Cohere

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

* Desires race beyond the capacity to realize.

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've been reading 37signal's Signal vs. Noise weblog which I find useful for challenging potential Web 2.0 hyperbole. Also recently I listened to the IT Conversations podcast by James Surowieki: "Independent Individuals and Wise Crowds". Surowieki speaks about studies that show the advantage of a diverse population of independent individuals reaching better conclusions than the advise of a population of only those with expert knowledge. That some randomness and noise evolves to better results.

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.

When the supr.c.ilio.us blog became active, I delighted in it. Here was biting humor for an industry that sometimes...often takes itself too seriously to the point of doing some ridiculous things. On the other hand, the sting of the dot.com bust is still with many of us. So some snark is undue pessimism and software politics such as the posts on Dave Winer.

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.

The next point is not a simpler, more intuitive web -- AJAX and such -- but being untethered from the desktop and laptop. This is where the iPod is pointing to and the challenge ahead. It is the ability to work anywhere without having to give full attention to the computer. A device that works naturaly with human beings like the iPod starts to do and has all the capabilities of a desktop system.

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.

My prior post, Your Plazes in the Sun, led me to think about the result of technology seamlessly integrating with people. The outcome is people leveraging each others capabilities for their purposes. People will be able to dynamically associate and collaborate for achieving ends bypassing the long drawn out process of joining into a corporation or other entity that have like-minded purposes.

Tara "Miss Rogue" Hunt pointed me to one of the most interesting and potentially useful capabilities I have yet seen, Plazes. Plazes locates you from your router connection to where you are in the world and allows people you've assign as friends to see you are there.

This may not seem very interesting. But I see two things currently necessary to make the internet and web powerful:

• Incorporate into the daily work activity regardless of where one -- unshackle from a desk location.
• Computers seamlessly understand people -- rather than people needing to understand computers to fully utilize their capabilities.

These are two of the essential new capabilities I see in what has been tagged "Web 2.0". "Web 2.0" is an unspecified label to which Tim O'Reilly, Richard MacManus, et. al. have been assigning meanings to the coming internet capacities. The genius of a non-specific designation as "Web 2.0" is that it means everything and nothing. So that when new web applications develop that stick with a gestalt formed, looking back "Web 2.0" will have a definite meaning.

What is necessary for the internet to be powerful, is for it to become invisible in our life. To do that it has to adjust to us. For the large part, we still have to adjust to computers to fully leverage them. To use blogging, podcasting, videoblogging, mobile internet capable phones, etc. we need to understand RSS, iTunes, mobile networks, etc. This needs to disappear and the work toward open internet API's, web application that are immediately understood like flickr, mobile devices that are self evident as the iPod are beginning to realize this.

Where I see a location service as Plazes being powerful is in coordinating people's location to where and what others are doing. So that if I'm working on a project at a cafe and need to grab a cable at a computer store. If I locate a friend at Fry's (California computer store) who's heading past me, I can message and ask if he'd pick up that device. Perhaps authorize him to use my paypal up to a certain amount. What this means is that our work and intentions are exponentially leveraged through coordinating with other people's locations.