No, Biz, Twitter Has Real Issues

Image via WikipediaI am a huge fan of Twitter, an avid user, and I have blogged extensively about the service at this blog. I joined the service the same day Demi Moore did. Coincidence.

And I understand the media thing Biz Stone is alluding to here. The media likes drama. They report of fights where there are no fights. Friction sells better than peace.

But I do believe Twitter does have real issues.

Twitter does not have that Gladiator Steve Jobs, or the Knight In Shining Armor Mark Zuckerberg. But that lone warrior Founder CEO is not the only formula for grand success. Maybe greatness can also arise out of collective leadership.

Sitting Next To David Rose At The NY Tech MeetUp

David Rose is a legend on the New York technology scene. I had known his name for a while. Heck, I got to know him name before I educated myself on Fred Wilson's name (@fredwilson). I had even talked to him over Facebook email once.

Last month I showed up half an hour early and quite liked it. I asked my first question at a NY Tech MeetUp. It was something to do with having spoken to two of the key speakers before they went on stage. So this month I showed up early as well. You go take a seat in the second row in the front, to the right of the stage, and you are in good shape. I did not plan it that way, but when I looked up and around I saw an empty seat between me and David Rose. He was putting some effort into his name tag. He had written his name David in double lines and was furiously coloring between the lines.

October 2009 NY Tech MeetUp

Then he moved one seat closer after Dawn Barber motioned for him to move over. Finally after a few presentations had been made on stage, and Nate (@innonate) said say hello to the people sitting next to

you, I said hello to David. (@davidsrose)

"I am honored to be sitting next to you," I said.

I was impressed as it was. He asked me what I thought of the presentations so far.

"Half the companies presenting today are my portfolio companies," he said. Then he mentioned Singularity. I was to hear that word from four different people over the course of the evening.

After the presentations were over, and it was time to mingle with the presenters beneath the stage, I spotted James far away and waved wildly at him. (@sciencehouse) He walked over. Guess who I was sitting next to, I said. Ends up James and David had been on the same panel at the Singularity event only a few days back.

James and Gabi run this wonderful meetup that is the only other MeetUp I am a regular at now besides the NY Tech MeetUp. (@gabidewit)

When I shared with James and Gabi over email a few days back that I was now part of the Twitter Top 100 NYC, James suggested I give a talk on social media at one of his MeetUps. I said I would love to.

"Demi Moore and I signed up on Twitter the same day. She has over a million and a half followers. I once tweeted her as to how that happened. I did not hear from her." (@mrskutcher)

My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher 

I had really been looking forward to Nate's presentation. AnyClip speaks to me. I was not too cool with the question I ended up asking.

"How were you able to cut a deal with the big movie houses?"

The reply. We haven't, not yet.

I think AnyClip will have to become big enough in stealth mode for the movie houses to even consider cutting deals. But I totally see it happening.

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My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher

Kristi Fundu Intro on Facebook: "For all the long lost friends, a brief synopsis of the last decade: graduated from BC in 2000, returned to Macedonia in 2002, started my own business in 2004, one brief marriage 2006."

https://twitter.com/paramendra/status/1546305581

Image via Wikipedia

Ashton Kutcher just became the first Tweetizen - Twitter citizen - to have more than a million followers. He was in a race with CNN, and he won. And I think in the interest of full disclosure it is kind of important that I come out making it clear to the world as to my relationship with Ashton Kutcher which is that Demi Moore and I signed up on Twitter the same day: I Get Twitter.

https://twitter.com/paramendra
https://twitter.com/aplusk
https://twitter.com/mrskutcher

https://twitter.com/mrskutcher/status/1547615546
https://twitter.com/aplusk/status/1548011384
http://twitter.com/paramendra/statuses/1409287115



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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I Get Twitter

Enterprise 2.0 Adam Carson mentioned Confused Of Calcutta a long time ago as someone really passionate about Web 2.0. I took note. Recently I had an email conversation with Confused. We went back and forth. It was nice. Somewhere along the way I realized he is huge on Twitter. As in, he tweets.

Then I read up on him. I came across this list where Google CEO Eric Schmidt is number six and Confused is number 11. I was impressed. He is a CIO with British Telecom which has a presence in over 173 countries.



Somewhere along the way I decided to tweet as well. Open an account, and let it hang. I had no plans to be active. This despite Confused's very recent post where he is all gaga about Twitter.

Yesterday I spent some time talking about how I viewed Twitter now
Thinking about Twitter: a submarine in the ocean of the Web Finding the sea of green: More on Twitter is My Submarine

I had misconceptions. I feared Twitter is about creating an online Leoned Breznev diary towards the end of that guy's life. He would put down mundane details. I ate. I had coffee. I went to sleep. I ate. I drank coffee. Sleep came upon me. I had lunch.

It also felt like a basketball pro is being asked to go to college basketball. As an avid blogger, I thought in terms of full page posts. A phrase or two? That is lowball, I thought. At my blogs I discuss ideas and concepts. Big minds discuss ideas. Twitters must talk about themselves. I ate. I had coffee.

And I am a laptop guy. I spend so much time online, when I am offline, I like to be offline, take in the city, the people, the street scenes, the subway filth. Twitter looked like a mobile concept. You can't experience the internet on a handheld, the way the internet is meant to be experienced.

So I admired Confused more than ever, and aren't young people supposed to get tech fashion first? I am in my mid 30s. Confused is in the mid 50s. I was not enamored about getting fashion sense from Confused.



Then one day I quietly signed on. It will not hurt to get an account. It does not have to stay active. Noone will notice. My second post said I did not think I was so newsworthy as to be twitting. That was my Declaration Of Independence.

But very soon I got it. I think it was only yesterday that I started, and I am already an addict. You tweet. You blog. You email. You search. You face the book. Tweet is fundamental to the internet experience.

My first Direct Message was to Confused. You got me on Twitter, I said. I had not said thank you, I had not said I was excited. I might as well have meant you added to my chores. Welcome, says Confused, in the tone of an evangelist. As far as he was concerned, there were no negative connotations to Twitter. It was all good.

I joined Twitter. Not long after Demi Moore joined Twitter. We both joined the same day. But for some reason she has way many more followers than do I. I am going to think she is a little bit more better looking. Or maybe a lot better looking.

It is nothing to do with star quality. I am Barackface. I have a thing or two going on for me. Hey.

And then the discoveries began. Wait a minute, I might have signed on not yesterday, but the day before. Anyways, it was the same day as Demi. Kevin Rose, the second most followed person on Twitter, brought Demi to my attention. Kevin and I are close like that. That is the Twitter way.

There are so many good reasons to tweet. You blog, you tweet. You send out emails. You add friends and updates on Facebook. It is basic.

If I can tweet once or twice a day, and if I can read a few news items on Google Reader most every day, I am an active blogger without any new blog posts at my new number one blog: Tech N Biz. I have not become lazy as a blogger, I have gone high tech. This way all the personal talk gets zapped by Twitter, all my urge to read the news gets zapped by Google Reader. And so the blog posts are posts that I just have to go ahead with, not chores, as in, oh no, I have not blogged in a while, my blog is going stale, let me go blog.

Then yesterday I learned to hit reply and join conversations. Suddenly I feel like an insider.

I have rediscovered pals like Scott and Upendra from the New York tech scene.

Democracy For Nepal used to be my primary blog. Then Barackface became my primary blog. Now I am trying to get Tech N Biz to become my primary blog. Twitter and Google Reader have been a huge help in bringing about that shift. Confused Of Calcutta got me on Twitter, Enterprise 2.0 got me on Google Reader. Enterprise 2.0 got me to Confused Of Calcutta. Confused Of Calcutta got me on Twitter where I met Demi. Demi Moore. And also the Digg guy Kevin Rose. But then Confused has a star quality of his own. I mean, to be on that list.

Talk about star quality, with his goatee, I think Confused looks like a rock star.