If there was ever a poster app for Web 2.0 tools you need to use to really understand, Twitter would be it.  On the surface, it's quite easy for someone to look at it and go, "It's a bunch of people incessantly blabbering  on about meaningless crap."  Fred made a great point at lunch today that you could just as well say that about instant messengers, but obviously IM clients represent some of the most valuable and sticky applications users have on their desktops.

Past the incessant microupdates, though, which I, of course, take part in, there's  much more potential here.   If anything, Twitter's biggest challenge to success may be in defining exactly what it wants to be when it grows up and what customers it wants to serve.  And, of course, its fun and interesting for us bloggers to ponder such theoretical exercises.

Right now, very much like del.icio.us at the time of its funding.  It has a lot of passionate users, people are building mashups and lightweight apps on top of it, and it has the potential to be a lot of different things.  These outcomes don't have to be mutually exclusive, but it will certainly be interesting to see how Twitter brands itself over time, builds features, and what segments of the population it actively goes after.   In fact, who the service targets will likely influence what it becomes, and vice versa, so in some sense, defining its audience is largely an exercise in self-definition.

There are a few groups, applications, instantiations, versions, etc. of Twitter that I think could gain a lot of traction that make for interesting thought experiments:

1. LiveJournal & other Social Networks:  I picked out LiveJournal because it's a perfect fit.  Each  blogs is read by only a small handful of readers--friends of the LJer.  Providing a tool by which they could continue to communicate off the site could help increase loyalty and social interaction to a site that already excels in those areas, but would probably like to extend its reach.  Plus, LJ already has a "status" that is a widely used part of the site.  It would be only natural to want to allow LJers to publish this status or blog updates across the web, IMs, and mobile.  Facebook should be powering its status through Twitter as well.  One thing that both of these sites do quite well is promote communication, and I think the keys to their future are implementing features that help maintain the communicative aspects of social networking.  Sites like MySpace aren't going to survive if its just about friend adding and profile browsing.  Key Feature: Privacy.  Social networks need robust privacy features and so do the apps that build on them.  Most LJ blogs are closed and making sure they've simplified and completely nailed the privacy features would be key to adoption.  Key Business Point:  Will SNS realize that enabling more user communication is key to user engagement and loyalty or will they look for immediate paths to monetization?  Plus
2. Conference Attendees:  SXSW really nailed it for me.  With various possible tracks and a constantly ebbing and flowing swirl of closely proximated people, Twitter proved to be the perfect conference app.  People freely gave out their Twitter screenames knowing that they could always leave or block those people later on, lowering the bar for mobile communication.  If you're running a big conference, you should be using Twitter to be the digital hallway, and as we all know, hallways are often the best parts of conferences.  Key Feature: Stats, Directories, and Co-Registration.  Conference producers would definitely look for ways to get more of their audience on this, and to provide them with enough information to message each other.  Streamlining the registration process so that you can sign up for Twitter or publicize your account when registering for the conference would be key.  This way, they could publish your screename in attendee directories and make it easier for key networking contacts to find you.   In addition, they would probably die for a management view of this app where they could see who the "talkers" were, who they were talking to, connections over time, conference feedback, etc.   Key Business Point:  What does the management tool look like and could you sell it?
3. Corporate Twitter: We have an intra-office e-mail address that blasts messages to everyone that routinely gets abused by reply-alls that I wish I could unsubscribe to.  On top of that, there's often the need to message people through phones in short form when you don't know exactly where you are.  Putting a smart phone seems like overkill for this and not everyone necessarily wants to give their cell number out to the whole office.  Twitter could be a great cross-platform IRC channel for small to midsize offices, and even part of an office's emergency management plans, with its capacity to blast messages out to a large group of mobile users.  Key Feature: Privacy and monitoring.  Corporate IM applications have needed to not only provide extra levels of security and privacy, but also monitoring of what gets discussed.  Twitter would likely have to do the same, lest anyone Twitter corporate secrets.   Key Business Point:  How corporate would it be?  Perhaps just a lightweight app more geared towards small businesses would be a better start, rather than building a heavy locked down version behind the firewall.
4. Content subscription portal:  There have been lots of fake celebs popping up on Twitter...   Steven Wright, Christopher Walken, John Edwards... (oh, wait.. Edwards is real, right?).  Adding a celeb or a business to get a stream of content from them makes so much more sense than just being their friend via a profile.  It's only a matter of time before bands, movies, comedians, etc. make Twitter a standard part of their communication with fans.  Plus, I wouldn't mind a Weather Channel Twitter update on Brooklyn weather conditions, score changes for the Mets, and Hudson River water temps.  Key Feature: Spam prevention.  Twitter will have to build in some limitations on how often 3rd party content providers can blast out updates, what types of messages are allowed, etc., just in case marketers get overzealous.   Key Business Point:  There was a land grab on Twitter names when they opened up their API and they may need to boot some squatters, but this is likely to come to pass and I'm sure it will be a revenue opportunity for them.  The question is what is a Twitter subscriber worth?
5. Gaming:  I'm surprised that people haven't built large scale games out of Twitter.  (Sounds like a Jane project...)  Twitter could blur the line between participants and lurkers, since your public twits related to the game could enable others to follow along and perhaps jump in with answers, route advice for location based games, etc.  Imagine adding a game "friend" one day and just knowing that, sometime over the next week, you're going to get instructions for a game.  Key Feature: Spam prevention.  Twitter will have to build in some limitations on how often 3rd party content providers can blast out updates, what types of messages are allowed, etc., just in case marketers get overzealous.   Key Business Point:  There's big advergaming potential here, and the great thing about Twitter is that it acts like a portal.  You don't have to remember some special shortcode for a mobile game... everything is based on 40404.  Gaming and mobile contests can be built in a very social way with Twitter and enable lower barriers to entry and discovery.

What else could Twitter be?  Where is it's greatest potential?

• Advertising Age - Dell Quells Critics With Web 2.0 Tack
  (tags: blogging socialmedia customerservice fordhamclass)

So, the route is pretty much planned out and so is the calendar, but that still leaves a lot of things that need to be done, like what we do at certain places, things to bring, etc.

We could use some help, so if anyone could help us out with the following, we'd really appreciate it.

1. Tunes - We'll need quite a lot of tunes on our trip, since we're spending three full days in the car, so if anyone would like to send over some mixed CDs, we'll check 'em out and give you a shoutout, plus a little review.  You can either e-mail me playlists or mail me CDs to 7423 Ridge Blvd., Apt. 1B, Brooklyn, NY 11209.
2. Western NY - We need to stop in Western NY on our way to Cleveland and we got a tip that Olean, NY has a decent place to say and that pretty close to St. Bonaventure and Allegheny State Park, so that looks like a go to me, but we've set out to spend a fair bit of time trekking through Western NY the next day and would like suggestions on places to stop along the 86/90 route west of Olean.  I'm thinking food, farms, nature stuff...  quaint little places that no one knows about, etc.  It seems like it would be a pretty quaint country drive if we found some nice places to check out.  Also, if there's a place in the Olean, NY area that you think is worth staying at, let us know.
3. St. Louis - What to do in St. Louis on a Wednesday morning?  Brunch?  Shopping area?  Something historic?
4. Sioux Falls, SD - Where to eat lunch?
5. Yellowstone - Best place to camp out and also where to go to buy a lightweight tent for two without breaking the bank, since its probably the only time we'll need one.  We're going to spend  a day in Yellowstone. 

• Salvador Dali: Woman at the Window (Muchacha en la ventana)
  Mere's favorite painting.
  (tags: art dali painting mere)
• Derik Whittaker : Questions every Candidate should ask a potential new employer
  (tags: careers jobs employment)

I've been reading the Moral Animal and it had a really fascinating observation about self-deception.

It turns out that self-deception is likely to be a natural evolutionary advantage, developed as our perception about our outside world improved.  As you would expect, humans with better sensory perception had an advantage over rivals--they could sense danger, forage better for food, size up opponents, etc. 

Our increased sensory perception also allowed us to read body language, facial expression--look past a bad poker face, essentially. 

The self-deception comes in when it becomes and advantage not to give away a lie with your body language.  And, as we all know from George Costanza, "It's not a lie if you believe it."  To an extent, deceiving yourself first is an effective way to decieve others, and, for better or worse, the ability to deceive others is an evolutionary advantage.  Perfect example: standing up to a bully twice your size.  Perfectly translated observation to cognition to observation should tell you that you're going to get your ass handed to you.  However, if you can delude yourself enough that you actually have what it takes to win, you might get the other guy to think twice, versus smelling blood.

Of course, in this case, the combination of speed and self delusion turns out to be the best advantage.

I wonder if self delusion isn't a natural advantage of entrepreneurs?  You have to admit, attempting to knock off Google or Microsoft or whoever must come with some kind of evolutionary kool aid consumption.

• How to get started as a Venture Capital (VC) analyst
  (tags: vc analyst careers web2.0)
• schrodingers-lolcat.jpg (JPEG Image, 500x500 pixels)
  (tags: hilarious lolcats)
• apophenia: Harvard Business Review Case Commentary: "We Googled You" (newly interactive)
  (tags: Blogging politics privacy careers)

A lot of people ask me about my VC experience and want to know the secret to getting into the VC world.  Its a pertinent question, especially if you're in NYC.  If you've been paying attention, my VC successor will probably reach the  halfway point in his stint this year, and if you wait until that spot actually opens up to position yourself, well, you'll probably be too late.

As an analyst, you can be useful at pretty much only three things: communication, sourcing, and analysis.  The great thing for VC wannabes is that these are all things that you can do now, before a job even comes up.  There's nothing stopping you from putting forth your analysis of a new startup, or tipping VCs off to potential deals today, even when you're not at a firm. 

Many students have the misconception that, as an analyst, you're going to be put in front of a big stack of business plans and your filtering skill is what's going to make you the next Mike Moritz.  Guess again.  VCs hustle hard to track down deals and they expect everyone in the shop to be bringing deals to the table, because you should be in the flow of interesting things going on.

But, all this can be a lot of handwaving unless you have specific, applicable action items, and since the web loves top ten lists:

1) Make a digital home for yourself.

If I haven't beat this to death already, creating a digital presence, preferably through a blog, gives people you connect with a landing page.  It is the center of operations for all your online networking and a place for people to assess what you're all about, what you're thinking, etc--the equivalent of  hoisting a sail on a windy day.  No presence, no sail.

2) Know your community calendar... attend.

As a VC, you want to meet innovators, but the innovators are already meeting... in Meetups and Co-working groups, speaking events, and usergroups.  (nextNY, for example,if you're into tech in NYC) They'll be a lot more accepting to you if the first time you meet them isn't when you're trying to vulture around for something to shove money into.  Plus, you need to get out there and in the flow to keep up with what's going on. 

3) Be passionate for the product...no matter what it is.

Frankly, I don't know how anyone could be a VC analyst and not be passionate about the products they're looking to invest in.  If you're doing web services, and you're not a user, you're just never going to get it.  Why do people use Twitter?  Why is Facebook better than MySpace?  These are things you're just not going to understand if you're not a real user. 

4) Be an innovation leader in your own world.

You don't have to be a former entrepreneur, but being generally entrepreneurial and an innovator helps.  Did you lead the investment or entrepreneurship club at your college?  No?  Why not?   There wasn't one?   BUZZ  Wrong answer.  You should have started it.

5) Be selfless with your time for startups.

One of the most valuable thing you can do with your time as analyst is just talk to a lot of startups...get a sense of what you like and what you don't, best practices, good teams vs. weak teams, etc.   And startups are often looking for feedback, beta testers, ideas...   the more you make yourself available, the more you will learn and generally be seen as a useful person to talk to.  Go help a startup with their marketing plan.

6) Ignore the hype.

It's not just about e-mailing the companies you find on TechCrunch.   Just because it doesn't have AJAX doesn't mean it won't be worth billions one day.  Remember that the whole world doesn't necessarily blog and some startups can't even be found online yet because they're still in stealth.  You need to cut through the buzz and make your own decisions.

7) Teach.

You will never have a clearer understanding of how something works until you attempt to teach it to someone else, which requires you to make some semblance of sense of your subject.  Offer to teach at your high school or the Learning Annex or anything...  Convince grandma to join Facebook.  It will be a sobering experience and will remind you that not everyone gets RSS and some people don't see the value of being social and out there.  It's those people that startup success is built on.  Win the middle.

8) Be social and have a personality.

If you're going to be an involved community member, people need to actually like hanging out with you.  This is where those countless hours in college bars should have taught you something.  I know plenty of people who succeed because of their great personalities more so than any other reason.  It's not hard to be nice and have a little fun... try it.

9) Build relationships with VCs..not just for stock information interviews.

Right now, you can go do a report on a hot new space or a review of a product and send it to a VC (or tag it for them).   If you really want in to this space, why wouldn't you?   How about hanging around their blog or showing up at the same events?   VC's don't live in a bubble.  Their job dictates that they need to be "out there" and that's where you should be, too.   It always blew my mind when I was at USV how many people sent biz plans to info@unionsquareventuers (dot) com, when we were so out there with our digital presence. 

10) Know your place.

You are not a partner.  You're an analyst.. or you want to be.  There are a lot of people with a lot more experience than you who have seem this all before.  Respect experience.  Don't trash a startup, because, for all you know, the entrepreneur is the VC's best friend from Stanford or they're currently in talks for funding now.  The best thing you can do sometimes is listen.  Listen to what VCs and entrepreneurs are saying on blogs and at conferences and take it all in before you go position yourself as the greatest thing since sliced bread....especially since a large part of your job will be listening and asking smart questions.

So, the next time I hear from someone via LinkedIn or e-mail who wants to hear about my VC experience, I fully expect that they already go to Tech Meetups, have joined nextNY if they are in NYC, use all this stuff passionately, etc....   That's a good first step.

• think:lab: Learning D.N.A. -- Peeking Under the Curtain
  (tags: education)
• Hey Austin for Edwards, please do not spam my del.icio.us for: account
  (tags: spam)

Meet Ethan.

Ethan has a blog.   He does some graphic design work.

I found him because he's attending the Future of Online Advertising Conference and registered for their little social networking app.

Did I mention that he's a 17 year old high school student?

If you teach or work in the career services world, this is exactly what you need to be teaching... how students can create a professional digital presence for themselves and be ambitious enough to go to conferences, connect with people, network, etc.

Or are you too busy running job fairs?   

Soon, the best jobs will be gotten through digital backchannel conversations by people who maintain their professional thoughts in a searchable and consumable manner.

If you're working in career services are you spending more time with students on their resumes or teaching them ways to get jobs without them?

A few people have made attempts at mirroring the nextNY concept in other geographies and I think it's a fantastic idea.

Nathaniel McNamara and Jason Baptiste are down in Miami attempting to bring together people
interested in technology, new media, and entrepreneurship together in a social setting.  If you're down in Florida, you should make a point of connecting with these two guys in their attempt to help strengthen the community of innovators down there.  The "next" concept takes a lot of community interest, passion, and involvement and nextNY has been a fantastic way to connect with others in the space.  Frankly, its brought a lot of people out of the woodwork that I didn't know were there.

Check out the event next Thursday night, June 14th via Facebook or Meetup.

Please forward to Florida startups and innovators...

I just got some politically oriented links supporting John Edwards in my "links for you" section in del.icio.us from "austinforedwards".

The "links for you" section of my del.icio.us account is like an e-mail box, which pretty much makes this spam.  I don't support Edwards for President (he's a good guy, but I'm just waiting for Bloomberg to run... )  So, for one, I'm going to tag this post for:austinforedwards so they can see that I don't want to be spammed.   Two, del.icio.us needs some sort of blocking or report as spam mechanism in that section, because, as of this moment, I have no way to prevent someone I don't know from just tagging a whole bunch of links for me.

• Foot in mouth…
  (tags: fordhamclass)
• The Conscience of a Hacker
  (tags: hacker student technology)
• Ftrain.com
  (tags: design development web reading recommendations blogging)

Ok, nix Greenpoint of my list of places in NYC I'd like to move to....

Link: Exploring the Massive, Viscous Oil Blob That Lies Just Beneath the Streets of Greenpoint -- New York Magazine.

Some unfiltered thoughts that bubbled up at the gym this morning:

• Anyone who has any interest in the future of NYC as an innovation center recognizes the importance of education--not just at the University level, but in high schools and elementary schools as well.  We can't just be a town that attracts smart people from elsewhere to educate them in technology... we need to foster the seeds of technology innovation from a very young age. 
• Couple that with the idea that internet, mobile,  and digital media related companies want better inroads into younger generations, for not just marketing, but for feedback and ideas.
• High school kids need jobs... and ideally more interesting jobs than working at McDonald's.

So, what about some kind of a program whereby startups and large companies alike targeting the high school/college audience engages the schools in an educational manner, in terms of talking about the technology, the business, product management, etc. of their products, and then "hires" these students for both feedback and marketing purposes during the summers.  So, maybe during the year, they do a six week program about all the aspects of their service, and then the students spend the summer providing feedback, helping to market, etc.

Is there anything out there like this?

• LOL: Twitter / Charlie O'Donnell
  I'm not sure this quite works...
  (tags: lolcats weird)
• Walken: Talkin' Web 2.0: Twitter Raising Venture Capital
  (tags: twitter vc web.20)

Evan mentions it in this post.

Thanks, Chris!

I was talking to Shri the other day about blogs and we both agreed that some of the most widely read blogs out there aren't actually particularly good writing and are getting less and less informative.  Nate echoed similar sentiment and said that few of the blogs that he reads have a lot of traffic.  He figured that, if something was important enough, it would filter through to the small niche blogs that he reads.

More and more, I'm hearing anecdotally of people unsubscribing from "A-list" blogs and meanwhile, I've noticed the RSS subscriber numbers of the rest of us trending up.   Is the blog world becoming more flat?

I agree with the whole bad writing thing, though...   and if anyone has any really well written blogs they read that they'd like to share in the comments, feel free.

Gizmoz new offering makes me feel good about some of our Voki features.  Yup, I now have another avatar on my sidebar...   a photorealistic 3D avatar created from a photo.  You can even comment on a Gizmoz.  Commenting on an avatar?  Really... wow, I wonder where they got that?  Still, kudos for adding that feature after the Voki launch.  I also like the way they did it without a popup.  We'll have to add that ourselves.

Still, I have to ask... what do people think about photorealistic avatars?   Frankly, I think they're a little creepy.  We've added them as part of the Sitepal service, but I've gone from using my custom drawn one, to a cartoon one, to one that's even more cartoony?  I love my little bigheaded cartoon Voki guy and I think that one of the best parts of an avatar is that it's a representation of you... not actually you.  We have this debate internally a lot and I've never been a big fan of 3-D photo conversion and am just fine sticking to my flat little 2D avatars.

PS...   New commentary on StumbleUpon and Mahalo at Walken's site.

• Walken... Talkin' Music: CBS Buys Last.fm
  Christopher Walken's Web 2.0 blog on the Last.fm acquistion
  (tags: funny web2.0 music cbs last.fm)
• Author Biography - Strumpette
  Best. Bio. Ever.
  (tags: pr bios)
• correlate.us/blog
  (tags: rss feeds)

Blogging is all about personality, right?  Getting yourself out there with your own unique voice in the world...   

...but in the Web 2.0 ecosphere, there's a lot of crowd following.  Everyone posts about the same thing and says the same stuff.

Until now...

I just discovered a gem of a blog that you absolutely have to take a look at.   Who knew that the Continental had a moment to put down the cowbell and talk social media?

That's right, it's Christopher Walken covering Web 2.0.  (Please feel free to tag and digg liberally as a favor to the creator...  ;)   )