter has not yet innovated anything. Everything they have, subsequent to the initial base service, has been things others have innovated for them, or ideas they got from somewhere else. And now they've stifled or at least discouraged those innovators. Oh, look, is that a hole in Twitter's foot? On Apr 10, 12:44 pm, Jesse Stay jesses...@gmail.com wrote: In support of what Raffi is saying, I think too many apps are supports for Twitter (some call it filling holes). I think the more beneficial, and long-term advantageous approach is instead to make Twitter a support for your application. I hope this isn't seen as spam, but I wrote about this last night in where I suggest we re-evaluate what our cores are based on:http://staynalive.com/articles/2010/04/10/what-is-your-core/ The Twitter app ecosystem is far from dead, is still thriving - we just need to re-evaluate where our cores are based. I think Twitter has drawn the line in the sand on what their core is. It's time we adjust ours so we're using Twitter as a complement, rather than the other way around. Just my $.02 - see you at Chirp! Jesse On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 10:20 PM, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: the way that i usually explain twitter.com (the web site) is that it embodies one particular experience of twitter. twitter.com needs to implement almost every feature that twitter builds, and needs to implement it in a way that is easy to use for the* lowest common denominator of user *. this now also holds for the iphone. so, one possible answer for how to innovate and do potentially interesting/lucrative/creative things is to simply not target the lowest common denominator user anymore. find a particular need, and not the generic need, and blow it out of the water. what i am most interested in seeing is apps that break out of the mold and do things differently. ever since i joined the twitter platform, our team has built APIs that directly mirror the twitter.com experience -- 3rd party developers have taken those, and mimicked the twitter.comexperience. for example, countless apps simply fetch timelines from the API and just render them. can we start to do more creative things? i don't have any great potentials off the top of my head (its midnight where i am now, and i flew in on a red-eye last night), but here are a few potential ones. i'm sure more creative application developers can come up with more. i want to see applications for people that: - don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365. while i love to scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content. can you summarize it for me? can you do something better than chronological sort? - want to understand what's going on around them. how do i discover people talking about the place i currently am? how do i know this restaurant is good? this involves user discovery, place discovery, content analysis, etc. - want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time. how can twitter be a second/third/fourth screen to the world? perhaps the OS X music playback app market is a poor example? sure itunes is a dominant app, but last.fm, spotify, etc., all exist and are doing things that itunes can't do. On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 7:26 PM, funkatron funkat...@gmail.com wrote: Twitter did this to BB clients too, today. You think this is the last platform they'll do an Official Client on? Take a look at the OS X music playback app market to see the future of Twitter clients. Here's the shirt for the Chirp keynote:http://spaz.spreadshirt.com/ Have fun in SF next week, everybody! -- Ed Finkler http://funkatron.com @funkatron AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.comxmpp%3afunkat...@gmail.com On Apr 9, 10:18 pm, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: It's great for Loren. But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products compete with a free product
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
On Apr 10, 2010, at 5:23, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: Twitter has now displayed a distinctive predatorial stance towards the developer ecosystem. Whoa now. If by predatorial you mean makes strategic acquisitions in line with their business goals then sure. See also: Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, and countless others who are equally preditorial. Their ecosystems just happen to be broader at this point. Welcome to Capitalism and Corporate America. All that has happened is the bar for competition/innovation has been significantly raised. Sure it will weed-out lesser developers, but it will be a net positive for the end users (according to theory). -Chad The ecosystem is encouraged to innovate, to expend time, effort, and money to come up with new ideas and build services. When that particular space proves to be successful and potentially rewarding, the predator pounces and screws everyone but the one picked as the winner. In the long term, the acquisition of Tweetie was a penny-wise pound- foolish move, and here's why: 1) From now on, everyone will know, or at least wonder, whether encouragement and support for the ecosystem is genuine, or simply a facade to cultivate the next space that Twitter can plunder. 2) Innovation is stifled, because to many it now is not worth their effort, time, and money to develop services that stand a very good chance of receiving a similar kick in the teeth. 3) In one single day, in one fell swoop, many developers have been turned away from Twitter. Few people have the level of imagination required to build new mouse traps, and fewer have the resources to build sophisticated new mouse traps. You will never hear from these developers who have been turned away. You will never know who they are and how many there were. They've just disappeared in the mist. You don't do this. You don't ride to success on the coattails and efforts of others and then turn around and plunder them. It is wrong. Twitter is not the first to do this, but it still does not make it right. PS. Sorry for the duplicate. I initially posted this to the incorrect thread. -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Nigel, Other Twitter iPhone clients are now kaput. You cannot compete with the official Twitter iPhone client, which is given away free of charge. There are quite a few valued developers who are having a very ruined day. Clients like TweetDeck and Seesmic should still be okay, because they are more general social media clients. One would be very disrespectful of the value of one's own time, if one now starts developing something that's exclusively a Twitter service. Please read what Jesse wrote. It is an extremely smart strategy. One such definition of your core might be multi social services XYZ, which would describe the core of TweetDeck and Seesmic. On Apr 10, 1:49 pm, Nigel Legg nigel.l...@gmail.com wrote: Surely all twitter developers are getting their success on the coattails of Twitter, rather than twitter getting success on the coattails of the developers? If you as a user, as a supplier to users, cannot find something that tweetie doesn't do then maybe you haven't got your ear to the ground of what twitter users want to see. My aim is to carry on with what I'm doing, and [hopefully] do it well before twitter can do it; if twitter then want to come knocking, that's up to them; if they want to replicate my service, that's up to them; hopefully I'll have enough users to survive. To me, this just ups the ante, and makes the environment just a little bit more edgy and competitive. Which is great, if you don't see the people you're competing with. Not sure how I'd feel if I was going to #chirp. On 10 April 2010 17:21, Zhami stu...@zhameesha.com wrote: On Apr 10, 11:44 am, Jesse Stay jesses...@gmail.com wrote: snip I think the more beneficial, and long-term advantageous approach is instead to make Twitter a support for your application. Spot On!! -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text -
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 9:49 AM, Nigel Legg nigel.l...@gmail.com wrote: Surely all twitter developers are getting their success on the coattails of Twitter, rather than twitter getting success on the coattails of the developers? This is a good point (is applies in my case, anyway). Had it not been for my hobby-ist desire to hack around on the Twitter API, I would not have a lot of the relationships I have today (whether it be with users and new friends in my local town or across the internet with other developers). By fostering those connections over the last few years I have been able to do things I would not have otherwise been able to do, and I would probably still be a cube-monkey instead of a founder of my own company (which is also a platform, so I'm taking notes). So, there are other benefits to playing in this sandbox other than to strike it rich with a Twitter app or become internet famous. Other opportunities arise from relationships you create with this diverse developer world. Of course, being acquired by Twitter doesn't hurt your resume, either. -Chad If you as a user, as a supplier to users, cannot find something that tweetie doesn't do then maybe you haven't got your ear to the ground of what twitter users want to see. My aim is to carry on with what I'm doing, and [hopefully] do it well before twitter can do it; if twitter then want to come knocking, that's up to them; if they want to replicate my service, that's up to them; hopefully I'll have enough users to survive. To me, this just ups the ante, and makes the environment just a little bit more edgy and competitive. Which is great, if you don't see the people you're competing with. Not sure how I'd feel if I was going to #chirp. On 10 April 2010 17:21, Zhami stu...@zhameesha.com wrote: On Apr 10, 11:44 am, Jesse Stay jesses...@gmail.com wrote: snip I think the more beneficial, and long-term advantageous approach is instead to make Twitter a support for your application. Spot On!! -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
If anyone would like to help withe the development of http://www.thefrequency.tv -- which integrates a focused Twitter search result feed but adds value above the social layer -- I would appreciate it. The Pulitzer Center is using the site currently. Allan Hoving On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 1:24 PM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: Nigel, Other Twitter iPhone clients are now kaput. You cannot compete with the official Twitter iPhone client, which is given away free of charge. There are quite a few valued developers who are having a very ruined day. Clients like TweetDeck and Seesmic should still be okay, because they are more general social media clients. One would be very disrespectful of the value of one's own time, if one now starts developing something that's exclusively a Twitter service. Please read what Jesse wrote. It is an extremely smart strategy. One such definition of your core might be multi social services XYZ, which would describe the core of TweetDeck and Seesmic. On Apr 10, 1:49 pm, Nigel Legg nigel.l...@gmail.com wrote: Surely all twitter developers are getting their success on the coattails of Twitter, rather than twitter getting success on the coattails of the developers? If you as a user, as a supplier to users, cannot find something that tweetie doesn't do then maybe you haven't got your ear to the ground of what twitter users want to see. My aim is to carry on with what I'm doing, and [hopefully] do it well before twitter can do it; if twitter then want to come knocking, that's up to them; if they want to replicate my service, that's up to them; hopefully I'll have enough users to survive. To me, this just ups the ante, and makes the environment just a little bit more edgy and competitive. Which is great, if you don't see the people you're competing with. Not sure how I'd feel if I was going to #chirp. On 10 April 2010 17:21, Zhami stu...@zhameesha.com wrote: On Apr 10, 11:44 am, Jesse Stay jesses...@gmail.com wrote: snip I think the more beneficial, and long-term advantageous approach is instead to make Twitter a support for your application. Spot On!! -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text -
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
We shouldn’t “fill holes” anymore, Wilson said. The thing is Twitter has deliberately kept a lot of holes opened, encouraging us to fill them (and lots of applications have been doing it with innovation, by the way). Now we’re supposed to dig, create new holes, and fill them. Okay! There are a lot of ideas to have around Twitter, lots of new holes to dig. But the question is still the same: What will be left up to the ecosystem and what will be created on the platform? I think I'm not the only one here to fear that Twitter itself begins to compete with the applications I created (or I plan to create). Yes, it's fun to dig holes and to fill them. But it also takes time and money, and it's like the game was going to be much more risky than it used to be. Arnaud - http://twitter.com/twitoaster Twitoaster - http://twitoaster.com On 10 avr, 20:36, Jesse Stay jesses...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 10:02 AM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: Jesse, There is a lot of merit in your point of view with regards to one's core. But, what that also means is the death of the ecosystem as we know it. The ecosystem as we know it used to develop for Twitter, enhancing the Twitter offering. Death is a strong term. I think what Twitter is saying (and has been saying for the last 3 years - I just now am coming to full realization of this) is that the ecosystem is changing. They want Twitter to be ubiquitous. For that to happen Apps must not be built around Twitter - Twitter must be built around Apps. That's why @anywhere is soon going to be launched. It should be a complement to your technology, not the other way around. (I'm just as guilty of this as anyone, but I'm really thinking now) Jesse -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
This also adds the question of if we developers start digging new holes what is to stop Twitter from filling them in themselves? Abraham On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 11:45, Arnaud Meunier arnaud.meun...@twitoaster.com wrote: We shouldn’t “fill holes” anymore, Wilson said. The thing is Twitter has deliberately kept a lot of holes opened, encouraging us to fill them (and lots of applications have been doing it with innovation, by the way). Now we’re supposed to dig, create new holes, and fill them. Okay! There are a lot of ideas to have around Twitter, lots of new holes to dig. But the question is still the same: What will be left up to the ecosystem and what will be created on the platform? I think I'm not the only one here to fear that Twitter itself begins to compete with the applications I created (or I plan to create). Yes, it's fun to dig holes and to fill them. But it also takes time and money, and it's like the game was going to be much more risky than it used to be. Arnaud - http://twitter.com/twitoaster Twitoaster - http://twitoaster.com On 10 avr, 20:36, Jesse Stay jesses...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 10:02 AM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: Jesse, There is a lot of merit in your point of view with regards to one's core. But, what that also means is the death of the ecosystem as we know it. The ecosystem as we know it used to develop for Twitter, enhancing the Twitter offering. Death is a strong term. I think what Twitter is saying (and has been saying for the last 3 years - I just now am coming to full realization of this) is that the ecosystem is changing. They want Twitter to be ubiquitous. For that to happen Apps must not be built around Twitter - Twitter must be built around Apps. That's why @anywhere is soon going to be launched. It should be a complement to your technology, not the other way around. (I'm just as guilty of this as anyone, but I'm really thinking now) Jesse -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject. -- Abraham Williams | Developer for hire | http://abrah.am PoseurTech Labs | Projects | http://labs.poseurtech.com This email is: [ ] shareable [x] ask first [ ] private.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
On 04/10/2010 11:45 AM, Arnaud Meunier wrote: We shouldn’t “fill holes” anymore, Wilson said. The thing is Twitter has deliberately kept a lot of holes opened, encouraging us to fill them (and lots of applications have been doing it with innovation, by the way). I don't know that it's deliberate - a lot of it has to do with the growth dynamics of the Twitter ecosystem in particular and social media in general. I've been on Twitter since early 2007 - in fact, @znmeb predates @twitter. ;-) It was an exclusive club and something that relatively few people knew about. I used Twitter rarely until the financial crisis of fall 2008. Maybe it's a coincidence, but I don't think it is, that the main growth spurt in Twitter user IDs (http://meb.tw/b6WCzv) began towards the end of 2008 after the election of Barack Obama brought national media attention to Twitter. That was when I discovered the Portland Twitter community and began using Twitter in earnest. Wilson is a venture capitalist - he takes *calculated* risks. He blogs to help his investments pay off, so his clients make money, thereby attracting more money to his firm. He is on the board of *directors* of Twitter. Directors *direct*. They may also advise, but I'm not privy to the exact mix of direction and advice he provides. In any event, he is no doubt keenly aware of the dynamics of the ecosystem. His advice, as expressed in his blog post, is worth consideration. Now we’re supposed to dig, create new holes, and fill them. Okay! There are a lot of ideas to have around Twitter, lots of new holes to dig. There are also numerous open positions at Twitter. Some of the holes Twitter wants to fill appear to be revealed in the job descriptions. ;-) But the question is still the same: What will be left up to the ecosystem and what will be created on the platform? Because of the growth dynamics in social media, I don't think anyone, in the Twitter ecosystem or outside of it, can answer that. There are some (fairly) simple models of such things, but human behavior is hard to predict and bloggers and pundits and VCs can only speculate, collect as many hard numbers as possible and build models with them. I think I'm not the only one here to fear that Twitter itself begins to compete with the applications I created (or I plan to create). Yes, it's fun to dig holes and to fill them. But it also takes time and money, and it's like the game was going to be much more risky than it used to be. Again, that's not necessarily certain as long as there are uncertainties in Twitter usage patterns and in the competitive landscape of social media. Wilson's blog post is, I believe, a pretty good overview of the current state of the ecosystem, but how it evolves is not independent of the competition and the consumer. And neither is the allocation of resources between the Twitter entity and third party developers, large and small. -- M. Edward (Ed) Borasky http://borasky-research.net/about-smartznmeb/ @znmeb A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Paul Erdős -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never ever accept investment capital. Investors could not give a shit about your ethical qualms or objections, and they are most certainly not going to accept a lower exit because of them If you don't play ball, they simply replace you with someone who will. Whenever I read about an entrepreneur joyously announcing that he got such-and-such amount of venture capital, I think to myself, Dude (or dudess), I hope you realize that you have just sold your soul and handed over control of your destiny to someone else. On Apr 10, 4:23 pm, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky zn...@comcast.net wrote: On 04/10/2010 11:45 AM, Arnaud Meunier wrote: We shouldn’t “fill holes” anymore, Wilson said. The thing is Twitter has deliberately kept a lot of holes opened, encouraging us to fill them (and lots of applications have been doing it with innovation, by the way). I don't know that it's deliberate - a lot of it has to do with the growth dynamics of the Twitter ecosystem in particular and social media in general. I've been on Twitter since early 2007 - in fact, @znmeb predates @twitter. ;-) It was an exclusive club and something that relatively few people knew about. I used Twitter rarely until the financial crisis of fall 2008. Maybe it's a coincidence, but I don't think it is, that the main growth spurt in Twitter user IDs (http://meb.tw/b6WCzv) began towards the end of 2008 after the election of Barack Obama brought national media attention to Twitter. That was when I discovered the Portland Twitter community and began using Twitter in earnest. Wilson is a venture capitalist - he takes *calculated* risks. He blogs to help his investments pay off, so his clients make money, thereby attracting more money to his firm. He is on the board of *directors* of Twitter. Directors *direct*. They may also advise, but I'm not privy to the exact mix of direction and advice he provides. In any event, he is no doubt keenly aware of the dynamics of the ecosystem. His advice, as expressed in his blog post, is worth consideration. Now we’re supposed to dig, create new holes, and fill them. Okay! There are a lot of ideas to have around Twitter, lots of new holes to dig. There are also numerous open positions at Twitter. Some of the holes Twitter wants to fill appear to be revealed in the job descriptions. ;-) But the question is still the same: What will be left up to the ecosystem and what will be created on the platform? Because of the growth dynamics in social media, I don't think anyone, in the Twitter ecosystem or outside of it, can answer that. There are some (fairly) simple models of such things, but human behavior is hard to predict and bloggers and pundits and VCs can only speculate, collect as many hard numbers as possible and build models with them. I think I'm not the only one here to fear that Twitter itself begins to compete with the applications I created (or I plan to create). Yes, it's fun to dig holes and to fill them. But it also takes time and money, and it's like the game was going to be much more risky than it used to be. Again, that's not necessarily certain as long as there are uncertainties in Twitter usage patterns and in the competitive landscape of social media. Wilson's blog post is, I believe, a pretty good overview of the current state of the ecosystem, but how it evolves is not independent of the competition and the consumer. And neither is the allocation of resources between the Twitter entity and third party developers, large and small. -- M. Edward (Ed) Boraskyhttp://borasky-research.net/about-smartznmeb/@znmeb A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Paul Erdős -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
There are more colors (or shades of grey) in my world than just black and white... On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 9:21 PM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never ever accept investment capital. Investors could not give a shit about your ethical qualms or objections, and they are most certainly not going to accept a lower exit because of them If you don't play ball, they simply replace you with someone who will. Whenever I read about an entrepreneur joyously announcing that he got such-and-such amount of venture capital, I think to myself, Dude (or dudess), I hope you realize that you have just sold your soul and handed over control of your destiny to someone else. On Apr 10, 4:23 pm, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky zn...@comcast.net wrote: On 04/10/2010 11:45 AM, Arnaud Meunier wrote: We shouldn’t “fill holes” anymore, Wilson said. The thing is Twitter has deliberately kept a lot of holes opened, encouraging us to fill them (and lots of applications have been doing it with innovation, by the way). I don't know that it's deliberate - a lot of it has to do with the growth dynamics of the Twitter ecosystem in particular and social media in general. I've been on Twitter since early 2007 - in fact, @znmeb predates @twitter. ;-) It was an exclusive club and something that relatively few people knew about. I used Twitter rarely until the financial crisis of fall 2008. Maybe it's a coincidence, but I don't think it is, that the main growth spurt in Twitter user IDs (http://meb.tw/b6WCzv) began towards the end of 2008 after the election of Barack Obama brought national media attention to Twitter. That was when I discovered the Portland Twitter community and began using Twitter in earnest. Wilson is a venture capitalist - he takes *calculated* risks. He blogs to help his investments pay off, so his clients make money, thereby attracting more money to his firm. He is on the board of *directors* of Twitter. Directors *direct*. They may also advise, but I'm not privy to the exact mix of direction and advice he provides. In any event, he is no doubt keenly aware of the dynamics of the ecosystem. His advice, as expressed in his blog post, is worth consideration. Now we’re supposed to dig, create new holes, and fill them. Okay! There are a lot of ideas to have around Twitter, lots of new holes to dig. There are also numerous open positions at Twitter. Some of the holes Twitter wants to fill appear to be revealed in the job descriptions. ;-) But the question is still the same: What will be left up to the ecosystem and what will be created on the platform? Because of the growth dynamics in social media, I don't think anyone, in the Twitter ecosystem or outside of it, can answer that. There are some (fairly) simple models of such things, but human behavior is hard to predict and bloggers and pundits and VCs can only speculate, collect as many hard numbers as possible and build models with them. I think I'm not the only one here to fear that Twitter itself begins to compete with the applications I created (or I plan to create). Yes, it's fun to dig holes and to fill them. But it also takes time and money, and it's like the game was going to be much more risky than it used to be. Again, that's not necessarily certain as long as there are uncertainties in Twitter usage patterns and in the competitive landscape of social media. Wilson's blog post is, I believe, a pretty good overview of the current state of the ecosystem, but how it evolves is not independent of the competition and the consumer. And neither is the allocation of resources between the Twitter entity and third party developers, large and small. -- M. Edward (Ed) Boraskyhttp:// borasky-research.net/about-smartznmeb/@znmeb A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Paul Erdős -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never ever accept investment capital. You cannot be serious. Believe it or not there are ethical investors out there. Also, bootstrapping a company that goes huge is almost impossible, especially for the younger entrepreneurial crowd that can afford the time and lifestyle that it would entail but probably does not have tons of cash in the bank. Can you please site such a company that received zero outside investment dollars? -Chad -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Chad, Sometimes (well, okay, almost always) I just don't feel like citing all possible caveats to what I'm saying. I'm not writing here with visions of possible literary grandeur, potential book deals, or speaking engagements. I call shit like I see it. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong. It's just my opinion. Don't take what I say as gospel. Yes, there are ethical investors too. But, when the entrepeneur's ethics clash with the investor's ethics, or lack thereof, guess who is going to win. It does not require board level action or majority vote to put pressure on an entrepreneur. Simple verbal threats regarding current and future investments often suffice. On Apr 10, 6:13 pm, Chad Etzel jazzyc...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never ever accept investment capital. You cannot be serious. Believe it or not there are ethical investors out there. Also, bootstrapping a company that goes huge is almost impossible, especially for the younger entrepreneurial crowd that can afford the time and lifestyle that it would entail but probably does not have tons of cash in the bank. Can you please site such a company that received zero outside investment dollars? -Chad
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Maybe it's because I'm of the older generation, have been there and done that, and have discovered that the top looks so green because of all the crap that lies and flies there, that I hold the opinions that I do. I can understand folks' ambitions to make it. I guess in a way it's like a green recruit versus a veteran soldier. When you ask a green recruit about war, you will get answers about glorious deeds, killing the evil enemy, the honor of dying for your country, great adventure, and the like. When you ask a veteran soldier about war, you will get answers about rotting corpses, pieces of human meat splattered everywhere, being shit scared, losing your best buddies, and fighting and taking risks only to protect your buddies. Someone couldn't pay me enough to be at the top. The lifestyle is not worth the other sacrifices you need to make. On Apr 10, 6:25 pm, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: Chad, Sometimes (well, okay, almost always) I just don't feel like citing all possible caveats to what I'm saying. I'm not writing here with visions of possible literary grandeur, potential book deals, or speaking engagements. I call shit like I see it. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm wrong. It's just my opinion. Don't take what I say as gospel. Yes, there are ethical investors too. But, when the entrepeneur's ethics clash with the investor's ethics, or lack thereof, guess who is going to win. It does not require board level action or majority vote to put pressure on an entrepreneur. Simple verbal threats regarding current and future investments often suffice. On Apr 10, 6:13 pm, Chad Etzel jazzyc...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 1:21 PM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: If you're an entrpreneur with strong ethical standards, then never ever accept investment capital. You cannot be serious. Believe it or not there are ethical investors out there. Also, bootstrapping a company that goes huge is almost impossible, especially for the younger entrepreneurial crowd that can afford the time and lifestyle that it would entail but probably does not have tons of cash in the bank. Can you please site such a company that received zero outside investment dollars? -Chad- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text -
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
+1 for the metaphors :) We all know what Twitter would like to see. No surprise here, nothing extraordinary, just advices we already were aware of. I mean... Who intended to code another photo sharing service or another desktop client before these annoucements? I guess nobody. Anybody who has been seriously thinking about starting a project around Twitter in the last year already knew he'd have to make something innovative enough to drag attention, customers, whatever he's looking for... In a word, there's nothing new with these annoucements and this acquisation. The only thing new is simply the fact that it's now officially said. Quite annoying for all the old school apps (thinking to existing clients, analytics services, media sharing tools...) Even for some of the new one, by the way, as a part of the applications who's going to emerge will probably wonder what if Twitter decides to make a product of my concept? Inherent risk of a business based (even partly) on an existing platform? Yes! And the thing is I'm very curious to see how Twitter is going to deal with this at Chirp, and what (really new, this time) they're going to announce. For example, a smart monetization policy (around advertising or sponsored tweets) linked to the API could be an answer for most of the old school apps. Arnaud - http://twitter.com/twitoaster Twitoaster - http://twitoaster.com Le 11 avr. 2010 à 01:04, zn...@comcast.net zn...@comcast.net a écrit : - Jesse Stay jesses...@gmail.com wrote: Why are you filling holes in Twitter? Why not rather create your own holes and use Twitter to fill them. When you own the dirt you have control over what grows in that dirt. I think we've pretty much exhausted the holes and dirt metaphor, and I'd like to propose a different one. A business is defined by the answer(s) to the question, Who is going to sell what to whom? So, what are the needs of the Twitter customer base? Raffi has posted some things he'd like to see, and I read the blogs regularly and have some clues as to what people like @scobleizer, @mashable, etc. think Twitter should become. And it all boils down to what real problems people have, what costs them money and time, what they don't know that could hurt them, and so on. Once we know what the problems are, how can the *Twitter* ecosystem solve them? @znmeb -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
It's great for Loren. But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further development. It's really like they're saying, We picked the winner. Thanks for everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you. This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is today. Please correct me if I'm wrong. On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, Tim Haines tmhai...@gmail.com wrote: Before anyone rants, let me say congratulations Loren, and congratulations Twitter. Awesome! Totally awesome! :-) Tim. -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
I am also happy for Loren, he deserves it based purely on the quality of his product. I would like some clarification on the intended future of Tweetie for OS X. The plans for the iPhone and iPad have been made very very clear: stay away. Please clarify the plans for OS X. But at this point I don't really expect a response, but I need to ask. --ejw Eric Woodward Email: e...@nambu.com -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Dewald, I'm surprised that you failed to mention that Twitter can also advertise the heck out of it on Twitter.com and via tweets etc - millions for further development - and very significant marketing resources available too. I disagree with your sentiment though. Twitter's free to build or buy whatever they want to. As a third party developer it's one of the risks you take on when you start building on someone else's platform. If you don't acknowledge that, you're being naive. Sure it's going to suck if they do something to harm Favstar, but I'm aware it's a risk - and I'm going to try and keep innovating to keep Favstar useful for users regardless. Tim. On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 2:18 PM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: It's great for Loren. But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further development. It's really like they're saying, We picked the winner. Thanks for everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you. This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is today. Please correct me if I'm wrong. On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, Tim Haines tmhai...@gmail.com wrote: Before anyone rants, let me say congratulations Loren, and congratulations Twitter. Awesome! Totally awesome! :-) Tim. -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Twitter did this to BB clients too, today. You think this is the last platform they'll do an Official Client on? Take a look at the OS X music playback app market to see the future of Twitter clients. Here's the shirt for the Chirp keynote: http://spaz.spreadshirt.com/ Have fun in SF next week, everybody! -- Ed Finkler http://funkatron.com @funkatron AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.com On Apr 9, 10:18 pm, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: It's great for Loren. But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further development. It's really like they're saying, We picked the winner. Thanks for everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you. This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is today. Please correct me if I'm wrong. On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, Tim Haines tmhai...@gmail.com wrote: Before anyone rants, let me say congratulations Loren, and congratulations Twitter. Awesome! Totally awesome! :-) Tim.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Congrats, As a twitter user I'm intrigued. As a twitter developer I'm not hoping that you are really close to a statement to reassure us all its ok and maintaining an even playing field. Although renaming it Tweetie to Twitter for iPhone is a hurtful (being THE twitter client relegates the others to second instantly in what was an even playing field). So as a Tweetie user, please add sign up API so my mom and dad can get on Twitter from directly on the iPhone. Please add iPad support. Please also make a purchase of Windows based company to even out Tweetie for Mac venture so Twitter doesn't seem Mac happy, and please buy a Android company to even that side out too. See you all at Chrip! I'm sure this will be a lively debate so: INB4 insanity Zac Bowling On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 7:18 PM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: It's great for Loren. But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further development. It's really like they're saying, We picked the winner. Thanks for everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you. This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is today. Please correct me if I'm wrong. On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, Tim Haines tmhai...@gmail.com wrote: Before anyone rants, let me say congratulations Loren, and congratulations Twitter. Awesome! Totally awesome! :-) Tim. -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Loren, congrats man. I think the best man won. Hard work and dedication to perfection paid off in spades. You deserve the accolades (and the $$$). Oh and everyone else? Thanks for playing. I'll catch you all next week on the Facebook forums. Anyone have the odds on who Twitter will pick as the winners on the other platforms? Isaiah On Apr 9, 2010, at 7:25 PM, Tim Haines tmhai...@gmail.com wrote: Dewald, I'm surprised that you failed to mention that Twitter can also advertise the heck out of it on Twitter.com and via tweets etc - millions for further development - and very significant marketing resources available too. I disagree with your sentiment though. Twitter's free to build or buy whatever they want to. As a third party developer it's one of the risks you take on when you start building on someone else's platform. If you don't acknowledge that, you're being naive. Sure it's going to suck if they do something to harm Favstar, but I'm aware it's a risk - and I'm going to try and keep innovating to keep Favstar useful for users regardless. Tim. On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 2:18 PM, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: It's great for Loren. But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further development. It's really like they're saying, We picked the winner. Thanks for everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you. This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is today. Please correct me if I'm wrong. On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, Tim Haines tmhai...@gmail.com wrote: Before anyone rants, let me say congratulations Loren, and congratulations Twitter. Awesome! Totally awesome! :-) Tim. -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
I am also happy for Loren, he deserves it based purely on the quality of his product. I would like some clarification on the intended future of Tweetie for OS X. The plans for the iPhone and iPad have been made very very clear: stay away. Please clarify the plans for OS X. Let's just say that I think Nambu is now worth more as the next Sea World whale's name than an OS X Twitter client. Fortunately, I inhabit the command line and Mac OS 9 markets, so I'm pretty sure I'm safe. -- personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com -- I use my C128 because I am an ornery, stubborn, retro grouch. -- Bob Masse - -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
On 04/09/2010 07:44 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote: I am also happy for Loren, he deserves it based purely on the quality of his product. I would like some clarification on the intended future of Tweetie for OS X. The plans for the iPhone and iPad have been made very very clear: stay away. Please clarify the plans for OS X. Let's just say that I think Nambu is now worth more as the next Sea World whale's name than an OS X Twitter client. Fortunately, I inhabit the command line and Mac OS 9 markets, so I'm pretty sure I'm safe. Uh ... market implies that people will actually *pay* for something. I haven't found that to be the case for command line tools. ;-) Don't know about OS 9, though - last time I was asked to use one of those (summer 2004), I politely declined and did everything on my dual-booted Windows XP / Linux laptop. ;-) But that does raise an interesting question - I'm not overly impressed with any of the open-source GUI Twitter clients, and I won't run an AIR application on my Linux desktop - AIR is a resource hog (and closed). So I stick with web-based clients like the Twitter home page, HootSuite or CoTweet. Is there any energy out there for a *really good* open source Twitter GUI client that would run on Linux, Mac and Windows? And the congratulations belong to *both* Loren and Twitter! ;-) -- M. Edward (Ed) Borasky borasky-research.net/ @znmeb A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Paul Erdős -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Uh ... market implies that people will actually *pay* for something. I haven't found that to be the case for command line tools. ;-) Don't know about OS 9, though - last time I was asked to use one of those (summer 2004), I politely declined and did everything on my dual-booted Windows XP / Linux laptop. ;-) Thanks so much for clarifying. :-P -- personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com -- TODAY'S DUMB TRUE HEADLINE: Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
Congrats Loren. As for Tweetie for Mac. I would like to see it open sourced: http://act.ly/1w1 http://act.ly/1w1Abraham On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 20:22, funkatron funkat...@gmail.com wrote: On Apr 9, 10:58 pm, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky zn...@comcast.net wrote: But that does raise an interesting question - I'm not overly impressed with any of the open-source GUI Twitter clients, and I won't run an AIR application on my Linux desktop - AIR is a resource hog (and closed). So I stick with web-based clients like the Twitter home page, HootSuite or CoTweet. Is there any energy out there for a *really good* open source Twitter GUI client that would run on Linux, Mac and Windows? Define energy. Spaz has been out there and FOSS since mid 2007. Moving off AIR and doing lots of other good things have been in my plans for a long time, but open source in no way means people want to help you. No one will be even close to your own interest level. FWIW, I'm leaning towards deploying Spaz as a hosted FOSS web app -- that is, you could use my server, or DL and host it yourself. It would focus on providing a good experience for touch-based clients particularly. When that will happen is pretty much dictated by who else takes interest. Integrating well with StatusNet's server software seems pretty appealing right now. -- Ed Finkler http://funkatron.com @funkatron AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.comxmpp%3afunkat...@gmail.com -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject. -- Abraham Williams | Developer for hire | http://abrah.am PoseurTech Labs | Projects | http://labs.poseurtech.com This email is: [ ] shareable [x] ask first [ ] private.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
On 04/09/2010 08:22 PM, funkatron wrote: Define energy. Spaz has been out there and FOSS since mid 2007. Moving off AIR and doing lots of other good things have been in my plans for a long time, but open source in no way means people want to help you. No one will be even close to your own interest level. Open source depends on the fact that it is in the interest of major corporations like IBM, Novell, Oracle, Google, Dell and others to support it. I quite frankly don't know why some other large corporations don't join the party - there are just so many wheels you can re-invent before your bottom line goes to Hell in a hand-basket. FWIW, I'm leaning towards deploying Spaz as a hosted FOSS web app -- that is, you could use my server, or DL and host it yourself. It would focus on providing a good experience for touch-based clients particularly. When that will happen is pretty much dictated by who else takes interest. I should look at Spaz, I guess, although I'm dead-set against ever installing AIR again. I loaded one of the AIR-based Twitter desktops - I don't remember which one - and the process was brutal. The client itself sucked too, so there was no reason to keep it or AIR. I'm not sure I'd use a web-based client other than Twitter's at this point. HootSuite and CoTweet are moving towards being marketing / CRM add-ons to all the social networks. If that was what I was doing, I'd simply use SugarCRM (another fine open-source corporate project) with Twitter and Facebook plug-ins. ;-) Integrating well with StatusNet's server software seems pretty appealing right now. Yeah, I keep meaning to look at StatusNet, although I'm not sure when I'll find the time. They've got a huge wall to climb. -- M. Edward (Ed) Borasky borasky-research.net @znmeb A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Paul Erdős -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
StatusNet is in an interesting position. They can't, and I don't think have to, compete directly with Twitter. Offering both SAAS and self- hosted opportunities is compelling, and they have a pretty strong dev community. They already have Twitter and Facebook two-way bridges built in, which means you can run your own thing and still interact with both of those services. I'm interested in the idea of complementing StatusNet in a similar fashion on the client side, as a true FOSS tool, extensible via a plugin architecture. -- Ed Finkler http://funkatron.com @funkatron AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.com On Apr 9, 11:42 pm, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky zn...@comcast.net wrote: On 04/09/2010 08:22 PM, funkatron wrote: Define energy. Spaz has been out there and FOSS since mid 2007. Moving off AIR and doing lots of other good things have been in my plans for a long time, but open source in no way means people want to help you. No one will be even close to your own interest level. Open source depends on the fact that it is in the interest of major corporations like IBM, Novell, Oracle, Google, Dell and others to support it. I quite frankly don't know why some other large corporations don't join the party - there are just so many wheels you can re-invent before your bottom line goes to Hell in a hand-basket. FWIW, I'm leaning towards deploying Spaz as a hosted FOSS web app -- that is, you could use my server, or DL and host it yourself. It would focus on providing a good experience for touch-based clients particularly. When that will happen is pretty much dictated by who else takes interest. I should look at Spaz, I guess, although I'm dead-set against ever installing AIR again. I loaded one of the AIR-based Twitter desktops - I don't remember which one - and the process was brutal. The client itself sucked too, so there was no reason to keep it or AIR. I'm not sure I'd use a web-based client other than Twitter's at this point. HootSuite and CoTweet are moving towards being marketing / CRM add-ons to all the social networks. If that was what I was doing, I'd simply use SugarCRM (another fine open-source corporate project) with Twitter and Facebook plug-ins. ;-) Integrating well with StatusNet's server software seems pretty appealing right now. Yeah, I keep meaning to look at StatusNet, although I'm not sure when I'll find the time. They've got a huge wall to climb. -- M. Edward (Ed) Borasky borasky-research.net @znmeb A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Paul Erdős -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
the way that i usually explain twitter.com (the web site) is that it embodies one particular experience of twitter. twitter.com needs to implement almost every feature that twitter builds, and needs to implement it in a way that is easy to use for the* lowest common denominator of user*. this now also holds for the iphone. so, one possible answer for how to innovate and do potentially interesting/lucrative/creative things is to simply not target the lowest common denominator user anymore. find a particular need, and not the generic need, and blow it out of the water. what i am most interested in seeing is apps that break out of the mold and do things differently. ever since i joined the twitter platform, our team has built APIs that directly mirror the twitter.com experience -- 3rd party developers have taken those, and mimicked the twitter.com experience. for example, countless apps simply fetch timelines from the API and just render them. can we start to do more creative things? i don't have any great potentials off the top of my head (its midnight where i am now, and i flew in on a red-eye last night), but here are a few potential ones. i'm sure more creative application developers can come up with more. i want to see applications for people that: - don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365. while i love to scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content. can you summarize it for me? can you do something better than chronological sort? - want to understand what's going on around them. how do i discover people talking about the place i currently am? how do i know this restaurant is good? this involves user discovery, place discovery, content analysis, etc. - want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time. how can twitter be a second/third/fourth screen to the world? perhaps the OS X music playback app market is a poor example? sure itunes is a dominant app, but last.fm, spotify, etc., all exist and are doing things that itunes can't do. On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 7:26 PM, funkatron funkat...@gmail.com wrote: Twitter did this to BB clients too, today. You think this is the last platform they'll do an Official Client on? Take a look at the OS X music playback app market to see the future of Twitter clients. Here's the shirt for the Chirp keynote: http://spaz.spreadshirt.com/ Have fun in SF next week, everybody! -- Ed Finkler http://funkatron.com @funkatron AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.comxmpp%3afunkat...@gmail.com On Apr 9, 10:18 pm, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: It's great for Loren. But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further development. It's really like they're saying, We picked the winner. Thanks for everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you. This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is today. Please correct me if I'm wrong. On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, Tim Haines tmhai...@gmail.com wrote: Before anyone rants, let me say congratulations Loren, and congratulations Twitter. Awesome! Totally awesome! :-) Tim. -- Raffi Krikorian Twitter Platform Team http://twitter.com/raffi -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
It is, of course, possible to find niches here, and we can of course come up with ideas that could work. I certainly am not debating that. But you have to admit that this is a big, big bomb to drop in the development community; bigger than anything since *maybe* the Summize acquisition, and the whole shebang was a lot smaller then. And Summize was doing work that most developers couldn't do, because of the technical issues involved. And I might also suggest that choice and diversity is generally a good thing, even in areas you personally find boring. But perhaps not in the financial sense for Twitter, which is why stuff like this happens. It's not really just what was done, but *how* it was done that was most disappointing. And I bet you didn't have anything to do with that, so not much to say there. Actually, I suspect iTunes is a great analogy, even with the other apps you suggest. iTunes did destroy any competition in the primary music playback app market, and I believe (anecdotally though) that it dominates the lowest common denominator market -- also the largest part of the market. I'll be happy to buy you a drink when Spotify and and last.fm combined hit 50% of iTunes usage. They are the niche apps along the lines you suggest we should be making. -- Ed Finkler http://funkatron.com @funkatron AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.com On Apr 10, 12:20 am, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: the way that i usually explain twitter.com (the web site) is that it embodies one particular experience of twitter. twitter.com needs to implement almost every feature that twitter builds, and needs to implement it in a way that is easy to use for the* lowest common denominator of user*. this now also holds for the iphone. so, one possible answer for how to innovate and do potentially interesting/lucrative/creative things is to simply not target the lowest common denominator user anymore. find a particular need, and not the generic need, and blow it out of the water. what i am most interested in seeing is apps that break out of the mold and do things differently. ever since i joined the twitter platform, our team has built APIs that directly mirror the twitter.com experience -- 3rd party developers have taken those, and mimicked the twitter.com experience. for example, countless apps simply fetch timelines from the API and just render them. can we start to do more creative things? i don't have any great potentials off the top of my head (its midnight where i am now, and i flew in on a red-eye last night), but here are a few potential ones. i'm sure more creative application developers can come up with more. i want to see applications for people that: - don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365. while i love to scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content. can you summarize it for me? can you do something better than chronological sort? - want to understand what's going on around them. how do i discover people talking about the place i currently am? how do i know this restaurant is good? this involves user discovery, place discovery, content analysis, etc. - want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time. how can twitter be a second/third/fourth screen to the world? perhaps the OS X music playback app market is a poor example? sure itunes is a dominant app, but last.fm, spotify, etc., all exist and are doing things that itunes can't do. On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 7:26 PM, funkatron funkat...@gmail.com wrote: Twitter did this to BB clients too, today. You think this is the last platform they'll do an Official Client on? Take a look at the OS X music playback app market to see the future of Twitter clients. Here's the shirt for the Chirp keynote:http://spaz.spreadshirt.com/ Have fun in SF next week, everybody! -- Ed Finkler http://funkatron.com @funkatron AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.comxmpp%3afunkat...@gmail.com On Apr 9, 10:18 pm, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: It's great for Loren. But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further development. It's really like they're saying, We picked the winner. Thanks for everything you've done in the past, but now, screw you. This would not have been such a huge deal if the developer ecosystem did not play such a huge role in propelling Twitter to where it is today. Please correct me if I'm wrong. On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, Tim Haines tmhai...@gmail.com wrote: Before
[twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
As a user and fellow developer I'm thrilled for Loren and what he's achieved... As a Twitter API and iPhone developer I'm shocked and feel like it's a kick in the teeth to us all. On Apr 10, 5:59 am, funkatron funkat...@gmail.com wrote: It is, of course, possible to find niches here, and we can of course come up with ideas that could work. I certainly am not debating that. But you have to admit that this is a big, big bomb to drop in the development community; bigger than anything since *maybe* the Summize acquisition, and the whole shebang was a lot smaller then. And Summize was doing work that most developers couldn't do, because of the technical issues involved. And I might also suggest that choice and diversity is generally a good thing, even in areas you personally find boring. But perhaps not in the financial sense for Twitter, which is why stuff like this happens. It's not really just what was done, but *how* it was done that was most disappointing. And I bet you didn't have anything to do with that, so not much to say there. Actually, I suspect iTunes is a great analogy, even with the other apps you suggest. iTunes did destroy any competition in the primary music playback app market, and I believe (anecdotally though) that it dominates the lowest common denominator market -- also the largest part of the market. I'll be happy to buy you a drink when Spotify and and last.fm combined hit 50% of iTunes usage. They are the niche apps along the lines you suggest we should be making. -- Ed Finklerhttp://funkatron.com @funkatron AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.com On Apr 10, 12:20 am, Raffi Krikorian ra...@twitter.com wrote: the way that i usually explain twitter.com (the web site) is that it embodies one particular experience of twitter. twitter.com needs to implement almost every feature that twitter builds, and needs to implement it in a way that is easy to use for the* lowest common denominator of user*. this now also holds for the iphone. so, one possible answer for how to innovate and do potentially interesting/lucrative/creative things is to simply not target the lowest common denominator user anymore. find a particular need, and not the generic need, and blow it out of the water. what i am most interested in seeing is apps that break out of the mold and do things differently. ever since i joined the twitter platform, our team has built APIs that directly mirror the twitter.com experience -- 3rd party developers have taken those, and mimicked the twitter.com experience. for example, countless apps simply fetch timelines from the API and just render them. can we start to do more creative things? i don't have any great potentials off the top of my head (its midnight where i am now, and i flew in on a red-eye last night), but here are a few potential ones. i'm sure more creative application developers can come up with more. i want to see applications for people that: - don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365. while i love to scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content. can you summarize it for me? can you do something better than chronological sort? - want to understand what's going on around them. how do i discover people talking about the place i currently am? how do i know this restaurant is good? this involves user discovery, place discovery, content analysis, etc. - want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time. how can twitter be a second/third/fourth screen to the world? perhaps the OS X music playback app market is a poor example? sure itunes is a dominant app, but last.fm, spotify, etc., all exist and are doing things that itunes can't do. On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 7:26 PM, funkatron funkat...@gmail.com wrote: Twitter did this to BB clients too, today. You think this is the last platform they'll do an Official Client on? Take a look at the OS X music playback app market to see the future of Twitter clients. Here's the shirt for the Chirp keynote:http://spaz.spreadshirt.com/ Have fun in SF next week, everybody! -- Ed Finkler http://funkatron.com @funkatron AIM: funka7ron / ICQ: 3922133 / XMPP:funkat...@gmail.comxmpp%3afunkat...@gmail.com On Apr 9, 10:18 pm, Dewald Pretorius dpr...@gmail.com wrote: It's great for Loren. But, there's a problem, and I hope I'm not the only seeing it. Twitter has just kicked all the other developers of Twitter iPhone (and iPad) clients in the teeth. Big time. Now suddenly their products compete with a free product that carries the Twitter brand name, and that has potentially millions of dollars at its disposal for further development. It's really like they're saying, We picked the winner. Thanks for
Re: [twitter-dev] Re: Twitter buying Tweetie
On 04/09/2010 09:20 PM, Raffi Krikorian wrote: - don't have time to sit and watch twitter 24/7/365. while i love to scan through my timeline, frankly, that's a lot of content. can you summarize it for me? can you do something better than chronological sort? Yeah ... I think a fair number of people want something like that. If Twitter would like to build it, grab me at Chirp and I'll give you some pointers to the relevant NLP literature. It's not a small enough project for a single-man shop like myself. - want to understand what's going on around them. how do i discover people talking about the place i currently am? how do i know this restaurant is good? this involves user discovery, place discovery, content analysis, etc. I think that ship has sailed, and the liner companies are Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, etc. Twitter's way late to that party. I'm not saying there aren't opportunities in location-based services - in fact, I think Twitter's cautious approach to a subject that others seem to be gung-ho about is the strategically correct one. But Twitter had a really cool location demo at SxSW and just about everybody ignored it and focused on the Foursquare / Gowalla smackdown. And everyone is waiting for Facebook to drop the other shoe. Then again, I haven't heard about @anywhere yet. ;-) - want to see what people are talking about a particular tv show, news article, or any piece of live-real-world content in real time. how can twitter be a second/third/fourth screen to the world? Now *that* one I like! Twitter as the world's real-time newspaper, complete with weather, sports, traffic, celebrity gossip, letters to the editor, etc. I think you could wipe USA Today off the map (pun intended). -- M. Edward (Ed) Borasky borasky-research.net @znmeb A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. ~ Paul Erdős -- To unsubscribe, reply using remove me as the subject.
