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My Blackberry's Atwitter
It seems that the digerati (which I try my best to be part of) has gone nuts for a new social messaging service called twitter while down at south by shoutwest (sxsw).
I can't be left behind so I joined yesterday and quickly friended a few people.
I went a step further by connecting my blackberry (via sms) to twitter.
Bad move.
My blackberry was buzzing like mad all day yesterday (I am a fan of vibrate, not ring) with tidbits like jason calacanis boasting about the weather in LA and that he made valleywag again.
I found out the jason chervokas was listening to classical music, that Charlie O'Donnell was leaving sxsw, and that friending techmeme on twitter is a crazy idea.
I am not entirely sure what's new here. My friend Gordon Gould started UPOC in 1999 to offer a very similar service which unfortunately did noit take the world by storm (unfortunate because the gotham gal and I were investors).
I will keep trying to find value on twitter but I am going to turn techmeme off asap.
Sorry for no links and the typos.I am posting this from my blackberry while it vibrates with new techmeme messages.
Comments (20) | Posted March 13, 2007 in Venture Capital and Technology
Comments
"I am not entirely sure what's new here."
I don't think it's about newness. I think it's about good timing. Were we ready, in 1999, to assume that our friends, let alone complete strangers, would be interested in the dullest minutiae of our lives? I love that everyone talks about the "excitement" surrounding Twitter, but when you see what's on there your eyes glaze over.
Posted by: Greg | Mar 13, 2007 8:44:27 AM
I see SMS termination fees and no obvious (no pun intended) way of monetizing them. I just don't think you have enough psychographic data there to really target ads well.
I've heard some folks say Twitter is tipping. One of the nice things about not being in the sili valley echo chamber is you you don't just hear you and your friends. I don't think twitter has broken out of the digerati yet.
Posted by: Erik Schwartz | Mar 13, 2007 8:44:59 AM
I've been on Twitter for a couple of months now. I had to turn the SMS alerts off...just way too much junk. I used to get excited when my blackberry alerted me....
Anyway, I do think their widget is cool. I have it on my blog (left column) and it updates with my last twitter message.
I find it useful in that I can text message to Twitter as a way of quickly "updating" my blog without writing a full post. Great for quick thoughts, etc.
Posted by: Andy Swan | Mar 13, 2007 9:26:14 AM
Fred, welcome to Twittering on the Blackberry. Do make sure you're on a fixed SMS plan with your carrier. My first burst of Twitter on the Blackberry spiked my monthly bill by over $100.
One can also turn it off on the Blackberry, but then it's like regular IM on a PC.
Of course, the cool part is that it's the geek crowd that's the heart of the matter.
Posted by: Michael Parekh | Mar 13, 2007 10:08:02 AM
A technology in search of a market.
The SXSW crowd likes to think of itself as early adopters when in fact they might be best categorized as "way too early" adopters.
First AI, then General Magic and Worlds, Inc., now Second Life and Twitter. Will these uber geeks every get a life and get any inkling of what life's like in the real world? Alas, they don't have a "First Life," so they need a Second Life and other toys. Children masquerading as adults.
Posted by: David Scott Lewis | Mar 13, 2007 10:18:01 AM
I tend to think that sites like Twitter are the online equivalent of Beanie Babies. People will try it because their friends are using it, say "that's cute," and go on with their lives.
In six months, the fad will be over and we'll all wonder what the excitement was about.
The key difference is that there was a way to make money manufacturing Beanie Babies. Making money manufacturing online fads is a dicier proposition.
Posted by: Shivering Timbers | Mar 13, 2007 10:28:11 AM
does anyone work in that whole space. stupid, stupid, lame.
Posted by: howard Lindzon | Mar 13, 2007 10:35:42 AM
Hey, there are alot of humans on Twitter that "update" far more frequently than twitter.com/Techmeme (which posts at lower volume than the main site).
The crazyness of friending Techmeme is why I put Techmeme in there. :)
Posted by: Gabe | Mar 13, 2007 11:18:44 AM
I'm not a big fan of twitter. So far it seems to be a fad that just increases the level of noise out there.
I do think the platform has great potential in the corporate world though.
Posted by: Andy Brudtkuhl | Mar 13, 2007 11:32:52 AM
I could see this being pretty kick ass for teenagers/twenties who are all about knowing what their friends are up to.
Posted by: Rick | Mar 13, 2007 1:47:39 PM
Twitter is great for when you just have to share something, but it's not quite blog worthy, or it's transient.
Unlike your blogroll, i think you have to be a little more selective to really make it work for you (although Scoble boasts 1000+ twitter friends), but it's nice because you get instant notifications of who's doing/thinking what.
Basically, it's dodgeball without the geography, although what I think would be best is a mashup between the two.
Posted by: Daryn | Mar 13, 2007 2:40:13 PM
This post sums it up:
http://mashable.com/2007/03/11/twitter/
Posted by: Daryn | Mar 13, 2007 2:50:25 PM
Totally agree with you, Fred. I was a UPOC user back in the day and the novelty wore off pretty quickly. Some of your commenters mention potential business models, but there has to be a value proposition for the end user. Maybe for teenagers, as Rick suggests.
Posted by: Pamela Parker | Mar 13, 2007 4:15:31 PM
As for monetization, I was under the impression that Twitter gets a small % for every SMS message sent?
Posted by: ted | Mar 13, 2007 6:10:36 PM
Here are 2 lists of Mobile 2.0 companies
http://www.squidoo.com/moco20/
http://mobile20.wetpaint.com/
In my opinion twitter is the weakest social net/txting company on these lists. Somehow they have inertia??
I was excited about upoc a few years back. I think it was way ahead of its time.
Posted by: Mike Sabat | Mar 13, 2007 7:09:48 PM
I'm not sold on Twitter. What's the use of it? I know that tons of 'digerati' are using it but what is the real staying power of it? It's ANOTHER thing that we must update daily.
Posted by: Darren Herman | Mar 13, 2007 10:55:22 PM
There is value from a user perspective - it is great for those who are in the interested category VS those who want to be interesting.
If you add the people you want to know and learn about, you get to know more about the person that should lay a good foundation for a long term relationship or a great filter to not invest further time on them.
The 'cost of information' about someone seems to dip....
No?
Posted by: Mrinal | Mar 14, 2007 4:33:50 AM
I've posted some recent 'favorite twitters' from the last two days to give people a sense of the types of things folks may find interesting if they want to subscribe themselves (from Robert Scoble, Jeff Barr, Betsy Weber, Chris Pirillo and others):
http://301url.com/96i
http://301url.com/best-twitters
Posted by: Dave Schappell | Mar 15, 2007 12:13:20 PM
The best thing about Twitter is the t-shirt, which says simply "wearing my twitter t-shirt"
Posted by: Derek Scruggs | Mar 15, 2007 12:50:37 PM
David Scott Lewis says "In six months, the fad will be over and we'll all wonder what the excitement was about."
LOL David - six months PLUS two years later... got any more smart alec quips for us?
Posted by: KickahaWolfenhaut | Sep 21, 2009 12:52:27 PM
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