DISQUS

Terry Jones - Fluidinfo: Random thoughts on Twitter

  • Steve Ryner · 1 year ago
    Look at Jones, just giving away all these nice ideas. Except for Google buying Twitter--that would be a crushing blow in my opinion.

    As Jonathan Wight twittered, "Google is where social apps go to die." Either from benign neglect or a deep misunderstanding. Google seems to get mobile applications and mapping in a big way, but not Social stuff.

    http://twitter.com/schwa/statuses/828591994
  • esteve · 1 year ago
    No sure if Google would by Twitter, they already acquired Jaiku.
  • esteve · 1 year ago
    Argh, you should have a preview button: Not sure if Google would buy Twitter, they already acquired Jaiku
  • Dr Wright · 1 year ago
    Assigning random followers is exactly what twitter is NOT. That's why we like twitter, we have full control. If not, it just becomes more spam. The point is not to get as many followers as you can, the point is to be in contact with exactly who and as many people as you want.


    Dr. Wright
    www.twitter.com/drwright1
  • Steve Ryner · 1 year ago
    Esteve makes my point for me. Let's watch Jaiku now that Google has sat upon it. Does it sink into the couch between the cushions, or proceed upwards...?
  • terry · 1 year ago
    @Dr Wright

    I agree with the sentiment, but not with your content :-) Unless you make yourself completely private you don't have control over who follows you. I was suggesting guides who *volunteer* to be assigned as followers of newbies. The people who volunteer obviously want it. The newbie who would otherwise be twittering to an audience of ZERO can perhaps ask a question, get a reaction, etc. If the guide followers find the new person boring (etc) they're free to unfollow.

    Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough. In any case, thanks for commenting!

    I fully agree about *not* going for as many followers as possible and don't like services that are like that as the idea of a "friend" (or whatever) becomes completely meaningless. For that reason I do like Twitter and I do like LinkedIn, but don't like Facebook, and have a feeling that Plurk is heading in the wrong direction. Maybe it's just an age thing.
  • chrisfizik · 1 year ago
    Yeah, jaiku is where this google tangent should be centered. What the heck is going on with it. It got eclipsed by Twitter in a very short time, and yet it has all of and more of the features than twitter. Twitter has been super lucky -- independent, simple, overloaded, and yet, holding onto its users.

    google's probably not that concerned about the fate of jaiku, or what Twitter does -- since it can still feed off the data twitterstreams produce. Feed Google Feed.
  • Thom Blake · 1 year ago
    @timoreilly made some interesting tweets on this subject - the distinction between good and bad services like this might just be the 'friend' metaphor and the implication of mutual (two-way) relationships.

    I feel no compulsion to follow someone who's following me, and sometimes have reason to follow someone who won't follow me. Trying to couple that with the concept of 'friendship' does damage to a very important aspect of humanity. (c.f. Aristotle)
  • Phil · 1 year ago
    Twitter has a lot more going on beneath its hood and the points made here illustrate that.

    Twitter has the potential to really get at the problem of abundance of information and scarcity of meaning. The idea of having PageRank-like algorithm to help figure out who to follow could accomplish several things at once:

    1. More focused social interaction (but with flexible options)
    2. The benefits of the selective pressures of human search
    3. Ability to have a meaningful, reliable and usable Directory for users

    The list could go on. But as we enter a more mobile web, we're going to need a sleek and powerful way to converge our needs.

    A Googlesque Twitter has got to be a worthwhile look-see.
  • terry · 1 year ago
    @Thom

    Hi. I agree. I have a blog post in me about the concept of friend online these days. Tim has been calling the behavior of Twitter (versus, say, Plurk) part of its UI. I prefer to
    think of it as the dynamics - you could have the same dynamics with a totally different UI. But maybe that's just
    mincing words. In any case the asymmetric follower relations
    clearly work nicely and do give a very different feel to
    Twitter as opposed to Facebook or Plurk (for which it
    is perhaps too early to tell).

    I hope to make another posting soon... but I also have "work" things to be doing.

    Thanks for stopping by!

    Terry