Social – Page 10 – ɔimoɈɒ

Twitter: so how does it make money?

A thoughtful piece from 37Signals on the necessity to monetise Twitter “That doesnâ€™t exonerate them from building a more stable service. Especially not considering that they have five million dollars of other peopleâ€™s money to do it with and a few years of practice.” “If the growth in Twitter usage was mirrored by an equal … Continue reading “Twitter: so how does it make money?”

A thoughtful piece from 37Signals on the necessity to monetise Twitter

“That doesnâ€™t exonerate them from building a more stable service. Especially not considering that they have five million dollars of other peopleâ€™s money to do it with and a few years of practice.”

“If the growth in Twitter usage was mirrored by an equal growth in Twitter profits, the necessary investments needed for infrastructure would be self-evident. But when the money pot is an ever-shrinking gift-with-strings-attached, you canâ€™t just blow your way out of the issue with cash.”

It’s true. Twitter’s scaling issues are a bugbear in their sides because as their userbase is growing, the Potential Value (in terms of Attention) of the company grows but the Actual Value (in terms of revenue) stays stagnant. And they have a huge amount of Virtual Debt in the shape of investors who will want a return. So, yes, the service itself is cool but is it sustainable?

It seems to me they have three options:

Someone buys them for a gazillion dollars. This is what happened to Jaiku. Google bought them and then kinda ignored them. I guess it was a defensive buy? It then becomes someone else’s problem at how to make money out of it? I must say I don’t mind the way Twitterific handles it – advertising sponsored play is good enough. This is the model that the investors will likely want.
They find out a way to make money. What about building in the feature that Twitter-ites (Twitterlanders? Tweeters?) could make their own adverts? Anyone can tweet but Tweetvertising allows graphics? Maybe even audio or video? Maybe even some opt-in tracking (as if I’m being forced to watch adverts, at least make them interesting to me!). Or maybe offer Tweets separate to SMS to mobile phone companies? Make it unlimited for people who have signed onto Tweet plans but limit those of us who slip in under the radar with data. That’s certainly going to reduce some of the ‘noise’. I am guessing here that they already get a percentage of every SMS sent them? Unless this is truly revolutionary, it’s probably not going to please the investors.
They break out the infrastructure and make it P2P. This could shift the responsibility for uptime to others and allow them to host their own options for advertising or value-added services. Maybe even license the software out so there are a bazillion twitter servers out there. This would be the method by which Twitter could sneak up and murder Instant Messaging in it’s sleep. I tweeted recently that Twitter was not Broadcast IM. But, of course, it is.

End of the day, it’s not my problem but I wonder what happens when they spent the last cent of the VC money they have received. Does the world go dark?

Here and where again?

The title for this blog post derives from the autre-title for “The Hobbit” which was “There and Back Again”. It details an arduous journey, full of frustration and friction, in order to have an adventure and then return home. As the months pass in $BIG_COMPANY, it becomes clearer to me what I want to be … Continue reading “Here and where again?”

As the months pass in $BIG_COMPANY, it becomes clearer to me what I want to be doing with the rest of my life.

Not this. It’s not even that I dislike corporate wage slave culture. I actually have no issues with it. I loved my time in Nortel and only moved on because timing, opportunity and encouragement were right. This is just mind-numbing. And typical, of course, of worst-class pandering to executives while stripping the workers of their pay rises. Not good enough for me.
I’m also not sure about whether I want to get back into IT work. It’s something (I think) I’m good at, having done it for over a decade now and there are new areas of business I’d like to move into, certainly, but the allure of crawling around chasing cables in a dusty footwell under a desk just doesn’t have the same appeal.
There are some things I’m totally enamoured with. Ubiquitous wireless. Co-Working. Bedouin working. The ‘Presence’ aspect of social software. The tricky thing is how to get all of that to pay a mortgage and feed a dog. Yes, I have a plan. I just need the timing to be right (after all I’ve got a full dance card until around September).

At the moment, with someone leaving $BIG_COMPANY every week, it doesn’t surprise me that I feel this way (and that I’m obviously not alone). I do wonder what sort of job you have to be in to get the freedom to attend talks and trips like Paddy’s Valley. I asked to attend a 1 day Open Source event in Belfast and was told it would be annual leave – some companies have such vision!

The answer is therefore to figure out what I really want to do, get paid for doing it, and wander off into the sunset.

It’s the question that drives us.

Bedou-working…

The Economist on Techno-Bedouin. “The proper metaphor for somebody who carries portable but unwieldy and cumbersome infrastructure is that of an astronaut rather than a nomad, says Paul Saffo, a trend-watcher in Silicon Valley. Astronauts must bring what they need, including oxygen, because they cannot rely on their environment to provide it. They are both … Continue reading “Bedou-working…”

The Economist on Techno-Bedouin.

“The proper metaphor for somebody who carries portable but unwieldy and cumbersome infrastructure is that of an astronaut rather than a nomad, says Paul Saffo, a trend-watcher in Silicon Valley. Astronauts must bring what they need, including oxygen, because they cannot rely on their environment to provide it. They are both defined and limited by their gear and supplies.”

“Urban nomads have started appearing only in the past few years. Like their antecedents in the desert, they are defined not by what they carry but by what they leave behind, knowing that the environment will provide it. Thus, Bedouins do not carry their own water, because they know where the oases are. Modern nomads carry almost no paper because they access their documents on their laptop computers, mobile phones or online. Increasingly, they don’t even bring laptops.”

This is parallel to the Co-Working strategy that David and Andy have been working on.

It’s a tall order to fill a co-working space. Even at an offer acceptance of Â£10 000 per annum, that still means the costs will likely be Â£18 000 per year (when you add Â£6800+ in rates and minimal electricity) not including broadband and heating – that’s Â£1500 a month! To bring the costs to a manageable level that people might want to pay, you’re going to have to aim for occupancy of around 15+. You could do it with less people (paying more) but you’re then really buying into the idea that people will pay for a co-working environment.

I’ve already said that Mac-Sys will put money down to secure a space (which will likely be used once in a blue moon) and we’ll also supply some of the infrastructure as well, if required. I hope it works out – I’m a little jealous of the guys involved as my dance card is totally filled at the moment (with work, babysitting, writing the new book, spending time with her indoors and trying to actually live life!).

I still have my own dreams regarding a Co-Work space that will likely never be realised due to the costs and time it would take to set up (and the fact it’s not an affair for an attic). My theory is that a co-work space needs to have it’s own identity and, if necessary, it’s own employees. Someone needs to be responsible for cleaning the loos, someone needs to keep the place running, chase up the co-conspirators for rent money – and just like in a shared house, that can be incredibly wearing on the patience. Hence you hire someone to do it.

This is why my idea for it was based around the coffee shop. The idea being to straddle the space between public coffee shop and serviced office. I was never 100% sure if Belfast was the right place for it but I still would like to give it a go.

It needs more than just an office though. It needs to be a network.

More cynical about Twitter than ever

“But there +is+ value in having a great group of people youâ€™re following. Follow @craignewmark and youâ€™ll see what Craig is seeing or thinking (heâ€™s the founder of Craigsâ€™ List). Follow @pierre and youâ€™ll see what heâ€™s thinking (heâ€™s the founder of eBay). Follow HRBlock and youâ€™ll see what the team at H&R Block is … Continue reading “More cynical about Twitter than ever”

“But there +is+ value in having a great group of people youâ€™re following. Follow @craignewmark and youâ€™ll see what Craig is seeing or thinking (heâ€™s the founder of Craigsâ€™ List). Follow @pierre and youâ€™ll see what heâ€™s thinking (heâ€™s the founder of eBay). Follow HRBlock and youâ€™ll see what the team at H&R Block is thinking about taxes and such. Follow @newmediajim and youâ€™ll see what Jim Long, who is a camera guy in the press pool at the White House, is thinking about.”

“People still arenâ€™t getting this. They didnâ€™t get how I was using Twitter and still donâ€™t. I follow the worldâ€™s best early adopters, business executives, and entrepreneurs. I really donâ€™t care if I have a single follower. If I defined myself by my followers Iâ€™d always feel inadequate. If I define myself by the people who I follow, well, I follow the smartest, richest, coolest, funniest people in the world. That makes me smarter, richer, cooler, and funnier.”

In the same voice, Robert claims to be following over TWENTY THOUSAND PEOPLE.

It’s bullshit.

Follow the people who are the movers and shakers. Follow Craig Newmark. Follow the people who are doing cool work. But before you get enveloped in your own hype, consider if it is possible to process the tweets of 20000 people and get any work done in a day. No, it’s just a number. It’s a self-serving hype machine.

See the difference between a spammer and a self-hype-machine?

I don’t.

For example.

Robert is following 20207 people and is followed by 19076 people.
Today I was ‘followed’ by half a dozen spambots which, you’ll note, added me and then dropped me. Reason being that you receive an update when someone follows you but not when they stop following you. So it’s a brief marketing ploy and one you’d have to check up on.

I’m cynical. Following 20 000 people dilutes the value of Twitter because your chance of seeing anything of value is greatly diminished. Unless, of course, you’re filtering the content of the thousands of nobodies and only really listening to the tens of A-listers.

And if you’re just listening to A-listers…

Why Twitter (or alike) should replace email

I get a lot of email. I also have quite a few people who talk to me via Instant Messenger. On top of that there are the blogs I read. And then there’s Twitter where you can have a conversation, albeit somewhat public for the most part (though private messages are supported). Twitter-like services are … Continue reading “Why Twitter (or alike) should replace email”

Twitter-like services are a contender for replacing email as they provide a method of controlling spam. That’s my main message here considering how much email spam I get all day. I spend a lot of time identifying messages as junk or taking the risk and deleting junk messages from my junk mail folder without a second glance.

I set my instant messenger to only show my presence to friends. And modern IM services allow you to send messages to offline people so they pick them up when they log on next time. Spam is controlled.

I pay attention to the blogs I read because the people there have something to say. With the exception of news.bbc.co.uk I don’t visit any other sites for news. I dump blogs which contain too many ads or which just talk about themselves all the time.

I say all of this after half a dozen spambots just followed me on Twitter. I glanced at their profile names and didn’t follow them. They’re not even in my field of vision.

Why else could it work better then email?

Updates by RSS (over http rather than smtp/pop/imap which would work through proxies better)
You follow who you choose rather than just attempting to filter out the crap they send you for free.
RSS has support for attachments. Isn’t this the only reason to really use email anyway?

23/100 My Mother is On Facebook

Continuing my work on writing about 100 different topics… My mother is not on Facebook nor is she on any of the other social networking sites but there are members of my family who are. To be honest, my mother has just about gotten used to using a computer for email (though her replies are … Continue reading “23/100 My Mother is On Facebook”

Continuing my work on writing about 100 different topics…

My mother is not on Facebook nor is she on any of the other social networking sites but there are members of my family who are. To be honest, my mother has just about gotten used to using a computer for email (though her replies are very infrequent).

My own Facebook profile is/was very tame. I had links to my blog posts, links to my friends, music I like and places I’d been. I deliberately cut back on Zombie Fights, Werewolf invites, Admission to be a member of the Knights of the Round Table, SuperWall, FunWall, MetaWall and all the rest of that and my main reason was that My Mother could be on FaceBook

If you log onto a standard profile on FaceBook you’ll see a lot of these mini-apps and you’ll see the content (a lot of it adult-rated) that finds it’s way onto the SuperWalls and similar applications if you’re not monitoring the content. If not your mother, imagine a prospective employer reading this stuff. You might have an innocent profile but if you’re linked to someone who sends adult-rated content and you’re on their photo gallery shitfaced and dancing naked from the waist down at a local bar, it could damage your ability to get a job. That said, I’m relatively convinced that most recruiters here don’t have the time or wherewithall to use tools like LinkedIn or FaceBook to help them find or vet candidates. And none of my managers throughout my history of being an employed lackey would have the forethought to search for me online.

It is, however, only a matter of time.

[Chris Brogan’s 100 topics]

From Bedouin Tents to the Big Top

For a long while now I’ve been a proponent of ‘Bedouin’ working, which is known a little more in the mainstream as ‘co-working’. Whereas co-working speaks to me of a common, shared space for individuals to work, Bedouin speaks of multiple spaces, some of them dedicated and some of them ad-hoc where individuals can work. … Continue reading “From Bedouin Tents to the Big Top”

Loic Le Meur adds another definition into the mix: The Moving Circus.

I’m going to modify his list in terms of the parts that I find especially relevant to my own ideas about mobil/bedouin working and co-working. In doing so I’ve nibbled it down to 10 of Loic’s points which I find are more relevant than the others (and removed some specific product references). Some of the characterisations of the Moving Circus are:

no office
- This is best expressed as either being completely bedouin (I work where I please and yesterday I networked with a teacher, a lawyer and a homemaker.) or not having a ‘private’ office (I co-work with ten other individuals in different industries and we regularly kick around ideas at the water cooler).
no boss (self employed)
- I’m not going to criticise being an employee or being a non-founder because I’ve enjoyed being both a founder and a non-founder. The best thing about being your own boss is that you understand the reasons for the stupid mistakes your boss makes. Following a boss who is, frankly, stupid is career suicide.
no tie, no suit: casual all the time
- It’s 2008. Any institution that requires developers to wear a suit or business casual is archaic. Sure – customer facing there may be a role for it (though what’s wrong with a black turtleneck and jeans?)
no monopoly, no center, everything decentralized
- Too many companies, especially small businesses with 3-10 employees, put everything they own onto one server – using a Microsoft Small Business Server – on their ADSL line in their office. That’s just bad juju. Keep your files in the cloud. Back them up to a local store. Back them up to somewhere else in the cloud. Use lightweight applications (No, you don’t need Word) which can be easily replaced. Standardise on file formats that are well-supported in a lot of software and not proprietary files which need an expensive reader.
in sync: no email, no phone, just IM, twitter, social software…
- To me there is a place for email. It’s for time-independent messaging. Instant messaging is obvious too. And the phone? With a handsfree kit it’s what you use when driving. An important point is not to lock your staff behind an ultra-restrictive firewall. Don’t block their email hosts. Happy workers can check their banks, pick up emails from friends, shop on eBay for that knick-knack for their spouse. If you don’t trust them to get the job done, what are you paying them for?
no off-line: everything online
- A little short-sighted because networking is not yet ubiquitous. I have ‘desire’ for offline storage and processing because of this. The lack of storage for files other than music and movies is a real bugbear on the iPhone.
no distance: it does not matter where you are
- This could not be truer. I had a brief twitter conversation this week regarding location. If housing is expensive where you are, move. You do not need to be in the city. I moved to a nice house 5 minutes walk from a beach and I do not regret it at all.
no fear of embarrassment or of failure: the “always beta” culture
- I think it’s great there’s no fear of failure or there’s acknowledgment of mistakes and a desire to do better in an honest and transparent way. But the ‘always beta’ thing bothers me as it often means that it’s okay to be crap because it’s not finished. Or that support is withheld because it’s unfinished. Being unfinished is a journey not an excuse.
entrepreneurial or self employed
- Sometimes I do feel like I was born twenty years too late. To be 18 years old now, with the possibilities laid out for you and with some sense of entrepreneurial spirit would be a wonderful thing. But I’m an old fogey. Oh well.
ideas over systems
- Every conversation should start with “Wouldn’t it be cool if….” and then after that you worry how to build it (and ideally the person saying it has some appreciation of the challenges involved).

The gist of the Moving Circus is also that at the various conferences/unconferences you go to, you see a lot of the same faces. If you go to OpenIsland, BarCampBelfast, NiMUG, OpenCoffee, BLUG, Cocoaheads or any of the other ‘techie’ things in the province it’s the same people. I’ve not been to Apple Expo in a couple of years now but there was a small group of UK people who would always find each other at the Expo. I think this would be even more prevalent these days with more social networking apps like FaceBook, Twitter.

Is this a good trend? Maybe there needs to be more of an ‘advertisement’ telling others that there are events going on. Some, like NiMUG and Cocoaheads, are pretty specific to a subgroup who use the Mac. BLUG, similarly is for people who want to group together because of Linux. But there’s more than this and it should be open to more than just technologists – there’s a lot of potential for leftbrain and rightbrain types to mingle.

Working conditions

â€œself-funded small business that encourages people to stay away from the VCs, says you donâ€™t need to live in San Francisco to be successful, suggests that charging for your products is a good thing, espouses the advantages of small teams, applauds shorter work weeks with more reasonable hours, rejects the notion of traditional â€˜seriousness business … Continue reading “Working conditions”

â€œself-funded small business that encourages people to stay away from the VCs, says you donâ€™t need to live in San Francisco to be successful, suggests that charging for your products is a good thing, espouses the advantages of small teams, applauds shorter work weeks with more reasonable hours, rejects the notion of traditional â€˜seriousness business stuff,â€™ and believes keeping it simple is the way to success.â€

Yup

Jason Calacanis was hounded a little last week with his comments about workaholics but it’s worth looking at what he said rather than the rants about how people interpreted them.

when you don’t love what you do it sucks.

I can totally empathise with this as I keep working on trying to do the switch again? Explain? Okay. I will, but not here.

Jason also says
Very much paraphrased here…and removing some points which I don’t feel can apply universally.

Buy Macs. They’ll save you money in the long run
Buy an extra monitor for everyone. Makes people happy and productive
Buy lunch. Often.
Find a good accountant to handle tax and wages

This, the Jason Calacanis/37Signals model is the model I already run with for the most part, but there are limits, e.g.

I think most customers would prefer that Mac-Sys was open 6 days a week rather than 5 (but that limitation comes from the Enterprise Park and not from us). We have campaigned repeatedly to get this changed…
The hosting company needs to be available 7 days a week. That’s just a reality. Nothing can be done about that and it’s up there with my own expectations.
Infurious could get away with a 4 day week, probably less considering everyone is working at it part time at the moment anyway.

but the issue with all of this is in terms of equality. Rolling out something to one group and not another isn’t egalitarian and therefore I’m not willing to consider it. It’s not an issue at the moment because the hosting company and Infurious are both still in startup mode. Working conditions are not bad at all – it’s not a stressed environment, they get to work with interesting people every day, they do stuff they enjoy and the only aggro was who gets to play their music on the Airport Express. But it’s not perfect, we’re starting to get tight on space and I’m feeling more and more that a city centre location (or one walkable to from the major bus and train stops) would be better for everyone.

I think 2008 will be a time for me to work on improving the working conditions for everyone.

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