CMM June 13th, 2008
I previously wrote about my frustration with Twitter’s growing pains. I know this is part of the start-up experience, but I was becoming frustrated by what I perceived to be Twitter’s lack of interest in solving the problem. Since blogging should be as much about the positive as the negative, I am happy to report that Twitter is taking steps to correct the problem (hat tip to Venture Beat).
First, Twitter’s chief architect has left the company. It is still speculation as to whether this was an amicable parting of the ways, but it is clear that Twitter has struggled to keep the service running in the days since his departure. As a lesson in entrepreneurship, sometimes key people have to go. This gives an opportunity for new blood to come on board with fresh perspective, energy and ideas. Maybe this is needed? Let’s face it, the simple service hasn’t really increased the robustness of its service in the 16 months I’ve been using it.
Second, Twitter has hired some mercenary software development staff form Pivotal Labs. Not to get the techno-geeks too excited, but this is like hiring the A-Team of software writing. On the down side, this is a mercenary team. Once the work is done, Hanibal and company collect big paychecks, enjoy a cigar, and move on to the next project. Let’s hope Twitter has someone to learn the new architecture and help it evolve with future needs.
As an interesting study in developmental strategy, I think Twitter has been forced into taking these steps. First, I don’t think they have any substantial intellectual property to protect their service. Second, many big name people in the tech business have hinted at the simplicity of Twitter’s architecture and an interest in creating a rival platform. I’ve heard that those efforts are being kept in stealth mode, but this could create an interesting environment for Twitter. Given the Townhall project by Microsoft (MSFT),I wouldn’t put it past MSFT to develop something in house. Lastly, Twitter experiences competitive pressure from Google acquisition Jaiku.
Image from casualgamedesign.com.
CMM June 9th, 2008
True, I have not had much sleep over the last three days as a result of my whirlwind tour of Wisconsin and Iowa (freakin’ tornadoes and floods), but I’ve got to get this off my chest. What is the deal with Twitter? The last two weeks the service has been very unreliable, and I’ve actually seen local friends scaling back their presence on the platform for alternative services. Now, I’m not saying I’m going that far… but I sure wish the service would be up and dependable!
I know you are supposed to “ship crappy,” according to Guy Kawasaki, but don’t stay that way. When you help consumers realize your products value and their need, don’t turn unreliable on them. It leaves a bad taste and reminds people of high school dating– deciding to “go steady” meant one week later you were being completely ignored. And I don’t want to hear some crap about loads being abnormal due to some conference. One of my management science professors told me that management was all about draining the swamp. When your job is to drain the swamp (or provide micro-blog interface), don’t complain about the alligators (or heavy usage due to a conference).
While I’m griping about things being down… C’mon Amazon.com! You are the largest online retailer on the planet. Act like it.
CMM April 16th, 2008
I will preface this email by stating two incredibly valuable experiences I had as a result of my online presence.
First, the Knoxville area tweet-up last week was really awesome. It was very cool to put faces with so many names, and I felt enriched by finding so many smart folks in my immediate area. I’m a big fan of “innovate or go home” as a life strategy, and I feel like a central component of innovation is the environment (sometimes through hostility or pain, othertimes through creative friction). After having a great and thought-provoking lunch with the Knoxville twitter audience (on the patio in beautiful weather with a river and mountains for a backdrop), I feel great about the future of this community. On a side, Jack Lail from the Knox News Sentinel was a missed addition… but we can’t have everything. Maybe one day soon I’ll get a chance to meet him face-to-face.
Second, I was invited to participate in a political debate through American Republic Online around a year ago with a local Democratic party official in East TN. The topic was gas prices and profits in the oil industry. I made the argument that we shouldn’t beat up on oil companies for their profit margins (after all, they average between 8-12% margins after covering the extraoridnary overhead and R&D costs). As a staunch free market advocate, I argued that the short-term solution was soncumer side tax-breaks gor gasoline and policy support behind alternative energy. Since then, the Republican presenital nominee John McCain has come out strong in support of both initatives. I’m not so vain as to think that I influenced that decision, but it is nice to have proof that I had similar thoughts over a year ago.
Lastly, my online presence has turned into a swamp and I’m stuck in quicksand. About the only elements getting attention these dates are my email and twitter account. My Google Reader is getting cleaned out around once a week, and my blog has been postless for quite some time. Some of this is due to my life getting a little hectic with some life changes taking place, some of it is getting oriented into my new job (where 90% of the information I hear is proprietary, confidential or requires fact verification). Regardless, I’ve been drowning and want to make things simple (again). I don’t know how to do that… but maybe I’ll figure it out.
CMM October 21st, 2007
From the KnoxNews.Com “Micro-blogging the weekend.”
I downloaded twitter about 6 months ago; an attempt to navigate through the swamp that is social networking. Through all of the little downloads and packages I checked out, Twitter was one of a handful of actual value-add applications. Not only do my friends and family keep up with my twitter log (conveniently located on this blog), but I also follow a number of informative and helpful folks (Guy Kawasaki, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, etc). As an MBA in East TN, I get some pretty valuable insight from these I&E business leaders. While I’ve never had a real conversation with any of the guys, they all utilize twitter and their blogs to send out the occasional though-provoking and informative rant.
I’m certainly digging the fact that twitter is getting attention in East TN. It’s nice to see local folks being relatively early adopters for some novel (and possible valuable?) social networking technology.
Update: I actually swapped emails with Fred Wilson (see above) about aggregate community twittering. Rock on. He mentioned http://www.alleyinsider.com/community-twitter.html. It would be cool to have something like this in Knoxville.
