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Even if you are CEO of Twitter you need to inspire! And @ev blows it. All by himself, Evan Williams could've made a difference, but he followed a clueless Haaaavard guide. Oops!

Umair Haque's Harvard Business Review Bio and links to posts. I can't wait to see his next post. I think this might have been where he was coming from during the "interview" 21st Century Strategy in Four Words, Tuesday December 15, 2009. The words seem to echo much of what was said, "minimize evil, maximize good." Is THAT what @ev kept referring to in his dazed platitudes?

And it wasn't just me that picked up on the lack of spirit in the Twitter Keynote by Evan Williams. While the main ballroom was full and the overflow room was also full, the lack of inspiration, or anything beyond a soft-ball interviewer and an executive having a chat, started clearing the room at about 3o minutes in. It became a parody of an interview. I wonder if @ev was afraid to take Q and A for fear of being hammered on Fail Whale plans, or "revenue model" questions that the inept interviewer even said he wasn't going to ask. UH! Why not?

I can tell you @anywhere is not going to bring Twitter out of the huge-loss mode. @ev jokes about how Twitter is a company "without a revenue model," but it's not funny. And when the Fail Whale blows repeatedly throughout the SXSW conference, I believe many of us would welcome a new platform that could suck in our Twitter Friends and Follows and give us a stable platform.

Well, it ain't BUZZ, but I'm saying that Twitter.com's days are numbered. Have they got a killer iPad strategy in the wings for two weeks when Apple opens the tablet flood gates?

PCWorld covered the unKEYNOTE like this: "During and after the speech, Twitter was jammed with tweets about how boring the whole thing was. Like this one: / LaurieManny: Audience walks out on Twitter CEOKeynote…line to get out of room…  /  A line to get out of the room! Before the speech, a long, long, long line waited to get in to see whatwas bar far the highest-profile session of the conference. —PCWorld: SXSW-Twitter Announcement a Real Yawner

AdWeek's coverage: SXSW: Twitter's Ad Platform That Isn't

HuffPo uses @anywhere to blast @ev and pseudo interviewer:  Umair Haque's Moderation At SXSW 2010 Keynote Criticized By Interview Attendees

And while I'm certain I don't understand even a 10th of the goodness that is going to be the @anywhere platform, the ability to post from a 3rd party website like Huffington Post is OKAY, but I prefer Friendfeed and Delicious and StumbleOn, and guess what. They're free.

Wired tones it down a bit with tepid: Twitter CEO Launches @anywhere to Tepid Audience Reaction

Photos: Jim Merithew, Wired.com

This was in the room that was standing room only. Hey, is that a seat there, next to that woman… DANG! Problem was the crowds were streaming out about 30 minutes into the lackluster chat.

Business Insider: Here's What Twitter's CEO Was Trying To Tell You About @Anywhere When Umair Haque Wrecked His SXSW Keynote

TechCrunch: Uh Oh. Not Another “Don’t Be Evil” Company

So regardless if Umair Haque was hand-picked by Twitter to softball Evan Williams and not ask the hard "revenue" questions, at some point the casual CEO should've figured things were going badly, like maybe when the crowds were mobbing the exits. It wasn't because they were trying to get out and blog about the ho-hum platform he had just revealed. It was because the metaphors and soliloquies coming out of Evan Williams mouth were the same kind of nonsense you her at presentations where the leader is completely out of their element. I wonder if pharma had anything to do with @ev taking the digression of the interview with little to no resistance.

So there was plenty blame to go around, but more importantly the two people in charge of the tone and pacing and content of the discussion just sailed along. The last thing you do with a restless crowd is ignore them, or try to continue without making any adjustments.

He spoke of open windows as opposed to open doors. He talked a lot about "without a revenue model" even if Mr. Haque wouldn't ask the question. But the oddest thing about the whole presentation was how little Haque seemed to be getting about what @ev was saying. While he was very vocal with his "uh hun, yes, okay's" his follow up questions often were about Haque himself. He kept referring to his 5 points. And he would use them to loft another non-sequitur into the lap of Mr. Williams to little or no effect.

I kept thinking we were getting @ev the bored white executive, now so big he can't even take TWEETS for questions. Wouldn't that have made more sense? You've got a room full of evangelists and questioners. Ask them, let them ask. Rather, Mr. Haque skipped along on his own agenda and his own story about his experience at a gas station or hotel or something else, check the notes. He was not even in the room with us.

So as things began to go badly in a presentation you stop and take a breath. You pause and decide which way to go next. But Mr. Williams and blind-executioner Mr Haque stumbled, bumbled and continued into some sort of trance. People were actually getting mad in the overflow room, where I was. "This is bullshit." was murmered more than once, and probably tweeted.

So as the "platform" of the future continued to show #fail and the fail whale itself continued to blow his spermy spume, Evan Williams waxed poetic and Umair Haque told his own stories and followed his incoherent 5-point strategy. I'm still not sure if UH was talking about a "strategy" to get the most out of the Evan Williams interview, or something from his new book about his 5-points of light.

What I did know, was it sucked. Big time! And the crowd was literally streaming out of the overflow room. Perhaps is was not as bad in the room where the zoned speakers were. But the cracking and closing of the door in the overflow room was deafening. And then I left too.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/twitter-fails

All the Uber.la SXSW 2010 posts in one place:

• A SXSW Wrap Up for 2010: Pumpin the High 5s and Dropin the Low Lights #sxsw Final
• Twitter Keynote Trends Badly, It Wasn't All Umair Haque's Fault #sxsw #twitter
• Dream All Day: #SXSW Last Day and Raining – Is This the End? Now Attending #bedcamp
• Geo-This Geo-That: Gowalla Wins ATX Social Media Darlings Award at #SXSW; Exclamations of "So What!"
• Smile Today in ATX: Penultimate Day at #SXSW 2010 (updating along the way)
• Sustainability and Social Media: A Year Later at #SXSW (Dell≠Green?)
• Another Winding Down at SXSW: Social Media Club HOUSE at Dusk #smch3
• #SXSW Rockstar SuperPowers Now Available in Austin, Texas (jetpacks optional)

See also:

• The Twitter Way
• The TwitterTools Matrix
• My Twitter Lists for everything from Green, to Austin Friends 1 (500 limit reached), Austin Friends 2, to Social Media Mavens.

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The Humor of Twitter and TwitterFail

1. Tweetlater.com | June 09’s That’s #$%!@in Funny WINNER : TwitterJoker.com
2. Twitter’s #@!# Whale! Call It a “Small Settings Update” But I Call It MAJOR FAIL
3. TWINDLE ™ – Finally! Twitter + Kindle = Twindle!
4. haiku 2 twitter – 4-17-09
5. Haiku 2 Twitter on FriendFeed OR The Fail Whale Follies
6. OPEN LETTER TO Guy Kawasakisan – Return to the Way Mr. Kawasaki, Before It’s Too Late For Us All!
7. UFM! UnFollow Me by Guy Kawasaki OR The New Way to Say, “Piss Off!”
8. Wither the TwitterGhost – Poking Fun In The Eye of the Beholder
9. Twitter Destroyer Readies for Launch – The TwitterJoker Strikes Again!
10. While My Mac Gently Tweets – #SXSW Twitter is Going to be HUGE
11. GOOGLE buys TWITTER and WE MISSED IT
12. Friend or Follow – Can Break Your Heart (friendorfollow.com)
13. Love Twitter, Hate Twitter, Poke Fun Where It Belongs @Twitter
14. JMacofearth is Forced to Lay Off Hundreds of Tweeters
15. Don't Follow Friday (link to a TwitterJoker site)
16. TwitterEXP (link to a TwitterJoker site)
17. TwitterExpress (link to a TwitterJoker site << here's how it all started)
18. The TwitterJoker Network ™ (link to THE TwitterJoker site)
19. CES Day One: Apple BUYS Twitter and Shows their Tablet Computer, the iSlate

Direct from the Joker (These links will take you to the TwitterJoker site)

1. Tweetlater.com | June 09’s That’s #$%!@in Funny WINNER
2. Dear Biz and Co.” ARGGGH! I HATE TWITTER! “You are unable to follow more people at this time…”
3. That’s Just Tweetin Funny: Tremendous News Does a Twitter Celeb Roast
4. AutoTweeting Reaches a New HIGH : I thought this was a legit blog
5. Let’s Follow Each Other – Larry Brauner’s NING/Twitter Empire
6. TweepME TweepME NOT – A Failure To Communicate
7. TWINDLE ™ – Finally! Twitter + Kindle = Twindle!
8. Tactical Internet Pants are the Bomb – Geek Dad Pulls Up a Winner!
9. Twitter Ghost Strikes Guy Kawasaki and Haunts Your Feeds
10. Fail Whale Songs – Spouting the Sperm Spamtastic
11. Jackass Tribe Twitter Scamy Smiling White Guys – This Weeks Winner
12. Starting with Crap in April – Woot Sells Bags of (sh)it On Fool’s Day
13. Have You Loaded The Twitter Destroyer App Yet?
14. Trillion Followers by 2010 – With Your Help We Can Raise Awareness and Cain
15. What’s the Joke? Seriously! I Don’t Get It. Am I Missing Something? (The VERY FIRST TwitterJoker post)

The Twindle ™ Revolution (These links will take you to the Twindle.me site)

1. TWINDLE ™ Offers Lifetime Twindle.me Service for FREE
2. Review the Twindle ™ vs Kindle DX – Side-by-side comparisons!
3. Compare the Kindle DX with the Kindle with the Twindle ™
4. TWINDLE ™ – Finally! Twitter + Kindle = Twindle!

Tags: #failwhale, #smbc3, #twitterfall, @ev blows it, death of a tweet, death of twitter, evan williams, final day of SXSW, geo-location, geo-location fun, geo-location hell, geo-location now, interactive, interactive conference, must be more positive, social media, sorry facebook sucks, south by southwest, sxsw, sxsw 2009, sxsw 2010, sxsw film, sxsw interactive, sxsw music, sxswi, twitter is dying, twitterfail, umair haque, why your UX sucks