How will the new Twitter Effect You? [updated]

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Former Twitter engineer and BankSimple co-founder, Alex Payne, wrote an excellent piece of his thoughts on the Twitter.com redesign, monetizing, and tweets as a medium.

The new twitter.com (of which, I confess, I’ve only seen screenshots and haven’t yet used) is absolutely beautiful and looks to increase usability ten fold. I look forward to using it. It also has implications that are more than skin deep. This is a look at new Twitter’s effects on all its stakeholders: users, developers, shareholders and potential business partners.

Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers… and Users

I think #newtwitter… [turns] the site into a rich information discovery platform, if you’ll excuse the buzzword bingo. The new design is a pleasure to use, and encourages a kind of deep exploration of the data within Twitter that has previously only been exposed in bits and pieces by third-party applications. Browsing Twitter is now as rewarding as communicating with it.

Previously, developers took data out of Twitter and into the context of their own applications and services. The new design flips this on its head, bringing rich embedded content into the site from a host of brand-name web properties.

It seems that Twitter has always looked at their users, developers and their habits and innovations, and considered which ones to fold into their own service; lists, trends, search and retweeting to name a few. With this new twitter.com update, Twitter has not only made common functions more accessible and less intrusive, but it has also wholly embraced url embedding (and shortening) and brought it to the next logical level: previewing.

Is Twitter leeching of their developers hard work? Is it fair to the developers? I believe the answers are “yes.” Developers enjoy access to a large Twitter membership and an ever-growing database of tweets, which in itself has remarkable ramifications on recording historical events and communication in general. In turn, developers should expect that their ideas in manipulating that member-base and information is open to be copied, just as a car company expects a new safety feature may be copied by a rival. “Great artists steal,” right?

Twitter doesn’t just have the right to make their own web interface richer, they have a responsibility. This responsibility is not just to their stockholders, but to their users as well, because building the richer web experience makes the whole platform–the company, the developers, the API, and the medium–move forward and use it in more interesting and productive ways. Developers should look at the new twitter.com not as a threat or a blow to developer relations, but as a challenge to their abilities instead.

Business Cases and Revenue Models

Above that, the new twitter.com seems to point to efforts that go beyond interface tweaks and might even shed light into its efforts into creating a more revenue-generating business organization.

There are many possible sources of revenue for Twitter. Among them, advertising, businesses users, the Suggested Users list, and real-time web statistics. With more of Twitter’s users going to twitter.com as their standard Twitter client, the new UI has implications on all of these revenue sources.

Advertising:

One of the striking things about #newtwitter is how clearly it’s designed to allow room for advertisements and promotions.

Selling ad space has never been a sure bet, especially when you’re a content provider and not a search engine. Regardless, advertising is the first and easiest-to-implement option for Twitter make money. The two-plane design and clear delineations between tweets (utilizing box lines)makes it easier for twitter.com to include advertising in ways that are eye-catching, yet unobtrusive and clear.

(Have you noticed that advertising is also the easiest way developers can make money off the same content?)

Business Users:

This is the most exciting possibility to me.

Business are beginning to realize that social media can be a powerful marketing tool. Currently, though, business are only using it as users. They build a following, communicate and monitor tweets with certain keywords, like their business name or those related to their industry.

Imagine a paid account UI where businesses can follow not only related tweets and keywords, but also trends on keywords, positivity, negativity, follows, retweets, mentions and more. Social marketing would have new meaning.

The new twitter.com represents the real possibility that twitter.com can be portal for business functions and communication, instead of those that third party developers have already conjured.

The Suggested Users List:

Twitter’s “Suggested” list may begin to gain more mindshare as more Twitter users look to it to grow their feed. Sure, many users already look to it when they initially sign up for the service, but what will happen when it is more accessible to veteran users?

It has been suggested that Twitter could offer up a slot on the list for money. Ethical? Probably not. Business smart for Twitter? Probably not. Business smart for businesses? Maybe. Smart for celebrities? No.

The Real-Time Web:

Many competitors have their hand on the pulse of the real-time web, including Digg, Facebook, and Delicious. But none of them nor Twitter really make any money off of it. Can Twitter make money off real-time web statistics? Now that they have critical mass, I believe they can.

Imagine any of these companies making a deal with Google Search or Microsoft Bing, and identifying keywords are trending at any one moment to figure out which ads to show (on Google Search or Bing) where and when.

Imagine mining keyword trends to identify which keywords businesses should to buy on ad networks or which markets to target. This would bring new effectiveness to not just digital advertising, but to advertising in general.

Twitter, more than any of their real-time web competitors, is in the position to capitalize on such partnerships and data mining.

Of course, all of this would go away and be in the hands of Twitter developers if tweets as a medium were to be decentralized.

A large part of the reason I left Twitter was a fundamental philosophical difference that I couldn’t reconcile, either for myself or the company. I believe that Twitter as a medium is and should be distinct from Twitter as a business. Put another way, there’s an important difference between lowercase “t” tweeting and uppercase “T” Twitter, just as with democrat and Democrat.

With all due respect to Mr. Payne, I think that if Twitter was to decentralize tweets and the member-base, it would lose control over those aspects and the company would be forced to out-innovate their third party developers on the very platform they started. That sure is idealistic and it would help keep the forward momentum of the Twitter platform, but it would make it a lot harder for Twitter to make money, both short term and long term.

[UPDATE]: Was just switched on to the new twitter.com UI. As expected, I love it, and only reiterate my thoughts above.

Related Articles

• The Very Last Thing I’ll Write About Twitter (al3x.net)
• A Look at the New Twitter (gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com)

Social, as a Layer

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In an interview with TechCrunch, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that social wasn’t a layer to be added and, to be successful, social products need to be designed “from the ground up.” MG Siegler took this quote to be a direct shot at Google, who stated that they wanted to “add a social layer” to the their products, company-wide.

Zuckerberg went on to point at Farmville creator Zynga, and Q&A service Quora, as examples of companies who do it right.

Some might even think that this is a shot at iTunes Ping. Reportedly, Apple spent a year and a half (at least) in its failure to tie Facebook to the new social iTunes function.

I think Zuckerberg is a smart business leader and I agree with him in thinking that if you want to make a social product, its core function should be about sharing information. If a product depends on social aspects to function, it will be a better social product. That’s common sense.

But imagine a simulation game, like SimCity, where you have to build a farm and sell crops. Now add friends and cooperation in. That’s Farmville. That’s a product with a social layer.

Image a blogging tool where its sole purpose was to jot down short notes. Now add friends and publicity. That’s Twitter. That’s a product with a social layer.

Social is just functions that make a product more functional. Truth is, any product that can actively motivate people to share information to improve productivity will be an adequate social product.

Fighting Flash

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Chris Pepper wrote of Flash in his blog, Extra Pepperoni, asserting that (1) most users use Flash because it’s already preloaded on their browser and that (2) power users go out on their way to block Flash.

People who are aware of this struggle understand that h.264′s recent growth has largely been at the expense of Flash video, and because iOS doesn’t support it. If the iPhone & iPad supported Flash, we’d be watching (or trying to watch) videos in Adobe’s broken mobile Flash player.

Where and how users got Flash is irrelevant. The point is that Flash is more ubiquitous than HTML5 at this point.

I’ve never seen a study on Flash and how desktop and mobile users are using it, but I’d like to think Mr. Pepper right. I use a Flash blocker on Google Chrome. When I used Apple Safari, I used a Flash blocker on that too.

Why? I find that my web experience is more stable, less processor intensive and less distracting when Flash is turned off. I don’t miss it, and the only time I bypass the blocker is when I find embedded video players.

Are there situations where Flash is appropriate? Sure. Not everything can replaced by HTML5.

It’s Internet Explorer that’s the culprit. It doesn’t fully support HTML5. Web designers don’t like Internet Explorer, but web designers have to for the lowest common denominator.

Code for IE, and you’ll get most web traffic. (A statistic that will change as iOS browsers gain marketshare.) Code for iOS, and you’ll get less than most. Code for both, and you may have to put in the extra time, but you’ll get 100% of your audience and a brownie points for being a good coder.

Currently, the best web design detects the browser and will show HTML5 code if it sees an iOS or Android browser. Otherwise, it might show Flash content. What web designers need to do is show HTML in all browsers except for IE, and show Flash content only when needed. (And use HTML5 embedded video players.)

AT&T on Possibly Losing iPhone Exclusivity: “Nothing to See Here. Move Along.”

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According to Tech Crunch, a study from “Credit Suisse was released stating that (only) 23 percent of iPhone users currently on AT&T would switch to Verizon if that carrier offered the phone.” Naturally, AT&T’s CEO lauds the number and states that losing exclusivity is a “non-issue.”

I wonder how much people would stick to AT&T because they are locked into a contract and will switch when that contract is up. I wonder how many of those people (if any) are in the San Francisco Bay Area or New York. I think the number is misleading.

On a iPad Newsstand App

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Current rumors swirling around the iPad/iPhone ecosystem are reports that Apple is working on a “newsstand” app for newspapers and magazines, much like how Apple’s “iBooks” app caters to books. Supposedly, the goal of this “newsstand” app is to centralize magazines into one app and provide for subscription plans.

Currently, magazine apps, such as Time and Sports Illustrated, are free, but ask the customer to buy each issue for about $3.99 each. A subscription model would be more affordable (hopefully) to the customer, and would help retain and build a customer base to publishers.

Publishers should look at this as if there paying Apple its standard 30% to replace the cost of ink, paper and distribution with digital hosting.

Two questions are on my mind about this, though:

• Will a “newsstand” app still allow publishers to innovate and play with the interactivity of their content?
• What about those other apps, like Hulu, where the app is sold for free, but is paid through a subscription access, of which Apple sees no cut?

Related Articles

• Bloomberg: Apple Negotiating With Publishers Over Digital Newsstand (bloomberg.com)

The Bane of Android’s Existence (Fragmentation) and Why We Don’t Have an iPhone on Verizon

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Engadget reports that the Droid Eris won’t get an update to the current Android OS, v 2.2, called Froyo. This is unsurprising to many Android users, because its Sprint sister phone, the HTC Hero, won’t get it either.

Android users aren’t angry… but they should be.

It’s not that I think every device should be supported throughout a lifetime. I wouldn’t expect Microsoft to support Windows 98 Today. Nor would I expect Apple to update the first generation iPhone (which was released in the summer of 2007) with the latest iOS (4).

But a company should support a device throughout the device’s life cycle. For computers, this lifetime is normally gauged (by insurance companies and accounting departments) as three to five years. For phones–even smart phones–this is two years.

The Droid Eris (a Verizon phone) is not even one year old yet.

I hate AT&T, but one reason (of many) why I find myself reluctant to ditch it and move to a Sprint Android phone is that there is very little assurance that an Android phone that I buy Today will be updated with the latest Android OS a year later.

Dell’s Streak phone is still running 1.6 and that phone was released in the US only a month ago.

A recent study found that only 43 percent of all Android phones are running the current OS, 2.2 Froyo. Meanwhile, Google’s own statistics show worse: 29.5 percent using 1.x, and only 28.7percent using the latest release. Android users might be okay with this, but I’m not. My friends might want to buy a new Android phone every year, but I don’t.

For consumers, the Android platform has three advantages against the iPhone (for now): choice of carriers, choice of manufacturers, and choice of apps. (For developers, there is also a more transparent and easy-to-deliver marketplace… most of the time.) The latter two are minor advantages, but the broad availability between carrier networks is the broadsword that most consumers care about.

To achieve these advantages–and to catch up with Apple’s market dominance–Google has conceded a major point: It’s the carriers (Verizon, in this case) and manufacturers (HTC, in this case), not Google, that get to choose whether to continue support for a phone with the latest OS. Since Google’s hardware specifications is loose, such support is difficult and expensive. Why spend money on supporting a new OS when you can just ask your customers to buy a whole new phone? The carriers and manufacturers are using Google’s “openness” against itself, sometimes making it a closed system for the end-consumer.

Either app ecosystem will work for the common consumer, and consumers might not really care about who makes their phone, but they sure do care about the carrier network’s reliability. Isn’t it sad that Android owners will ignore the fact that their phones might be well outdated and unsupported within the first year? Maybe consumers just don’t care about life cycle management.

History tells me that I can feel confident that if I buy an Apple iPhone, then it will have the latest iOS version two years (if not three years) from now. But, hey, at least Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint phones don’t drop calls every 15 minutes in San Francisco.

Are you listening Apple? There’s a big crowd just waiting for an iPhone on any US carrier other than AT&T. But whatever Apple does, I hope they don’t let the other carriers make the big choices. That would “set the industry back ten years” in consumer choice. My guess is that Apple is, in fact, sticking to their principles, despite outrageous carrier demands–and that is probably why we don’t see an iPhone on Verizon, T-Mobile or Sprint Today.

Related Articles

• Most Android Users Still Don’t Have Froyo (technologizer.com)
• Android Is As Open As The Clenched Fist I’d Like To Punch The Carriers With (techcrunch.com)
• Siegler on Android: Open is a lie (blogs.chron.com)

Nevada’s Win Against Cal is a Call on BCS

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The Nevada Wolfpack (WAC) just rolled over the California Golden Bears (PAC-10), 52-31.

I was rooting for Cal on this (because I live near the school), but this triumphant win for Nevada and the Western Athletic Conference is just more evidence on why the current BCS system is insufficient.

The WAC has some pretty good sports teams. Teams like Nevada, Boise State, Fresno State and Hawaii have shown that they can compete with BCS automatic qualifying conferences.

Make no mistake; the Mountain West’s cannibalization of some of the WAC’s best schools is nothing more than a bid to become a BCS AQ conference. Such unsportsman-like behavior would not have happened if there was a Division 1-A post-season tournament where any team could win the national championship.

The BCS’s insistance that the current bowl system is “the best we can do” is nothing but an anti-competitive (to be read as “antitrust-ful”) attempt to keep the money between the six more powerful conferences. This inequality isn’t what collegiate sports is supposed to be.

Freddie Mercury deserves better than Sacha Baron Cohen

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SlashFilm reports that Sacha Baron Cohen has been signed to play Freddie Mercury in the yet-to-be-scripted biopic. I hope you excuse me for being a little apprehensive about this.

Freddie Mercury’s story is filled with struggle, triumph and tragedy. On the other hand, I’ve never seen Sacha show skill for anything other than toilet humor. (I admit that I’ve never seen Sweeny Todd.)

I liked ‘Bruno’, but the actor who plays Freddie should have a talent for conveying emotion that is as serious as such the topic of gay rights, HIV and AIDS. The move to cast Sacha seems to be largely based not on acting talent, but on a small approximation of similarity. Freddie deserves better.

A Disney-Tokuma (Studio Ghibli) Retrospective

In 1996, a distribution deal between the Disney Corporation and Tokuma Shoten, the parent company of Studio Ghibli, was struck for the US distribution of Ghibli movies.

Some feel that this was a deal that Disney had to make. Hayao Miyazaki (one of Studio Ghibli’s co-founders and star directors) was about to finish and release ‘Mononoke Hime’ (Princess Mononoke) and was referred to in Japan as the modern-day Walt Disney. If anyone was going to dethrone Disney’s monopoly on the US animation market, it was going to be Studio Ghibli.

No one except Disney and Tokuma know the exact details of the deal, but some report that:

• Disney was to use the original Japanese music.
• Disney was not to cut or rearrange any footage from the original films.
• It was Disney’s discretion to decide which movies would be released theatrically.
• Disney had exclusive rights to distribute Studio Ghibli properties world-wide.
• Ghibli retained all merchandising rights.
• It was Disney’s responsibility to produce English dialog (Dx) audio stems.
• Originally, only eight movies were included in the deal. Additional films were added when produced by Ghibli.

Many anime collectors (otakus) have harsh words about this deal. Most of these originate from a disdain for anything Disney related. They feel that Disney has no right to place their name on films so brilliantly made. Some even theorized that this was Disney’s conspiracy attempt to surpress an anime revolution in the US market.

I confess, I was one of those anime fans that felt this way. At the time, Japanese animation seemed so much more innovative than anything being developed by a US animation studio. Even today, Disney has an inability to make an animated feature targeted towards anyone above the age of 10. The deal felt like Ghibli was bowing to the powerful hand of Disney.

After fifteen years of seeing what actually has come out of the deal, one has to ask: Did/Does the deal help or hinder Studio Ghibli in the US market? I believe it did help Studio Ghibli, and in turn the entire anime industry.

Consider the following:

• Disney may have provided the best audio dub possible. Any other production company would have quickly hacked together a translation and hire second-rate actors to do the voice-overs.
• Disney has provided original Japanese audio tracks and English subtitles for DVD and Blu-ray releases (and even some theatrical releases in some markets). In 1996, most distribution companies just made an English dub and released that solely. Even those companies that dealt with anime imports exclusively had no confidence in US audiences and thought that viewers would best comprehend a story that was edited and dubbed. Today, however, there is a substantial group of people that insist on the original Japanese dialog (with English subtitles) and can’t stand to sit through an English dub. Thankfully, Disney seems to understand this.
• Any other distribution company would have mutilated the stories through a re-edit process. Those close to the matter say that other companies besides Disney were contacted for a distribution deal. But none except Disney would agree to the no re-edits clause.
• This deal helped expose Ghibli films and the entire anime sub-genre to those that would have otherwise not seen it. It seems that every major Ghibli release is getting a US theatrical release, thanks to Disney. Does this sound like the actions of a company that wants to subdue the rise of anime?

Sure, it may not have been Disney’s intention, but the deal helped bring the anime style of animation to a wide portion of the US and world audience. Today, the anime market is a much more thriving market than it was back in 1996. I think that it is due, at least in part, to the Disney-Tokuma deal.

On a Live-Action ‘Mulan’

Jan de Bont and Zhang Ziyi are teaming together to make a live-action telling of the classic ‘Mulan’ story. Variety reports that de Bont has been tapped to direct. Zhang Ziyi will star and co-produce. The film will be shot in English, on location in China, edited in Canada, and its preliminary budget is 35 million (which is relatively low-budget).

Hopefully, the American audience already knows that Mulan is not (exclusively) a Disney story. It’s a classic Chinese legend; originally a poem. Films about Mulan have been made before, but all of them are Chinese-made (save the Disney animated feature). It will be interesting to see how an English version will do at the box office.

Sure, it may help English audiences to digest an otherwise foreign story. Few were complaining when Steven Spielberg had Oskar Schindler (and every other German) speak English in ‘Schindler’s List’. Or Sayuri in ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’. Or Quasimodo in ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’.

But there are bound to be some who would insist that a movie set in China be shot (and directed) in Chinese. How would you feel if a George Washington biopic was shot by a French director and everybody in the film spoke Japanese? It would kind of kill the verisimilitude of the film, wouldn’t it?

I’m sure Zhang Ziyi is a wonderful actor. But I don’t understand Chinese, and it’s hard to gauge one’s acting ability when you don’t speak the same language and can’t grab all the subtle vocal inflections. The problem can sometimes piggyback on itself when the actor speaks in a second language. Sometimes, an accent can make it difficult to follow or believe the acting. Other times it works just fine. Can de Bont direct Asian actors? Will the actors need to know English in order to be a part of the project?

In any case, I wish them luck. If anything, it may reinforce the thought that ‘Mulan’ is a classic folk tale, not a Disney Princess cartoon.