Live (Social) Status

Test

2009-12-26T13:02:00.000-08:00

Nevermind @aplusk, Social Media Stars Rise on Twitter

2009-04-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

I am sure you've noticed. Twitter is the new home for social media power users. Lured by the conversation and engagement with followers that comes with real-time sharing, the big users are doing a land-grab on Twitter to establish their network. And these networks are big, very active and growing fast. Like Digg, these networks drive awareness of stories. But what is most interesting, is that power users are building very active conversation hubs, centered on sharing high quality content.

For example, check out @zaibatsu, one of the top social media users. Unlike popular celebrities who tweet occasionally, Reg Saddler is building a conversation hub and it's working. He's growing a huge base of followers that enjoy the value of his shared content and the activity of his conversation, and as a result he receives tons of RTs which push his network further. Reg was very successful at driving stories to the Digg home page. At Twitter, his success will be measured by follower count and he's shooting for 500,000. Take a look at the reach and velocity of his conversation.

People like Reg made Digg work. But unlike Digg, Twitter is a distributed network and the conversation hub currently does not have a centralized home - there is no "frontpage" on Twitter for example. Anyone can join the conversation from a variety of Twitter clients and apps. As a result, value and influence is shifting from the host (like Digg) to the actual user (like @zaibatsu): Reg can have a direct relationship with the consumers of his content on Twitter. Conversation hubs are building their own equity value. And new opportunities are available as a result.

Some active conversation hubs:

Check out analytics of influential Twitter users. Note these conversation hubs have high velocity (they are like a chat room) and generosity (they follow back and engage).

Tweetmi - Discovering the best of Twitter

2009-04-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

In my last post I provided an illustration that highlighted the opportunity to build community-oriented applications that incorporate real-time search, real-time aggregation and real-time forums. I decided to try to do all this in one app - Tweetmi.

Tweetmi helps you discover the best of Twitter for any topic. Tweetmi finds the most active people and stories that are driving the real-time conversation on Twitter, making it perfect for searching or tracking your topics of interest - whether they are your favorite tv shows or your favorite technology.

Tweetmi taps into the Twitter search API to display a real-time feed of Tweets on any topic. But the cool part is that it uses these real-time tweets to maintain a running index of the real-time conversation. And from this conversation, we can extract great content. And this works for any search query.

I think it's an interesting project because as everything shifts to real-time, we'll need a way to capture the best of this ongoing stream, so we don't miss the highlights.

Real time apps.. what to build next?

2009-02-23T19:03:00.000-08:00

So Facebook wins the lifestream, Twitter wins status, and the battles for photos and videos etc is long done. What's next?

The real-time web introduces a few new battlefronts. These arising opportunities tap into real-time status updates to provide value to the community at large.

I just picked three categories of new products that can monitor real-time status and provide value-added services:

Real-time search is already here. Huge opportunity to re-invent search with relevancy of time and social connnection. Obviously Twitter is all over this. So is Facebook, Friendfeed and anyone in the lifestream market.
Bookmarks are dead. But links are flowing through status messages, and they can now be automatically aggregated into rankings or context. Twitturly and Stocktwits are two fine examples. Lots of cool real-time news / link aggregation across different categories can be created.
And there will be a growing category of real-time forums. These ad-hoc, live, interactive groups can be formed by matching interests or proximity automatically detected from status. I would place location-based services such as Google's new Latitude into this broad category. The next Browzmi version will sit in this box too.

Real time is going to be big time.. I am sure people have tons more ideas.

Always starts with a picture

2009-02-19T19:56:00.000-08:00

It looked like a good idea from the beginning.. (from LATimes). A good story on the origins of Twitter.

What investors see in Twitter

2009-02-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

From Techcrunch article:

IVP, a new Twitter investor, sites these product strengths:

Open
Real-time
Ubiquitous
Scalable
Persistent

And that it is breaking into mainstream adoption cycle.

Feedly is thinking

2009-02-12T18:26:00.000-08:00

So now that I'm writing again, I'll take note of a diagram I saw today on Feedly's blog.

What's interesting here: "Feedly Real-time Integration Hub." Hmm..

Since I've been silent..

2009-02-12T17:58:00.000-08:00

The real time web is now starting to dominate the tech crowd conversation. So what's happened since summer (my last post) that has clarified status as the new thing?

First, Twitter is breaking into mainstream. I watched Pogue review Twitter on CNBC today.

Second, Facebook's status-based redesign has gotten everyone into sharing and accelerated Facebook to #1 global network.

And third, people are waking up to the potential of status as the foundation for next generation search. I have a theory that Friendfeed is running a bait and switch on its geek community - once it taps enough status, it will switch to focus on real-time search. Twitter is doing the same and is better positioned for this strategy. Unless you have a large gang of followers, Twitter is already most useful as a real-time search resource. Add in the social feedback loop, and status search can beat Google.

Facebook goes all-in(to) social status feed

2008-07-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

The focus of the new Facebook UI design and the F8 developers conversation is all focused on sharing updates in the Newsfeed. Social status, sharing and communication across the social graph is their core. VentureBeat covered F8 well (and took the picture here)

The good news is that it seems we (apps) can more easily tap into the FB feed via Facebook Connect, a data portability API. This is great integration for apps - but it's also great for users that can just sign into an app using their FB login. I like this alot. Us meta guys are not social networks and we'd rather not build rich profiles - better to import data and link to FB as system of record. TechCrunch has some good preso images including this one:

I predict Facebook Connect gets a bunch of new social status updates flowing into your newsfeed. It will also put pressure on Friendfeed as a niche crowd.

So if FB does aggregation of user status, everyone sends updates there, and all the users are over there.. then how do you stand out in the social status space?

The other question.. now that all the giggly apps have been buried somewhere in the new design, will users appreciate the new no-glitter design focused on sharing? It's a bold move by FB, leading its users (and developers) in the right direction (whether we want to go there or not).

Now give us the promised XMPP chat connection already! (I am hoping that is part of FB Connect)

Spy - watch the conversation

2008-07-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

Spy is similar to Summize Twitter search, but aggregates the flow of conversation from Twitter, Friendfeed, some RSS feeds and Google Reader. People are catching onto the cool things that can be done with the Now Web..

Meebo gets embedded and Gnip gets Twitter

2008-07-18T18:08:00.000-07:00

The news out of Meebo yesterday and Gnip today stood out in the real-time web scene.

First, Meebo announced that social sites can embed their IM network so that friends of these sites can chat amongst themselves and across Meebo's integrations with the top IM networks. Within this news, and perhaps more interesting, was some reference to XMPP and the ability to broadcast status updates from these sites through their IM user interface. If Meebo can get embeds in enough sites or works on some of their own integrations, then they become a pretty interesting aggregator and distributor of real-time status updates across domains. I wanted this chat platform from Meebo 2 years ago. Now, I bet I'm not the only one in the status aggregation space wondering if Meebo is a competitor or a good partner. But I'd like to explore this more.

Second, Gnip pretty much solidified their business plan by securing the XMPP connection for Twitter (reported by TechCrunch). It's a huge win for Gnip that was probably a baked assumption for their startup. Twitter is the cornerstone of the real-time status space, so without Twitter, I'm not sure Gnip could have pulled this off. Now I think they are off to the races to becoming a big-time message broker. (Louis Gray just published a good post on Gnip with some insights from their CEO, Eric Marcoullier.) We're ready Gnip...Hook us up!

What's really positive is that XMPP is getting alot of hype lately. Nik Cubrilovic at TechCrunchIT says "XMPP is the HTTP for communications on the web, and soon we will look back at the days of polling a web service and wonder what the hell we were smoking." Real-time is coming fast...

Twitter Search and the "Now Web"

2008-07-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

I like the combination of Twitter and Summize. The best dialogue I've read so far on the deal is from John Borthwick, where he talks about the idea of the "now web" and how much of what we want to know from search is about the present. Being able to tap into this real-time conversation to find answers is something very useful.

Twitter search is cool to watch 'cause it updates as new tweets come in. Check out the query on iPhone 3G. If you're not shy, you can just jump into the conversation. If you choose to join the conversation, you basically have real-time interactive search. With the right density and user protocol, this is a big idea. (Friendfeed also has a similar search opportunity)

But back to this idea of Now Web. This blog is going to be all about web services that share social "Status" to enable a real-time conversation or experience.

There are an emerging group of services that are quickly innovating in this space. Twitter, Friendfeed, (I like to think Browzmi is), the location services, Gnip, and other companies and people that focus on social status will be the focus of this blog.