Who determines what's gaming the system? Does Mr. 50k, who AUTO-BOTS everyone and everything get kudos or crickets? Who decides which API calls get white-listed and which get black-listed? Who decides how many Twitter calls is enough? Who throttles the system for the commercial accounts vs. the free ones?
As with Google when a company controls too much of the communications space they have an opportunity to "do evil."
So Twitter did a parnership with Microsoft (speak of the devil) to see if the ExecTweets model had legs or more importantly, gold coins. Well, I'd say they are foil wrapped coins if you ask me. [Oh and Federated Media is gonna do the advertising model for them as well.] Getting in bed with MS is sure to hasten your demise not improve your street cred. But then again, turning down a half-billion dollar offer from Facebook is pretty ballsy.
But what's a Tweeter to do? Is it time to pay the tweet-keeper? Are there "premium" features that Twitter can think up that the Twitter-App community hasn't? Okay, so even if they can't, they can squeeze off the target app and build it for themselves and charge money for it. Right?
Okay, so why does this sound so much like the debate over pay-for-quality-bandwidth issue in the internet infrastructure space? Because it's the same thing.
Does Twitter and Biz Stone and Co. OWN Twitter and the Twitter API? Yes. Is the Twitter API so important that we'd all be willing to pay to play on Twitter's fail-prone network? [Trick question. But would it improve the service?]
At the moment, Twitter is the only way to get your Tweetoff. But it cannot stay that way for long. What do you suppose Google thinks about being left out of the MS-Twitter revenue sharing model? I'd bet Jaiku is still bitter on their tongues and I'd bet when the "system" is ready they will offer a "TWEET-OPEN" format or "TWEE-CONNECT." It does not matter what they call it.
Twitter is a network and a protocol for 140 character messages. Not too unique in the world of internet communications. Facebook offers more characters, and keeps f-ing up their web pages, but they have 10x the users. That's right. Facebook makes "Twitter" our favorite champion of the innovative, new frontier to the uninitiated, gaming platform for the greedy… Facebook makes Twitter look like a minnow to Moby Dick.
So it won't be long. Mark the date. Twitter and MS get in bed together. Days, weeks, later Google or Facebook releases the FREE-and-EASY network API for Tweeters ready to UPGRADE their service to servers that don't have a Fail Whale joke attached to them. Oh, and don't expect the Twitter-App Innovators to sit by and watch TweetiePie get all the gold coins.
Check out Jively, a single developers attempt at building a new Twitter. [Like Twitter but better.] Or Yammer.
So MicroTweet, TwitterSoft, TwitterLIVE. ExecTwitter sounds like a Twitterjoker.com concept if I've ever seen one. Not as good as the e-Penis joke I saw today.
If we are waiting for Microsoft to be innovative in the communications space and Twitter to get a clue about how to make money, we might examine our own navels and ask what we are willing to pay for what's FREE. And when it is still FREE somewhere else, how long will we pay for what we have?
@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/pay2play
UPDATE 3-29-09
[Here is a copy and paste of an short post my Marc Canter, the champion of Open Mesh and Open Social. He takes on the Twitter Problem I address above.]
Decentralized Twitter’s time has come
Its great to see others like Dave Winer start to realize that Twitter has too much power in one vendor’s pocket and that it’s time to decentralize the whole notion of Twitter.
This is exactly why I resisted to signing up to Twitter in the first place and why I’ve continued to complain about relying upon a centralized service at all. [1], [2], [3], [4]
That’s why God (or whomever) invented DNS. If we are to rely upon Twitter as infrastructure – it better sure as hell be decentralized!
Now how do you do that – and let other vendors in on it?
I’m sure that’s the last thing Evan Williams and Fred Wilson wanna see happen – but their lack of understanding the nuances and issues here – kind of are forcing the point.
Look – it’s not that Twitter is totally coolio. But we need 100 Twitters. That’s what I said before and why I’ll keep saying it.
Distributed decentralized Twitter = YES
– Marc Canter, May 4, 2008
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Related Posts:
- TWITTER RULES: BE REAL | BE LIVE | AUTO NOTHING | CONVERSE
- Keep Your Twits About You – Taking Charge of the MicroWeb
- Uber.la’s 1-2-3 Guide To Twitter: GETTING REAL with TWITTER
