A number of blog entries have criticized Twitter as being an over-hyped fad. The mistake in this reasoning is seeing Twitter only in the realm of stationary computers whether desktop of laptop. Within that constraint Twitter is only a limited Web 2.0 version of IRC. With people talking about trivial, immediate events rather than worthwhile information in expertise channels on php, c++, microformats, etc. The result is that Twitter soon flames out when participants tire of the inane conversations

But Twitter is not significant on stationary computers, but on mobile devices. It is a more engaging implementation of SMS providing location, time and activity information. Coordinating activity by location. Robert Scoble and Andy Carvin make the contention that Twitter could save lives in situations like the earthquakes, the Katrina hurricane and the Tsunami disaster. Within a mobile environment that argument holds weight. Individuals untethered from stationary and on mobile computers can coordinate with each other, they can solve each other’s problems. A more mundane example is yesterday Starbucks offered free coffee from 10 am to noon. Around 2 pm Scoble posted a twitter, “Free coffee at Starbucks today. I’m going to get mine now.” A few minutes later Josh Leo responded, “@Scobelizer I think it was only from 10-12 today… I got mine”. Apparently Scoble wasn’t paying attention and some minutes later wrote, “Ahh, Starbucks in Palo Alto on Middlefield only gave it away 10 a.m. to noon. Outta luck again…” Now Robert Scoble could have bypassed the wasted time and disappointment of going to Starbucks without getting a free coffee by noticing Josh Leo’s twitter. As people notice the optimization to daily activity Twitter provides, they’ll wait for and notice such posts.

The significance of being able to coordinate your life in relation to what others are doing and know as you move along in your day is potent. This could be seen in SxSW twitters as people said where they were in the evening at various eaters and events and coordinated meetings. I’ve heard from several people that the important part of conferences like SxSW is the meetings in the hall and after the presentations. This is where Twitter removes the friction and enables coordinated and optimized meetings.

The argument that the discussion on Twitter is insignificant does not apply to mobile communications. Compared to cell phone discussions on the street, buses, trains, etc., Twitter’s messages are much more thoughtfully constructed and directed. And mobile phone small talk is not going away

Twitter is probably the first wildly successful and exploding mobile application. The question is will it scale as more people come on board. So far it’s had growing pains with the cute kitty image server down messages, slow message refresh response, duplicating messages, and such. From last I’ve seen, it’s built on Ruby on Rails — a new interpretive web language know to be slow. Unless Twitter works to scale to a likely exponential rise, other startups will probably see the opportunity and take it.

Technorati tags: twitter

This may be heretical, but I question if social is a foundation for the current networked capabilities. It’s a nebulous term that is often promoted as the raison d’etre of Web 2.0. However it looks to be the result of innovation and participation, rather than a means in itself. The innovation of sites like flickr, YouTube, etc. that connect people based on common interests. The participation of users who create connections that are meaningful to their current work, needs and interests. The result is social, but it has no meaning in itself.

I was recently at the Geek Entertainment TV turns 1000 event which was fun. I said “Hello” to a group of guys and asked them what they thought of the party. One of them declared that it’s just like the dot.com bubble all over again: People partying, drinking, and so on. I was a bit taken aback. Then later a friend talked on about how wonderful things will be with Web 2.0. This equally seemed strange.

It’s just as much a mistake to say “no ostentatious parties” as it’s a given that all will be great now that we have “Web 2.0″. Such judgments are based on the appearance rather than their content and value of things. A raucous, zealous party is only inappropriate when undeserved. Apple had party blowouts long before the dot.com period and it was for hardworking employees that deserved to splurge and enjoy.

At the same time, to assume that the fuzzy identifiers of Web 2.0 are a given. That we are in a state of technological bliss is similarly superficial. Technologies are advancing and making an impact on people’s overall usage of net software with AJAX, microformats, RSS, and so on. But none of these technologies are a given, some will likely not pan out as expected and all require serious work into the future.

After coming out of two dot.com’s (GomoTech & HelloBrain) erasures in 2002, I pursued the somedays. You know: “Some day I’m going to become pianist”, “Someday I’m going to build my dream house”, “Someday I’m going to sail the California coast”, “Someday I’m going to be a filmmaker.” Well for me it was the last one, “…be a filmmaker.”

Reading in Judith Weston’s book “Directing Actors…” that the director who understands how to work with actors has an advantage, I decided to spend a period of time being an actor. I took classes at the Jean Shelton acting studio from about 2002-2003, had a role in Durang’s play “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You” and acted in small parts for indie films and TV shows. I found to, somewhat my surprise, I really enjoyed acting. The acting craft and how to use yourself as an instrument of art and performance is fascinating. In time I had new ideas of performing which I tested out in acting gigs.

At the same time I focused more on writing short scenes, shooting them with actors and participating in the film events of Cinemasports and The National Film Challenge. My focus shifted to editing. In 2004 after being a PC programmer since 1985, I relented and got a Mac G5 with the Production Suite. And as 2005 arrived, I kept an eye on a new phenomenon, videoblogging.

Finally in August, I went to a Meet the Vloggers presentation at the San Francisco Apple Store. The enthusiasm, openness and inclusion of those involved related directly to my interest in film/video/media. So I jumped in. But as I made videos, spending a day to edit a four minute piece, put it up on my vlog and waited to see responses, I missed developing software. At the same time I began to envision different ways to view and edit video on the net.

So now I’ve come back to software development with developing net software for video. However I am finding the motion of prior work and recognition in videoblogging holding some of my focus. With inertia in doing software development . I read the group participatory vlog I’m in, EvilVlog, habitually — commenting here and there, waiting to see which responses come in. I put up images on flickr and watch the number of views and new comments.

We are biological creatures that can take time to switch and train neural cell connections, putting in place brain to eye to hand coordination skills. So while my desire races, change moves at it’s stride…

*Image from invisible-temple’s photos

I went to my first SuperHappyDevHouse — the sixth and last this year. A very productive evening that I left around 4 am. SuperHappyDevHouse is scheduled to go until 7 am |).

I met and talked to several people; some I had just met briefly before like factoryjoe, aka Chris Messina, and many I talked to for the first time. The only distracting incongruence were the guys from Meetro. The Meetro product looks like a fun, interesting and useful tool. But they came in promoting, promoting, promoting while everyone else was there to learn and get work done. I suggest they find out what an event is about and see how to make their product fits into that environment.

Among the ideas and products demonstrated I found fascinating was iGlance, an open source real time collaboration system. And Rhyzomatic, a service to create a personal permalink that unites all your identities in one place.

I’m going to start working on ideas for features and capabilities in video based on the conversations and information presented .

“The Medium is the Message”

or

“In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium – that is, of any extension of ourselves – result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology.”

– Marshall McLuhan

IRC is not blogging.

Mena Trott, president of Six Apart which organized Les Blogs, was speaking on civility and accountability when she pointed out an example of rudeness on the IRC back channel projected behind the speakers. Mena apparently confused the media of blogging which is often related to newspaper editorializing with IRC chat which is related to chatting with a group of friends and passing notes in class. They are different mediums of expressions with different rules. One doesn’t project the notes students pass in class during a lecture onto an overhead projector without editing. Or put the gossip of students over the school PA system without moderating them. The same goes for projecting an IRC back channel during the Les Blogs sessions. The fault was not with the IRC participants but with the lack of appropriate moderation.

Unfortunately this mix-up seems to have gone mostly unnoticed and bloggers continued talking past each other. Dave joined in, disagreeing with Ben Metcalfe and Tara’s positive assessment of him. Both pointing to broad concepts of net accountability and the individual being the determinant of the net. These ideas don’t contradict each other or compete. And the confusion of misidentifying the nature of the mediums remained in the background.

This means that a degree of diversity and noise is important to getting good signal. That it’s not a noise or signal proposition, but that a level of noise is necessary for a deap, rich, meaningful signal. Too much noise and the signal is indistinguishable. To little noise and the signal is flat, monotone, narrowly applicable and uninteresting. So a flux of amount of signal and noise makes for rich, valueable information.

But humor and critical sites like Geek Entertainment Television and 37 Signals’ Signal to Noise blog serve an important purpose of

• Deflating overzealous Web 2.0 descriptions and predictions
• Chiding the industry to make their language accessible to the uniniated

The big challenge is not only to create compelling and useful technology. But to make it comprehensible to those outside the biz. That’s what Steve Jobs excels at in helping develop and promoting products like the iPod. And that is what Web 2.0 evangelists need to do when describing the net developments.

The other aspect is people’s sight tends to be linear and short. They either see great happenings in the last few years or very little has changed. Whereas technology tends to be exponential in it’s impact, but has a long period of algorithmic increase until it “explodes”. Ray Kurzweil shows data on this in his book, “The Singularity is Near”. In “The S-Curve of a technology as Expressed in Its Life Cycle” section of Chapter 2, Kurzweil identifies the technology life cycles as:

1. During the precursor stage, the prerequisites of a technology exist, and dreamers may contemplate these elements coming together…
2. The next stage, one highly celebrated in our culture, is invention, a very brief stage, similar in some respects to the process of birth after an extended period of labor…
3. The next stage is development, during which the invention is protected and supported by doting guardians (who may include the original inventor)…
4. The fourth stage is maturity. Although continuing to evolve, the technology now has a life of its own and has become an established part of the community…
5. Here an upstart threatens to eclipse the older technology. Its enthusiasts prematurely predict victory…
6. This is a short-lived victory for the aging technology. Shortly thereafter, another new technology typically does succeed in rendering the original technology to the stage of obsolescence…
7. In this stage, which may comprise 5 to 10 percent of a technology’s life cycle, it finally yields to antiquity (as did the horse and buggy, the harpsichord, the vinyl record, and the manual typewriter.)

Kurzweil goes on to explain these life cycles for the phonograph, compact disc, piano, book, etc.

My view is that net technology is in the third stage of self-protection. That prior dot.com period was the invention of net technology with irrational exuberance. The current place is a self-protective development of the technology on the way to maturity and widespread use.

Practically this means mobile devices that you can talk and talk back to and have natural input touch devices. A prototype early example of this is TechCrunch’s review of Ajay Juneja voice controlled car.

The significance to being untethered is an exponential capability in daily activity. Being able to look up information at the spot where one is when about to give a lecture, contacting someone associated on your network that can deliver a service needed now (“Are you at Fry’s computer store?” “Can you pickup a USB cable and we can meet along the way?” “I’ve authorized you $40 on paypal.”) Then people will be able to deliver services to each other as either barter or payment, rather than advertising being the main web model.

This may seem mundane but how much time and effort is used up doing things on ones own waiting to get to the right place and time? The result is an exponential ability to focus and achieve ones goals.