Yahoo Doldrums

Image via CrunchBaseMike Arrington has relentlessly gone after Carol Bartz from day one. Some of that I have attributed to sexism. Some I have attributed to the media's need for conflict and drama: that is partly how they generate page hits. Some I have attributed to Mike angling to get bought by Yahoo's rival AOL: that happened. But Yahoo does have serious problems.

Yahoo's problem is not that it is not number one, or that it is not going to get back the crown. Yahoo's problem has been that it has messed up being number two. Yahoo bought Flickr, and look at Facebook: photo sharing is the number one thing that happens on Facebook.

What Just Happened?

Yesterday I had 700 plus followers. This morning when I woke up I had 800 plus followers. I was pleased. But only a few hours later now I have over 1400 followers on Twitter. What just happened? This is rather drastic.

I am not complaining, quite the contrary. But I don't know what brought this about.

Content Is Queen, Marketing Is Princess
Job Hunting And 2.0




I hope my blog traffic sees a similar jump in traffic.

I can't put my finger on as to what brought this about. But, for the record, I am not going to stress about it. I don't need to know. As long as this keeps happening, I want you to know, I am o-k-a-y.

Define Social Media
The Stream, The Lifestream, The Mindstream
Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter
Twitter Is Not Micro
The Depth Of Your Friendships At Twitter
Goal: A Billion People On Twitter
Search Come Full Circle: That Human Element
The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Twitter And The Time Dimension
What Should Facebook Do
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
TCC: Twitter Community College
Twitter Tips: It's A Bird, It's A Bird
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
I Get Twitter

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Twitter Is Not Micro

Image via CrunchBase

Take the links away, and Twitter is not going to be fun no more, at least not for me. And I don't see what's micro about full blown webpages, news articles, blog posts, pictures, video clips. When I envision a tweet, I don't envision 140 stale characters. I envision a few words that point me to a weblink, more likely a tiny URL, that I might have the option to click on. That is not to say I don't enjoy tweets that are all words and no links. I do. But they are in the sea of links. That is why I enjoy them. It takes seconds to skim through an all words tweet, and usually another with a link is right below.

That is not to say I am a link clicking monster blindly clicking the links away. I pick and choose. But then that is why you carefully choose to follow people. Your library of Twitter contacts should be such that whenever you jump into your stream you find at least a few links to click on. I find that every single time. So when I go online, of all the places I could go to, Twitter ends up being the one with the greatest pull. You have to convince yourself it is not distraction, it is education.

Twitter is not micro. Twitter is smart. Can't do without Twitter in this day and age of information overload. Twitter allows for a smart consumption of information. You swim in the Twitter stream for half an hour, maybe 15 minutes, maybe 10, and you feel like you are in the loop, with the world. You know what's going on. You know all the right people. Heck, you follow them. They can't say no.

The tweet is the ultimate equalizer. Some of the fanciest names in tech put out tweets that are not that different from the kind of tweets I put out. I feel level with them much of the time.



After I have a new blog post, I tweet it, I don't submit it to Digg, or any of the similar services. I do use Delicious for bookmarking. But often time I just tweet an interesting link. I know I can track it with one Twitter search down the line. So I use Twitter also for personal bookmarking.

Twitter keeps my blog fresh. I guess there you could argue Twitter is indeed microblogging. But then, is it? My tweets tend to be link rich.




Demi Moore and I joined Twitter the same day. I have 230 followers, she has 520,738 followers. I am guessing she is better looking.

The Depth Of Your Friendships At Twitter
Goal: A Billion People On Twitter
Search Come Full Circle: That Human Element
The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Twitter And The Time Dimension
What Should Facebook Do
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
TCC: Twitter Community College
Twitter Tips: It's A Bird, It's A Bird
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
I Get Twitter

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Social Networking: Where The Internet Comes Down From The Clouds

I think social networking the internet way is even younger than the internet, and has more places to go, many more. The metaphor that comes to my mind is that of a tornedo touchdown. The internet is the tornedo. When you use it for social networking purposes, it is a touchdown. The results can be positively "devastating."



Look at MeetUp.com. I have some history with this site. My early enthuse for Dean got me to the site. And I got hooked. Dean moved on, I stayed on. So imagine my utter surprise when I bumped into the CEO of MeetUp, mid-westerner Scott, close to my age, who has since invited me to his office, not long after I moved into the city. I met this guy at a MeetUp. To me it was like I ended up at some party where I met a Hollywood star, something akin to it. And he is so self-effacing in presence. I guess he is one of those never-lose-your-cool, big-picture visionaries. I mean, what did I expect him or someone like him to be? Obnoxious? Look, I got the big idea! The guy is MIT Innovator Of The Year. He hosts the Tech meetup in the city.

I have told him, eBay is people meet stuff, MeetUp is people meet people. MeetUp could potentially end up the Yahoo of social networking. It is like you grow big, early, fast, then you go public. And you grow bigger. Then you conduct a lot of smart buys, like a frog eats up dragonflies.

The quicksilver market that the internet is, it is not guaranteed MeetUp or any other one site will get there. But MeetUp has the broadness that few other social networking sites have. For one, it has this definite offline component. Social networking sites that are all screen time and no face time have something fundamental lacking. But then there are some that are doing quite well. Look at these three that took up a lot of my time today: Flickr | 43Things | Delicious.

Flickr is a good example. Curiously Scott had something that was earlier than Flickr, and quite like it, but I guess Flickr is smoother in operation, sexier, and so it got bought up by Yahoo and made two people very rich very quick.

There is this another, 8minutedating.com. Speed dating, I think it is such a cool concept. I went to one, if I did not get a second date does not mean my enthusiasm for the concept is any lesser! But my point is it is another of those tornedo touchdown concepts.

I think MeetUp's future lies in attempting to become the Yahoo of social networking.

And then there are a whole bunch of Friendster type companies.

In short, there are all these great ideas that started out as great companies that still have a lot of people, especially investors, people who count a little more than the rest of us, believing in them, but the breakthrough has yet to happen. One obvious criterion therefore is those who will patiently stick it out will stand a chance.

But more important than that might be the quality of a rabid hunger for rapid expansion. It is a race in time. If you do it almost as good, but are about a year late, that might be a little too late.

Since I made my trip to Scott's office, I have played with the idea of getting involved in some way. I couldn't afford to do it full time, not to get a job, because I have these ideas that I am cultivating. There is the IC idea, there is the online marketing idea, and there is the political involvement to do with Nepal. Maybe I can consult for them.

I do not pretend to be an engineer, although I have a pretty good intuitive feel for concepts in physics. But my strength is group dynamics. I think the winner social networking site will tackle the challenge from the High Touch end rather than the High Tech end, although tech is very important, after all what you are offering is a site. A web service.

I think, for MeetUp, the key is to further decentralize. To make localization more possible. Used to be there was this one golden day someone had chosen when people on one topic met all over the country. Now local Organizers can monkey with the meeting dates. That is good. What would further localization look like? It goes from the city to the group. From the group to the individual.

Broadly speaking.

Internet based social networking is a young market. It will likely see many upheavals. There will be pendulum swings from common sense to sophistication and penetration and back.

What can I say, all the best Scott.

Social network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wait a minute. Guess what I found out this very minute: Scott has been profiled by my former rival Rediff! Now I know why we Chaitime people lost: we never discovered Scott!