Let me start by stating the obvious: I am absolutely trying to capitalize on the attention my previous post received.

Its not quite as self-serving as it seems.

I’m not looking to increase my rss subscriptions or further my own personal “brand.” What I would like to do is share some thoughts on what I think Twitter can (needs to) do to successfully pull out of the flat spin they induced recently.

I mentioned previously that I thought that Twitter had set their Ace-in-the-hole afire when the latest snafu impacted the community’s Holy Grail: their subscriptions.

I have noticed more and more people commenting that the early adopter community tends to focus on the reasons a product will fail rather than the things that need to happen in order for it to succeed. I want to offer (what I hope will be) a constructive and helpful perspective derived from my experience in the campaign and public affairs arena.

There are certainly a number of marketing/public affairs/public relations professionals with far more experience than me on Twitter or FriendFeed - I hope they will add their own thoughts (but by all means please do so on FriendFeed, put them here an no one will ever see them!).

The biggest threat to Twitter’s survival is not rooted in technology but communications.

What I am going to suggest does not necessarily mix well with the old school PR or campaign regime whose focus often revolves around message control. Many would probably say that Twitter’s current PR/communication approach strikes the right balance between acknowledging the problem and discussing your plan to solve it and being so transparent that you make your product look more unstable than it really is.

There are certainly situations where it is important to find that balance. But not this one.

This is not Multinational Corporation X trying to figure out how to handle an internal study indicating their may be a higher than expected fail rate on their new hard drive, this is Aunt Milly drunk off her ass at the family reunion.

The cat’s out of the bag, we all know it is an infrastructural problem that will take some time to fix. We didn’t leave when we first heard the news so why would we now?

If Twitter fails I guarantee it will not be because they couldn’t fix the glitches fast enough - it will be because they failed to honor and leverage the rare and special community that has sprung up around a very flawed product.

So here are my suggestions - some of them may already be in place and users may simply need to be made more aware of them. Most of us have acknowledged that Twitter has created a very special community of  users - let’s put some action behind that belief.

My suggestions:

• Update the standard FAIL page to include links to every official update channel. I don’t visit the Twitter blog or developer forum or status page - add links and I will probably click on them when I get the service is down page and feel better that I am not in dark about what is going on
• Create an official Twitter channel on a video streaming site and make it company policy that someone from the Twitter staff will jump on within X amount of time of any major problem to provide users an update (even if it is to say “we are working to identify the problem”)
• Identify a group of the most influential users (Robert Scoble, Louis Gray, etc) and provide them with regular briefing via  video conference, be open and transparent, allow for Q & A
• If further decisions are required as to which functions need to be temporarily disabled (or the order in which disabled functions should be added back) ask the users!

I was verbose enough in the lead up so I wanted to limit my suggestions to what I considered to be the most important.

Again, I understand that the underlying concept of throwing the doors wide open and pushing uber-transparency goes against the grain of most of today’s accepted PR and communication CW but I would put money on their effectiveness in this situation.

Twitter is not your standard application or product - we don’t love Twitter because of what it DOES, we love Twitter because of what it has DONE.

Twitter has created a community out of its users but they will lose that community if they do not show they understand and appreciate its power by using it to ensure the growth and survival of the service.

PLEASE - go back to FriendFeed, Twitter, your blog, WHEREVER and begin your own discussion on what Twitter could do to avoid the ultimate FAIL.

I have no allusions that this post alone will lead to the communication changes that Twitter so desperately needs BUT we all interact with several individuals on a daily basis who have the ability to encourage change - collectively our ideas can and will make a huge difference.

So there are my thoughts - what are yours?

As a user - what could Twitter do from a direct communication standpoint to make it more likely that you not only stuck around but became a Twitter evangelist once again?

I’ve always been keenly aware of the massive chasm that exists between my core abilities and experiences and those of many of the people I follow on Twitter and FriendFeed (in fact that is precisely why I love following so many of them), so I do my best to leave the deeper analysis to the experts.

Even so I have always been an interested “outside” observer as the ongoing “will they or won’t they make it” Twitter saga has played out.

When I first began immersing myself in new media I was startled by the volatility that exists in the user market for any number of web-based programs and I have always intrigued by the way that Twitter has avoided this pitfall.

Unfortunately, their most recent snafu (see the link at the beginning for a succinct explanation) may be too much to overcome.

I can’t imagine any other service surviving as long as Twitter has while exhibiting the same level of near-constant problems they have and I think the underlying lesson, while extremely intuitive, should serve as a powerful reminder for anyone, in any business, in any industry.

None of us are perfect - we may make perfection our goal but it is a universal constant that every human and every organization is going to fail at some point. The trick is to identify the things that you MUST get right in oder to ensure your survival.

For Twitter I believe this was the subscription process.

There have been a few comments on FriendFeed chiding people for focusing on form over function, implying that the outcry over Twitter’s latest stumble is the result of the rampant egoism of some who find more value in amassing a large audience instead of developing quality relationships and conversations.

I can see where they are coming from but I don’t know that I agree entirely - while there are certainly some who view Twitter as a game to see who can build the world’s largest megaphone, there are also many people who haven invested a lot of time cultivating a community and environment that provides mutual exhortation.

I firmly believe that the success that a large number of highly influential individuals had on Twitter is the very thing that kept the service alive.

Makes sense doesn’t it?

If you had invested countless hours in a service and, as a result, had amassed a “following” of several thousand individuals who were eager to hear from and interact with you wouldn’t you give that service every chance to survive as well?

I’m pretty sure I would.

And so a cycle was created that acted as a virtual respirator for Twitter: highly interesting or knowledgeable person develops a large following on Twitter, word spreads as more and more users enjoy and benefit from the service, more join, Twitter hits massive potholes in the road, power users hang on for dear life not wanting to lose all of the hard work they had invested, mass defection is avoided as the rest of the service’s users enjoy the interaction that a growing, vibrant community offers.

Unfortunately, Twitter’s latest error was aimed squarely at the one thing that may very well have kept them alive all of this time.

This isn’t another “Twitter is now dead” post - the game isn’t over and, although it would take enormous effort, Twitter may very well still survive.

Instead, my hope is that this can serve as a reminder that no matter what the endeavor - relationship, job, company, etc - so long as we identify and remain aware of the expectations that we must meet at all costs and apologize and rectify our screw ups in all of the other areas, things will turn out just fine.

But if we neglect one of those core expectations…

I have had the wonderful opportunity of getting to know Burson-Marsteller Chief Digital Strategist, Erin Byrne lately and was honored and excited when she asked if I would be interested in writing a guest post for Burson’s digital media blog discussing social media from a grassroots perspective.

If you have a moment - pop on over and give it a quick read. Would love to hear any thoughts you may have!

I spent the better part of the last week in Connecticut in celebration of the 90th birthday. I adore my wife’s family but they are about as crazy as I am so keeping up with the wonderful world of FriendFeed was pushed way down the list of target objectives, buried by things like: keeping my sanity, not overdosing on food and sleeping.

I have  always enjoyed the insights of other Feeders following similar sabbaticals so I thought I would share some of my own. These may be, but are not meant to be, universally applied and except for #1 these are listed in no particular order.

I should first clarify something - this is not one of the “we spend too much damn time on the internet” paternalistic screeds I often see us subject one another to. I have never understood the off-handed attacks often made against the internet or communication facilitation tools like Friend Feed.

If I told someone that I had found a bar or coffee house where people regularly met in large groups to socialize and share massive amounts of ideas and information would they be likely to tell me that that is a ridiculous way to spend my time? Of course not, and yet that is what is essentially what I hear people say with regards to social media outlets like Friend Feed all the time.

If there is one thing that every society in the world has in common it is a desire and need for some kind of communication with their fellow citizens. It is a historically verifiable trend that humans have never stopped looking for ways to communicate more information, with more people, more quickly. Friend Feed is yet another example.

1) I must make it a priority to regularly unplug and process. I didn’t realize how badly I needed the 6 hour drive from DC to Connecticut. Between work and adjusting to the joys and demands of fatherhood I rarely take the time anymore to just be.

I recently commented that I have learned more in the last two months using Friend Feed than the previous six combined. I love that but that massive impartation of such vast quantities of information has spawned a myriad of ideas and contemplations and, until last week, I had been unwittingly pushing them aside.

My wife and son headed up to Connecticut a day before I left so I was able to crank the radio, throw open the windows and let my mind run free. Without even trying to I worked through several things I had been thinking about and gained a new level of clarity on some ideas I had been developing. I will be making this kind of activity a regular part of my life from now on.

2) The masses are no where near ready for this stuff. I’m wouldn’t have considered myself an early adopter prior to the revelation that was Twitter and Friend Feed so I interact with people who don’t “get it” every day. That said I have become more and more amazed by just how great the divide is between what is technologically possible and what society-at-large is prepared for.

“Normal” people are just getting the hang of texting - if they use Facebook they likely feel like they are on the bleeding edge. I become more convinced by the day that there has never been a time in recorded history when what is technologically possible so vastly out paces what is realistically viable.

3) The community that currently exists on Friend Feed is unbelievably special. With few exceptions, and allowing for differences in the degree to which the following statement is true, the lowest common denominator of everyone who participates currently understands the benefits of, and has an abnormal desire to expand their ability to communicate with others.

By and large the tone of the communications that occur on Friend Feed are marked by a respectful curiosity for one another’s ideas and opinions. It helps that, like many social media tools, Friend Feed allows users to unobtrusively share bits of information about themselves that, while trivial on their own, aggregate to form a bridge of commonality that greases the naturally rusty wheels of relationship building.

It would have been odd and unnatural if, during last week’s family reunion, I abruptly blurted out “I just listened to Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ and I love it!” and yet that is precisely what Friend Feed allows me to do.

Similarly, there are so many bits of information that would ease the process of getting to know someone you just met in person that we either don’t think to share or refrain from sharing because it is unnatural in that setting.

5) Its not going to be like that forever. As much of an optimist as I am I must sadly admit that, in time, human nature will pervert Friend Feed and strip the thing I love about it most.

As Friend Feed becomes more popular, the motivations of its users will become more decentralized and it will devolve into the very things that drove me to Friend Feed in the first place. The comment section of blogger Queen of Spain’s July 4 AOL Hot Seat question will, I fear, become more of the norm
should Friend Feed ever enjoy mass adoption.

As much as #5 saddens me I plan on throughly enjoying every glorious moment until then - if you are not currently using Friend Feed I would HIGHLY encourage you to join the fun. Look me up when you get there - I’ll be the one trying to convince everyone that not every Republican is insufferable.

Today is the United States of America’s birthday. I am going to forgo the part where I gush about what a wonderful country the U.S.A. is and how blessed I feel to have been born here - you will get enough of that during your History Channel binge today.

As an inanimate object, my country not able to submit the wish it has coming to it so I am going to arrogantly stand in the gap on its behalf. For my friends from other countries I ask that you mold my surrogate birthday wish so that it can apply to your interactions with those of us here.

My wish is simple (and, unfortunately, rife with cliche): disagree without being disagreeable, argue passionately for your view but always remember that it is possible to see a different solution to the same problem.

We live in an imperfect world - some have been unable to rid themselves of ignorant xenophobic or racist tendencies, others despise the country that has given them more than it has ever taken. In neither case are these individuals representative of the whole.

If I, as a Republican, turn a deaf ear to your thoughtful concerns and dismiss them as the errant and biased ramblings of a naive, unpatriotic, liberty despising communist I do us both a disservice - myself because I have lost the opportunity to learn and you because I have ignorantly forced you into a ideological corner inwhich you probably do not belong.

If you, in turn, sweep aside my considerations, labeling me a “neocon” or member of the “Radical Right” bent on legislating morality and eviscerating individual rights through fear mongering, you do the same.

I’ll end with an offer - it is easy to misappropriate the intentions of those who maintain values different from our own - if you consider yourself liberal and, as such, believe that those of us on the other side of the ideological divide bear nothing but contempt for the rest of mankind I invite you to come visit me in DC. We will have drinks with staff members from various parts of the Bush Administration from the White House to the Pentagon to the Department of Homeland security so that you can see that they don’t fit neatly into the Neocon, Hyper-conservative categories you would like to cram them into.

I’m doing my part to better the quality of debate in our beloved country - will you?

Well…yea…about as much as you would expect ideologically - what’s great though is that the social web is doing everything I had hoped it would to facilitate an honest debate of ideas.

I have always enjoyed spirited exchanges of ideas - 9 different schools from  K - 12th grade, brought on by a move approximately ever 2.5 years growing up tends to blunt one’s willingness to disassociate with someone because they don’t see eye-to-eye with you. Even so, we tend to congregate with like-minded individuals and eye dissenters warily making it difficult for us to meaningfully interact with a truly broad range of opinions.

Enter social media.

To say that the Twitter and FriendFeed landscapes are dominated by those with a left-of-center mindset would be an understatement. As a result I wasn’t the least bit surprised when my attempts to widen the nozzle on my information stream brought with them a slew of interactions with other users who looked at Republicans the same way Jaguar Paw looked at the strange wooden objects coming ashore at the end of Apocalypto. This is to be expected, its human nature - the less we have in common with or understand about another person, the more likely we are to distrust them and jump to hasty conclusions about them.

The power of social media is that it allows us to find and interact with one another based on common interests. The Twitter and FriendFeed communities are largely made up of social media types - some who work in social media and others, like myself, who are drawn to the new avenues of communication it opens up. Either way there is a common bond that allows us to build a relationship based on a mutual understanding.

Want an example of how powerful this is? Tech blogger Robert Scoble posted a message on his FriendFeed account that Republican Congressman John Culberson uses Twitter sparking a flurry of excited reponses, many of which indicated they would now follow the Texas Congressman as well. I can guarantee you that many of them are not predisposed to enthusiasm over anything that has to do with Republicans - especially when they come in the form of Republicans in Congress. Had Scoble posted something about Representative Culberson’s stance on an issue the comments would have very likely been dominated by generalizations disparaging Republicans but since a common interest was shared Representative Culberson just found scores of new friends on Twitter.

This past Sunday I received an IM from HuffPo/BlogHer/MOMocrat blogger, Queen of Spain asking if I was interested in jumping on her web show later that evening to discuss current political topics including the FISA re-authorization. She runs in a different world than I. A few months ago I didn’t even know she existed (and vise versa) but through our interactions on Twitter we were able to prove to one another that, despite completely different ideological approaches, we both wanted the same thing: to make the world a better place.

I joined her that night and had a blast trying to convince the shows participants that my views (or conservative views in general) were not the result of some nefarious desire to wreak havoc on the lives of others - who knows if I succeeded. What I do know is that, like many voters, I have grown tired of a climate that prevents me from expressing my reasoning for holding a certain position or hearing the reasoning of someone who disagrees. I am thrilled to see that social media is doing exactly what I hoped it would: restoring our ability to disagree without being disagreeable (sound familiar?).

I like Twitter, really I do, I just don’t like-like it the way I like FriendFeed.

It occurred to me the other day that I had not heard a certain phrase used on FriendFeed that was in abundant supply in Twitterland:

“If you are not following so-and-so you really should…”

In that phrase a good deal of Twitter’s essence is revealed along with the reason I prefer FriendFeed.

P

Had dinner with a friend last night - at some inevitable point we began discussing the online chasm that currently (<- attempted optimism) exists between McCain and Obama and he shared this interesting piece of information: When the Obama campaign wants to send an email out to its list of supporters it has to dedicate everyone of its servers (with “its” meaning the company they use to do these things) to the process along with THREE HOURS. Apparently that’s how long it takes to send out 15 million emails.

Rumor has it that the Obama campaign began sending out a blast email right before the Amazon.com and Firefox outages (just kidding).

Politico’s Been Adler has an interesting post asking whether or not McCain can compete with Obama online.

I’m not really fixated on McCain’s admission that he is computer illiterate – like many things he says, it probably would have been better left unsaid but he is who he is and the benefits he derives from speaking so freely outweigh the costs. What continues to interest me is the impact that exponential diffusion will have on this race and the world in general.

The speed with which the technology behind social media applications allows users to share and discuss information is a huge leap forward from where we were prior to the development of these tools. Yes, the internet itself and things like email and chat rooms provided a massive launching pad but just stop for a second and think about the difference in scale.

I can’t think of anyone who, upon finding a story that interests them, copies the link, opens a new email message, populates it with 100 email addresses, adds a short comment and then sends it out. Even if someone were to do that one a regular basis (we are making believe that his nickname would not become “unsubscribe”), hardly anyone he emailed would reply all to add in their comments. And yet every day on applications like FriendFeed that is essentially what is happening – hell I probably have over 100 people following me and I have zero to do with the industry most all of them work in and didn’t even know 99% of them existed a few months ago. Even more (relatively) static applications like Facebook provide an incredible platform to quickly and easily communicate with hug swaths of people.

There is obviously an eternity between here and November so the outcome is by no means set in stone. That said, one has to wonder what kind of advantage the ability to communicate with 950,000 people on Facebook gives a candidate over someone who is only able to use that medium to communicate with an audience 1/9^th of the size.

…the dirt. Sorry to do that - you thought I was going to say sand didn’t you?

I don’t currently have the energy to pull together all the blog posts, comments and FriendFeed threads that have lead to this post so I will be brief.

Stop freaking flogging yourselves about the cycle you go through when you hear about new applications that have the potential to do everything we all believe our current level of technology should allow us to do. It is important that you do exactly what you are doing (OK, one link so you can see a description of the cycle I am referencing).

That cycle is extremely valuable as vets these new products, identifying their weaknesses, shaping their interfaces, determining their value, etc. If you, as an uber-user, who appreciates these new products because you readily see their potential value can’t figure out a freaking need for a product WHO WILL? No one.

PS Keep the FriendFeed fire hose on - I’ve learned more in the past month than in the last 6 combined!