The VoIP is not dead discussion tonight moves to Calliflower. You can join at 6:00 PST.  Alec Saunders
advocates “open communications”. As I wrote the other day. It’s about the “Exchange” and Alec makes this point by talking about “arbitrage“. Dave Michels then left a comment on my post which took me to his blog. You should read “PBX Needs to Change (or Die)” which I thinks a great piece which points back to the mobile. Om remains skeptical and thinks VoIP is full of marginal ideas. I’m not so sure. Yusuf Motowala has just launched VoicePHP (Om already looked at it more deeply). While Andy identifies a great group of people in his “Scouting Report” and I really appreciated being one of those mentioned! The game, the discussion and the desire to have an “impact” remains with this group.

After a few years beginning to wonder where  “classic blogging” went the recent set of blogs around VoIP (many not mentioned above) just shows the value created when people start to share their outlooks, ideas, and build on what others are saying. If we keep it up… then the conversation will be renewed and grow. I’d like to reinforce that “blogging” is better than “lists” from my perspective as it’s “open” although I believe this actually traces to some lists and thus the hunger for better conversations around VoIP that has fueled the latest posts.

• Disruptive Telephony: Directory forming of Twitter users related to Telephony/VoIP/Asterisk/etc.
  Tying voip to Twitter users. That seems like a step i the right direction! Wink!!!
  (tags: voip, danyork, voipuser)

Periodically a new buzz arises around VoIP’s future. I’ve just been reading posts by Jeff Pulver, Jon Arnold, Ken Camp, Andy Abramson and Lee Dryburgh. I naturally have my own perspective, both as a user and strategically. My position is simple. It’s about conversations. And if you want to change telecom you must shift power to the user.

I’d like to start with a comment Ken made yesterday about Phweet. I’ve edited slightly and added some bold… Ken really gets what we have done with Phweet and I’m sure Lee does too.

Stardust Global Ventures » Two highlights from 2008 - TwitterFone and Phweet

Phweet does something else that’s new. For telephony geeks, we remember that before SS7 signaling was implemented to take phone network signals out of band to a separate network, signaling frequency (SF at 2600 Hz) was carried within the voice badn. SS7 took signaling out of band to a separate packet network. Phweet also moves signaling out of band, but to the Internet. And not just PSTN signaling. It’s an example of using IP-based Internet technologies not just as a collaboration tool for ad hoc conference calling, but for using IP as a command and control channel for network resources in a new way.

Ken recognizes that under Phweet all the signaling rules can be defined by the user. I’ve said variously that our text based signal represents a contract between two or more users. That if accepted it escalates to the call. Note the if accepted. The power has shifted not only out of band but to the receiver. The signaling process also creates new options for “records” which in the current case are simply recorded in Twitter. I don’t feel a need to dwell on it here for I’ve stated before that we’ve disintermediated the directory service, shown the way to leverage real-time record keeping, and enabled a “rich data” exchange on the call setup. We’ve also enabled a world in which telephone conversations can be threaded using a persistent PhweetURL between two or more parties.  All these are things that the current system doesn’t do.

Lee Dryburgh is also one of the smartest guys around. Yet I still don’t buy this statement that argues connecting to IP services via E164 is sensible.

Skype, Openness, and “Walled Gardens” - Emerging Communications Blog

You can call between Skype and Gizmo using the E.164 namespace. I see no reason Skype should have to support the SIP URI namespace to help bolster a competitor! But again, this argument completely lacks vision of the long term evolution in communications, sticking to telephony calls over IP (yawn) being the future.

I’ve argued for years that Skype should sell a SIP URI (eg stuart_henshall@skype.net). I’d pay $5 per year for it. The reason why become even more apparent when you look at how Phweet can connect calls. Currently there’s an unnecessary interconnect charge. Hook Phweet up to Gizmo and there’s no need to pay more. Skype then has the account - billings for connecting and forwarding to the PSTN etc. The problem with Skype is they still control the directory service. This is potentially their Achilles Heel! As long as they provide an efficient routing to an end point it’s attractive. Their profile is better than anything in the PSTN and their IM system does enable some context before the call.

Phweet’s approach could enable calls to any IP endpoint or decent mobile to be more secure than Skype. Skype is only secure P2P and is open and not encrypted whenever it connects via its gateway to the PSTN. Many analysts and writers have said over the years that they should get a view into Skype’s encryption policies. Others have questioned the “chinese” backdoor. What they really want is to control the “keys” themselves. The encryption layer can be handled by your own trusted third parties and doesn’t have to be sent / signaled in the traditional way. I think these elements may pose a real challenge to Skype’s longer term architecture.

Lee was bothered by the discussion around Skype being open or closed vs Gizmo. I too don’t think it matters. Let the user choose. Using Gizmo with Phweet is definitely cheaper than Skype for I don’t need a SkypeIn or SkypeOut number and $’s.  The point is… we use different channels for different reasons. These include, where we are, what the situation is, the quality we want or need, etc. In fact Andy Abramson sums up yet again what users are going to do and are already doing, behaviorally and in terms of service.  Grand Central came closest in my book to helping you with routing. The downside. You had to have yet another number. That’s where I have a problem.

In a PSTN world there’s a problem having the exchange in the middle. As Jajah, Mobivox and others have found it is hard to challenge Skype when your cost to call is 2x the competition for there are two legs to the call. They simplified with dial-in options etc. That’s also true in many mobile markets where dialing in to the exchange is using minutes that are paid for anyways. There’s also security issues with the man or exchange in the middle.  I’d suggest these can both be overcome. There are real value added opportunities for having an exchange (mobivox provides a great example with your virtual assistant) and simply convenience and control. When the users control the exchange they can make it work for them. When it does they will be prepared to spend more.

More numbers also aren’t the solution. I’d pose that there is only one place we really want “notifications” and that’s on the mobile (PC too if you want). Although some notifications are more important than others. I’m keen on call handling… handling interruptions in total not just calls. It’s also dependent on our context. The world is increasingly filled with richer communications options. Yet traditional communication still treats each exchange separately. Skype IM has a history and the iPhone can thread SMS. However I may have two or more conversations going on with the same person. One about an important business contract I may pick up on at any time. While a “casual call” that isn’t related to our “business” could be postponed.. handled with a simple text etc.

Jeff writes about challenging the status quo.

The Jeff Pulver Blog: VoIP is NOT Dead!

In order for these dreams to be realized, it will require a new group of people who believe in challenging the status quo, to stand up and be counted on.  While I am looking for others to join the NEW revolution, I am ready and prepared to do what it takes to continue to push for the promise of what IP Communications can offer.  So while some of my friends may declare that VoIP is Dead, I don’t.

Well lets just do that! How to challenge the status quo!???!!!

1. Turn the focus from the end points and numbers to the exchange. Note the comments like Andy’s Jeff’s and Alec’s which are framed by social media / social networks etc are already headed this way. If you want to change telecom you must enable the users to control the exchange. Phweet does this in a simple way. Our PhweetURL is the exchange.

2. Separate the CallerID / Profile from channel and ensure that the design of your exchange is agnostic to both the profile/directory service and whatever channel the users want to participate with. Again Phweet does this. It also means users have “real” options on determining the routing call by call.

With Phweet we made a conscious decision not to involve ourselves in the identity layer. (I also wish there was more progress on oAuth!) None of us have one single identity and we share different facets of ourselves in different ways at different times. This was one reason I gave up earlier on a “one ID for all communications”.

3. Enable the user choice over how to signal, public, private, “fast” “slow” and separate that signal completely from the voice channel. This signal is richer… for it can carry context, terms, expiry, usage, privacy, etc. Now… if you keep this simple what does the user want. They want to signal that they would like to talk. (Disclosure we’ve applied for patents in this area.) A short text message may suffice, or something longer. You also want quick escalation. DTMF tones don’t do this very well. Similarly our interest in “Click to call” type solutions. Just punch, click or even just say their name. And I’m fine with voice to text signals. This signal is an offer for a contract. It’s also my exchange so I may pay all the bills no matter where you are etc.

4. Let the users broadcast their profiles, contact details etc without fear of unwanted interruption or breaches of privacy. We”re doing this already on Twitter. Put the receiver in charge. If I want to set it so your call automatically come though that’s cool. Equally if I want context before accepting that’s fine too. Access is built on trust and relationships. It should no longer be based on the fact you have my number. (Just another reason

5. Make telecom billing records irrelevant relative to the exchange. It’s the service, the conversation, who, what about, etc that was really important. That’s just one new area for value adds.

So whether VoIP is dead or not really doesn’t matter. We still need to talk and setting that up must become both easier and at the same time, more filtered. Everyone is looking for richer communications. It should be easy to escalate and know how to do it. The final terms may be up to the receiver. Eg Video, Voice, just text etc. And I’ve not even mentioned “presence” and “location” both of which are being redefined.

Some things are Phweet! Ah sweet! At least that’s the play on words I was looking for. I thought a world full of PhweetTalk might make Twitter a more interesting place. So this is my review.

10 things I have learned:

We haven’t yet changed the world. People still prefer to make their calls off or outside Twitter and without Phweet. While we garnered a lot of early attention the reasons why are not that hard to see.

1. Most importantly Phweet works. It breaks new ground re callerID, context for a call, call in progress, and call records. The variations developed later including persistent Phweets have even more potential.

2. However, Twitter isn’t yet a mature or effective signaling system. There’s lots of confusion around @ messages, DM’s and the default settings for notifications and email. Many times we wished we had the money to enable reliable SMS and email notification services ourselves.

3. I still look at Phweet as a Clayton Christensen type innovation. It’s counter intuitive, disruptive and slightly broken in the beginning. But watch out!

4. We thought the “PhweetURL” in the tweet would be more viral than it was. At first it was. We had a dozen people in our “launch call”. However sharing and promoting URL’s on twitter isn’t as easy as it sounds or may look. Signing in to Twitter was also a barrier. Twitter really needs an oAuth identification service. Twitter should authorize and send Phweet the key. We also had too many public canceled sessions so the user didn’t get a reward.

5. Tweeters do talk. In fact Twebinars prove they also like conference calls. Yet our lack of an app integration made this hard to call in. We also didn’t put in a “billing system” in the Alpha which restricted the “convenience that can be made available. A few of us know. We ran PSTN accounts and the integrity and convenience of the system improved.

6. We failed to get one Twitter App developer on board. They could have integrated Phweet using the API so it was almost like having a Twitter buddy on speed dial although without the rude ringing. This was disappointing to us. I never wanted to be in the App business although (if I had the funds) we could develop two or three twitter related apps that would challenge the current leaders on the desktop and mobile. I believe we presented revenue models and options that should have been attractive. My guess is many different agendas.

7. We have built a really nifty personal call management system. You can take the call on any channel and Phweet is effectively channel agnostic. Still the feature was buried for first time users and without a payment plan we couldn’t fund the calls so the host always got a call back. That’s a problem we’ve now solved alas it awaits another iteration.

8. Many don’t see the potential for the anonymity / callerID that is and separation from the phone number. This is integral to effective location based services and managing your privacy.

9. Similarly, we’ve not yet executed an integrated package that puts the receiver in charge. Many still fail to see that traditional call escalation results in interruptions, voicemail and potential breaches of privacy. By contrast Phweet lets the receiver make a judgment based on context and their relationship whether or not to escalate to a call. We’re already doing this unofficially by texting first. Phweet must make that dumb SMS message smart.

10. The PhweetURL was always meant to become invisible. In time it will. It’s really an exchange contract that brokers and escalates access between two or more parties. It may be public or private. Without apps we could make the Phweetman the button we envisage or enable it to go to every web page. Again we know the next step.

There’s more of course. We’ve looked at statistics, we’ve looking as deeply as anyone into twitter user behavior. For now we didn’t get a million users quickly. That’s not to say I can’t see 10+ million in my future.

What I would do differently

I wouldn’t have launched a public alpha. There were huge benefits and yet I think we may have done better with building out business case privately. When that public alpha launched, the perception was we were too big really for angels and we needed to go for something bigger. Fact was we were perhaps somewhere in between. As a consequence we shot too high too fast when we had a million demands at once. So I would have spent the time sharing it with more of those I trust and know. No one told me this privately although a couple of influential bloggers who I’d have called my friends shunned mentions as if they had been slighted. It was never the objective. We did what we thought was best at the time and prepped it. I couldn’t see at the time how I could run an effective alpha. Part of our initial focus was to learn how a Phweet passed through the twittersphere. Many of my best friends weren’t even on Twitter despite my early advocacy. So this is really a catch22 reflection. Still it is a note for future iterations.

I spent hard earned money on help with the look and feel of the site. If we hadn’t gone to public alpha we could have saved this money and in the end it was more trouble than it was worth. It’s always an interesting trade-off. It’s also part of the set of skills that’s required to get a start-up like this off the ground. In reality I’m still much happier we spent some time on the “packaging” my real frustration is not having the resources to make improvements. Like anything you have to be prepared to throw it away. Still as they say. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Just two guys had real skin and labor developing Phweet.

In both my reflections on 2008 and in the above I wish we had started with a few more resources. I felt close at the time it just didn’t quite gel that way. I’m sure David feels the same way. Both of us are capable of driving more than just ourselves. I still look at it with pride and think if this is what we could do just think what a team of 10 could do. It’s not a question of delegating everything; its more about ensuring everyone is doing what they are best at. I found myself caught in trying to do everything. The simple fact is few startups or web solutions start with so few resources and even less that provide VoIP solutions. Most have a small army.

If it is not clear in the above I would  approach funding differently. I’m a little horrified that I’m still stuck on really moving forward because of a complete lack of funds. Having sold big dollar consulting projects the costs to have driven our Phweet team forward could have already paid out many times over in some large organization with more resources. Still that’s not the prize that a startup VC or Angel looks for. I’m convinced that the ROI can be huge.

The future for Phweet

That will be a separate post. It’s dependent on and requires additional support from my friends. I require encouragement. So does David. We have a good understanding of services that we can harness in the next iteration. Our plans for Phweet won’t be beholden to “minutes” which is a death spiral for most VoIP companies.

What would thrill me the most and best kick start my new year would be your suggestions; public or private. So if it was yours… what would you do next? If you are as passionate as I am and want to press the innovation boundaries then join us, advise us, fund us etc. Certainly, now would be a good time to come forward.

• If Bloggers Had No Ethics Blogging Would Have Failed, But it Didn't. So Let's Get a Clue.
  Jay Rosen makes a great set of points. I just like the "open journalism" model.
  (tags: blogging, press, media, jayrosen)

As 2008 closes I find myself pondering what’s good and bad about 2008. I find it hard to do this with complete clarity.   Overall I’ve had a really excellent year. 2008 started with a couple of exciting projects and this post is ultimately about recognizing those that helped me most in 2008.

2008 took off with a project that Andrew Hansen and I were working on. While it began with a Facebook app, it was a broader API and platfrom play which the company to its credit is moving forward with (and I still think about). Andrew, Bo McFarland and Gabe Wachob were key to delivering my portion.  We worked fast and hard under crazy deadlines. While we created something special,  changes in management meant it never saw the light of day. I’m very proud of the guys I worked with and what we managed to do.

Then in April I had this little idea. What if telephone calls could be set up by just exchanging a URL? What if the call signal was sent as a text message rather than DTMF tones? Could we create a world in which the user controlled the callerID? In fact could others join the call. I’d had this idea while playing with jailbroken iPhone apps, Twitter and looking at where mobile social communications were headed. You can learn more by just trying Phweet.

I wrote long screeds - mini books on examples on why it was cool and how it should work. I started sharing this with some of my VoIP friends and others who I’ve worked with over the years. I realized that many of them didn’t get it. By this time I’d invented the name Phweet for “phone + Tweet”. Twitter represented the initial way to bring this new “communications revolution” to life. During this formative time I’d been sending David Beckemeyer notes and I still remember the day early in June when he agreed… Phweet should be done. Now David much better than me really knew what I was getting into. We were effectively prototyping a new form of communications with zero budget and just our own efforts. I’ll reflect on Phweet in all its details in a separate post. I praised David at launch and time has not dimmed my views. David’s a rock star (good and bad!) and it’s too easy to look at the simplicity of Phweet and miss the deep understanding, years of experience and his innovate flair that went into it.

Phweet came to life on July 30th. Without David it may never have happened. Bo helped out with the design elements and the logo. From my perspective I just felt like I was launching the second VoIP solution for social networks in less than six months and this time it was ours. I had that adrenaline rush and literally went weeks on 4 hours sleep and 7 day+ weeks. It was all-consuming and probably suffered all the usual stresses that startups go through. We had an idea, we put it into action, we had to go public alpha to get our testers and we ended up with more notoriety instantly than we were ready for.

Those early days of Phweet had another important contributor, someone my blog buddies will know I’ve relied on for years. My Mosoci partner Dina Mehta became my 24 hour solution to answering tweets and setting up calls and testing with others. This effort kept us both very busy throughout August and September. Phweet would not be complete without Yusuf Motowala whose Tringme provides an API which enabled our flash solution.

Dina and I also collaborated on a few India research projects. One in particular merits attention. Helping a large technology manufacturer to explore the top end of mobile social computing and media in India. It involved in-home ethnographies, blog diaries, and additional groups and interviews. As always we looked to report and look deeper. Our client (Liz) was fantastic also wanting to push the boundaries and interested in getting quick and rapid insights. The final report we delivered certainly lived up to my expectations of “delight the customer” and we worked really hard on our observations. It must have worked for we have another opportunity coming up to do more, and are now consulted upon as part of their ‘brain trust’!

In fact,  I want to really beat Dina’s drum here. I’ve been indirectly involved in almost all of her projects over the last year. A few directly (they’re the best!) and some indirectly where we’ve formulated learning journeys, added in blogs to research panels, and the balance of ethnographies, groups etc. If anyone were to catch a glimpse of the mobile, social, media, and consumer clients she’s served over the last year then you would understand. It’s a banner list! She was also heavy into tweeting #mumbai. For me the future of mobile social communication is India and that too is another story.

Phweet has been my fulltime job effectively for 7 months. It’s an unfunded startup with zero resources other than the efforts of the founders. Each month forward has brought new learnings. It’s also brought a share if disappointment. There is nothing like a startup to find out who your friends and real supporters really are. I always believed in the “right people will step forward” type of approach. Mark Petrovic created an iPhweet app for the iPhone which also tested the Phweet API. It’s cool and points to directions we could go. Ethan Zuckerman gave us some valuable early feedback.  Friends like Jon Husband, Gabe Wachob, Ed Prentice and Estee Solomon Gray consistently provided support and good counsel. Many others on Twitter who I did not know previously, showed interest and helped us test it out. Too many to name, but some folks that come to mind - @rojajimmy, @chinarut, @a_f, @markmayhew, @jamesbody, @minhaaj,  Ben Davis, Ed Moltzen ……

Andy Abramson did even more. I remember going in to SF to share Phweet with Andy. I had an early pitch and he had every “connect to the internet/portable solution” available. I demoed Phweet to him over some combination including a P2P network. Phweet worked flawlessly. I felt good. The next day Andy used Phweet to break the “no talking, now VoIP” on airplane bans. When we can take Phweet to the next level Andy will play a key role. And thanks to all my VoIP blogger friends who have kept the chatter going and more importantly been consistently willing to test, or jump into impromptu conference calls. You know who you are!  Particular thanks to Ken Camp, and Sheryl Breuker, Dan York, Dameon D. Welch-Abernathy aka PhoneBoy,  Michael Bauwens, Phil Wolff and Jim of SkypeJournal and Alec Saunders.  Jeff Pulver also promoted Phweet and stimulated a neat thread around Phweet and Ham Radios.

I also worked through much more slowly how to tell the Phweet story and the business model. Well it started in a rush — launched …. ouch need money… need business plan…. need resources… Yes I know!!! So I don’t quite feel crippled by the times but almost do. The financial crisis didn’t exactly hit at the right time for finding investors. I’ve been disappointed and disheartened although that has just served to make the “Evolution of Phweet” potentially more interesting and powerful.

Our Angel is still out there and I think they are really missing out. Most importantly on people that have proven they can get things done, adapt and learn fast.

To close 2008 again proved to me that “all of us” are better than anyone of us. That I’ve been lucky to have worked with friends that fuel a creative and innovative set of solutions. It’s never been without tension or challenges. I’ve also seldom had a year that is more rewarding in terms of what I believe we have achieved and what got done. Not everything should be measured in how much you made on it (although important - we took personal risks and many won’t or don’t.). The saddest thing for me is this group is so “virtual” that I’ve never really had the opportunity to say thank you. Usually that’s done in public with the group. It would make a wonderful achievement to be able to celebrate with you this time next year.

I can’t predict what 2009 will bring. 2008 brought me a deep appreciation and admiration for a few people that consistently step up and also follow their beliefs.  I want to be part of a much bigger business as a result and a little less virtual.  I’m always better when working with others even when I’m driving them crazy. I am totally satisfied that in the mobile social product development and research space I and “we” can create world first innovative solutions. At the end of the day I know that is what I strive most to do and it really doesn’t matter what the industry is.

So if you have ideas for me, want to work with me, think I should head in new directions etc in 2009, you can leave me a comment, drop me an email or simply Phweet me.

I wrote this post a month ago. I’ve decided to post it. Especially after seeing Ev’s video comments just before Xmas. On the one hand I’d like to thank Twitter for the opportunity it presented to me in 2008. Twitter the organization rather than the community continues to leave me out in the cold.

I’m a Twitter Developer. Well sort of. I can’t be a Twitter Developer if I can’t create a model that will make money. The only Twitter developers that are likely to be making money right now are those few with iPhone applications. I doubt any others make money. I can’t think of any.

I’d also like to register that I’ve never been contacted by Twitter about Phweet, to ask how it is going, share what they think of it, or in any way make me feel like I may be part of their success. It’s not like we haven’t tried either. I was given great early advice to “love twitter” and I still do. (I’ve added “developer” learning and Skype comparisons at the end.).  However, I have no clue about how to “talk” to people that really matter at Twitter. I also believe that many other developers and I have a lot to offer.

The Money Horizon:

The problem with Twitter is it is a pipe and we send signals down it. That means it’s not that different to the internet, just text-based. You could sort of charge for packets. Most of these things have been debated in the past. Twitter’s problem is one that Phweet set out to solve when it was designed - for Twitter.

The tweets that are valuable are the ones that escalate to conversations. An @ reply is also many times more valuable to the community than a DM. Both are an escalation. Both imply some form of relationship or exchange. Key word that! Exchange.

Let me point out how services with disparate end points make money. From I want to pay you. Oh here’s my Visa or Amex card. The bank provides the Trust and guarantee. They take a percentage. Then when it comes to telephony we also have an exchange. They connect the call - we know the end points but I pay for the calls I make. Thus the telephone co takes a toll on the conversation. Thankfully the toll is now less than it was and we can have more global conversations at little or no cost. Banks have learned that we need low levels of friction to create interesting commercial models. It the interest or the percent is too high the business goes elsewhere. For that matter, governments have learnt the same. When tax rates are too high the business goes elsewhere.

Twitter is great because, unlike IM systems, there is no approval to follow. It works because it is open like the original telephone. In Twitter you choose your own profile. So far it is rather limited. Still you can link it to something else. Interestingly many are using multiple Twitter accounts and it is built in to some clients as an option. So perhaps we do want more than one identity.

So lets come back to the exchange. Each tweet has a unique URL. And there it stops. There’s no way to add to that URL, whether a comment or escalate it to something more. When things escalate on Twitter for the most part they go off twitter. It becomes a Skype call. Blog posts, a meetup etc. The community at large doesn’t benefit from this and in fact would find it hard to follow or find. The users have partially solved this by using #tags and Summize now being part of Twitter search makes it many times more useful. Then there are also problems.

For commerce to happen around Twitter there must be a form of exchange. Each Tweet is a potential exchange. That is what Phweet is, does and demonstrates. The easier it is for conversations to self organize and escalate around a URL than anything else. In fact that is the natural order of things on the web. We relate to exchanges. When every page potentially becomes an exchange then it becomes even more interesting.

Now what problem is this solving?
Communications today when they escalate are inside out. We worry about the endpoints rather than the conditions. Today we have things like caller and receiver rather than “hosts” and “participants”. Remember a host serves or looks after the community so while they can send requests they can’t interrupt potential participants. Now this is apparent in how “control” is managed in Phweet.

The telephone/communications exchange can be decentralized and put into the users hands and controls. Any individual could build as many exchanges as they saw fit. They could be persistent or temporary. More importantly these exchanges aren’t really exchanges in the tradition of switches. They are in fact info contracts. Thus the host (originator) of the tweet can decide whether it is open for discussion, addition etc. In fact the contract could become quite complex. I sometimes joke with other Phweeters that I could require them to sign a NDA before being able to accept and activate and talk to me.

Now this might not seem that interesting on your standard tweet. However if it is a tweet about work and availability, or a Tweet of an item for sale this URL could represent something much bigger. The beauty is Twitter doesn’t need to work out the classifications of things being sold on Twitter. A developer could. Twitter doesn’t need to know how to make the Phone calls and protect the privacy of the parties. (Phweet could and does already!). Twitter doesn’t need to create the dating and meetup infrastructure. A developer could. Twitter doesn’t need to do anything to reap the rewards of open customer service. Eg @comcastcares I have a problem x. Was there a public answer? Well a Developer could.

What do we need? We need a way to make money. So we need a way to escalate the conversation. You can’t do that unless we have a charging format. eBay takes an auction fee. Skype charges for minutes, Craiglist for some listings. Most services around Astrology (eg Keen) or other online services take huge percentages. Apple does pretty well at 30% on iPhone apps and Twitter isn’t even sharing in the ones sold to use Twitter. I’m an advocate for a credit card like rate being applied to Twitter. A couple of %.  Why not start with 5%. Then those finance charges are more than covered.

How would Twitter get there?
Work out how developers can tie in to the unique URL’s for each Tweet. Make it easy to expand the page and the value on it. A tweet is not just a tweet. I don’t really see the difference between tweeting that I’m listing my car for sale, and I’m watching TV. The thing is I probably would like to have responses to each but they may be different. I think it is huge when NetFlix decides to bring my Tweets about movies in with others or introduce me to others that are watching the same movie now.

These exchanges can still have a half life or disappear quickly. Part of the beauty of twitter is how quickly a tweet is forgotten although they stay around! More importantly exchanges or at least higher order ones represent services which i may or may not subscribe to. Some are time sensitive some aren’t. Twitter’s current delivery system doesn’t really guarantee time sensitive delivery or location based although the SMS can be tweaked a little (recently has not been reliable).

For me, the value of users controlling the exchanges via the URL is they are the hosts and they can set the rules and create the options around it. Blogging is then something that is completely different. In fact could be reinvented. I doubt Six Apart sees this in buying Pownce. The signals are for the most part public. The access to the tweet may not even be public in the longer term. That’s not much different to a letter vs a postcard and it is illegal to read others postcards in the mail in many places.

Lifestreams should lead to natural intersections. Ah another form of exchange. Who goes first? The growth of Twitter clones suggests many see the value to organizations in just learning faster. Add in location to Twitter in an effective fashion and then there is an even better prize. Tweets by location when placed in the context of all written above is a hugely valuable prize. Add in the ability to select or choose profiles and from which service you want to attach to the URL you are tweeting and we have user centric control over profiles and context before exchange. The approach provides more protection than anything built in to the phone system.

Why should all this be interesting? Commerce is not click to call unless it is big business. When you take the friction out of escalating conversations you need to put the controls and filters with the recipients.

So Twitter if you want to make money you have to allow commerce to flow through your veins. You have to let me turn each Tweet into something more valuable. You have to keep it really simple and find a money model that doesn’t gouge my efforts. There are obvious businesses that work here. Many are already experimenting in small ways with selling goods and notifying customers.

How could you make this happen?
First integrate Phweet. We can provide the communications infrastructure to enable “ads” for services very quickly. Concurrently there are some other additional items we can add in.
Second, provide the “negotiation” model for the contract surrounding the URL.
Lastly, let the developers design this and participate in this. It’s got to be a community effort.

Community is important. So far from a developer’s perspective it hasn’t been targeted or really managed. Twitter doesn’t have the resources and so what it must have is the structure and roadmap to enable developers to build it for them. One of the fascinating things about Twitter is it was so open so early. Now it has critical mass or almost. It has the opportunity to grow even more rapidly, not off the backs of tweets to CNN but off the backs of people that want and need to make money. It’s the way to really take the communications web to the mobile. We can only do that if we retain and augment the power of the URL.

Closing Remarks:

Skype Developer EcoSystem gets a D- I wrote this post in July 2005 before Skype was sold. (I have no control over what it looks like now!) The eight key factors apply to Twitter too. I think Twitter management should sit down and look at the eight factors suggested here and then address.

What concerns me. I can see ways to make money and yet they may not eventuate. Twitter has always been an experiment. We used Twitter to create Phweet because we could use it’s signaling service (SMS & email) as well as it’s log-in - tools all for zero outlay. It made prototyping a new type of service many times cheaper. Twitter is fun and, like Wordpress, has a community developing around it. I just wonder for how long.

Today it is more attractive to develop for the iPhone than it is for Twitter or Facebook. Twitter has even pulled back from it’s mobile underpinnings “SMS everywhere” although that is understandable given their lack of a model. The iPhone community is also growing faster than Twitter. The “update” solution is here to stay. Twitter only has six months to prove they are it or something else will usurp their position. Ovi or iPhone are good examples.

Here I am doing a little catch up on my blog and reviewing some posts that are drafts. May just publish them. As I opened it I also had one of those observations. Twitter is usurping my Bookmarking and I’m torn about it.

I liked the gesture that bookmarking enabled on Del.icio.us enabled. It allowed me to complement someone on their post add a quick note on a post I’d seen and add appropriate tags. At the end of the day whatever I’d seen was pulled into a link blog and posted here. Common practice for many.

However, Twitter is more rewarding for passing links. I find I am more likely to get a response and there is actually a community around sharing comments.  The downside is It is hard to find the links later as they have no tags, although Twitter search might help although I’ve not really used it like that. I also dislike posting the same thing twice.

So perhaps I should link my del.icio.us account to twitterfeed? So I’ve done that. I’ve connected my Delicious account RSS to a Twitterfeed account. I’ve added in “Delicious:” to the beginning of the tweet and will just pass the title and URL. The downside of this strategy is it will open my delicious page first rather than the post which it links too. It will also mean I will have to be creative with the header and my notes become even more important. Still I’m going to give it a go.

I was also posting my Twitter updates to my blog. Although recently I stopped doing that. There were too many and I’m not sure they help in context. So I’d removed them from the front page although left them in the RSS. I’ve now deleteted them there too.

• Arrington on Scoble, FriendFeed, And The Web Of Flow
  Stowe really enjoyed your insightful observations. I agree not all of us do everything for money and that's where Arrington's logic fails. Pioneering doesn't always pay out in the ways we think they will. Am sure that Scoble is doing just fine.
  (tags: media stoweboyd social flow)
• CEO predicts future uses for Twitter
  Found a few insights in this video with Ev CEO of Twitter.
  (tags: twitter)
• The Permanent Conversation
  nicely written piece on conversation by gary goldhammer
  (tags: socialmedia conversation garygoldhammer)

• The End of Wall Street's Boom - National Business News - Portfolio.com
  At this point not really surprising, perhaps a warning that it is going to get much worse.
  (tags: banking Economics wallstreet michaellewis)

• Easy Wi-Fi for AT&T | iPhone Central | Macworld
  I moaned about AT&T's woeful solution for connecting at Starbucks and someone fixed it and hopes to make some money out of it. I added it now while still free.
  (tags: iphone ATT)
• How To: Turn on WiFi While the iPhone 3G/EDGE Radio is Off | The iPhone Blog
  Nice little hint. One I hadn't worked out. You can turn on WiFi and turn off the phone radios. Yep it works. Would be nice if in that mode the Truphone for iPod would work! Good way to protect one's self when in foreign lands locked to At&T.
  (tags: iphone)
• Why Twitter Didn’t Sell to Facebook — Really - GigaOM
  Useful perspective on Twitter via Om. That six million number is a real jump! Am sure like skype many users have multiple accounts and many are dormant. Still this is exciting progress!
  (tags: twitter gigaom)
• VoIP Watch: Some Say My Touch is Tru (Truphone that is)
  I love the optimism and the promise that the iPod Touch may really bring VoIP into the house in a new and easy way. No question the solution is brilliant technically and yes there are millions of Touchs being sold. People will jailbreak their iPhones for this app. That will have more impact. One point of clarification is still required. Does the Truphone app run in the background?
  (tags: ipodtouch truphone andyabramson voip)

Apparently Truphone now works on the iPod Touch. So I thought I’d just grab the app and see if I could install on my iPhone. The answer is no. Is this the first app that that proves that the iPhone is a crippled iPod Touch? I always thought when I got my iPhone that it was an iPod with the phone inside. You know I thought I got more. Now it seems that AT&T bullies Apple so I get less and probably less in the future.

Truphone for iPod Touch - a set on Flickr

Transform your iPod Touch into a phone with Truphone for iPod Touch. Truphone for iPod Touch enables you to make free calls to other Truphone users over the internet, using the Wi-Fi connection of the iPod Touch.

We sort of knew AT&T was holding certain features back. Like using my iPhone as a modem with my Mac when on the run. No go unless you jailbreak it, which is easy enough.

Have you had to figure out why in Starbucks your iPhone is not downloading mail? It’s because you have been switched over to WiFi, as it remembers you logged on there once before. So now you have to log in to Safari input your phone number and get a new code via SMS…. or log into settings and remove the offending ATT network. It’s a customer service pain point. Engineered stupidity. Surely they have after my first registration my mac address on record. Just makes me continually unhappy with them. Along with the billing issues I’ve already had. Then Verizon is no better.

• India needs Ratan Tata as Prime Minister for 5 Years
  Interesting perspective and the comments alone prove the stature that Tata has in India.
  (tags: india politics)
• Nokia Announces N97 Superphone, Won’t Sell It for Months - GigaOM
  Om has a great summary on the new Nokia N97 and 5800 touch which rings true for me although I haven't tried either phone. I suspect they won't cut the mustard and by launch date Jobs and co will have yet another new iPhone.
  (tags: nokia iphone apple gigaom)

Phil Wolff put this comparison up in a recent blog post. The thing is I wrote a lot of scenarios and participated in many future exercises in the late 90’s and early 00’s. I don’t think I ever managed a storyline then that could explain how a Mumbai-like response would emerge in 2008.

Skype Journal

And the Internet is only five thousand days old.

In 2001 our global blogosphere shared the horror of the 9/11 attacks.

In 2008 our global mediasphere tweeted, blogged, Blackberried, tagged, digged, YouTubed, streamed, Skyped, IM’d the horror of the #Mumbai attacks.

What could it be like at day 10k? 20k?

On my own I’m not prepared to predict what a 2015 response might be. However with the wisdom of a small crowd and a focal question it would be a fun session to run.

Globally and individually reporting on #Mumbai 26/11 was more interesting and I think overall an improvement. More raw unmediated data also means new challenges. Concurrently the power that CNN is capturing in blog/tweets is quite possible a real threat to the former bastions of text… newspapers and their online capabilities. Lots of ways and scenarios could be developed here.

We know the future will be different. What really struck me was the pace of this change. In 2001 we barely had blogs. Then I got the real inside perspectives from email lists.

Now next generation media tools are already available…  I’m starting to think CNN gets this and a year ago I wouldn’t have said that. Potentially a good example of how a social strategy is taking them in powerful new directions. Other stations should rapidly follow. It was obvious when looking at the NDTV feed that they are with it (beta internet live feed) and yet haven’t gone nearly far enough.

More counter intuitive thinking is required!

I’ve been noticing three factors that I don’t hear / read enough about which is changing the way the web or web pages will work forever. I see them at play in the iPhone and they will completely change the desktop and the way we work, play and communicate. I’m also not sure that the the latest Blackberry or Nokia really deals with them.

These are just three observations that I think matter.

• Pocket Social Networking.
• Applications Galore
• Design Simplification

Pocket Social Networking. Until you have the freedom to update and reach in your pocket at any time you don’t have the ability to utilize that free time in the passenger seat to update on twitter, or that time on Bart or waiting for an appointment to check in or pass along a reference. The iPhone and Twitter in particular are proving that location and networking tools in your pocket can be accessed more frequently without impacting on other activities. Not everyone will agree with me I’m sure. However each and everyone of us is going to be broadcasting all sorts of signals like never before. I remain very interested in the mobile location space. Think about it. When we can share an “ad” (status update) that may exist for maybe only minutes rather than a day or week.  Will we find new ways to ask for things? How will it effect commerce. That negotiation will be one of the more interesting things that emerges.  Similarly, desires for more control over our handsets, privacy, interruptions and new capabilities to quickly gather a sense of our augmented surroundings. Example persistent geoads.

Applications Galore: A few days ago I realized I’d downloaded and added more applications to my iPhone than I have ever added to any PC ever! Well I’m pretty sure. Actually if I counted all the plug-ins in Firefox and all the various patches and little things I need to make my laptop work perhaps not. However they all serve a different set of purposes. Most of those make the system work. By contrast the apps I have on my iPhone make me more communicative, more informed or better able to know my surroundings. They also help me with immediacy eg maps, photos or video and thus sharing in real-time with my friends. Lastly they entertain or augment my entertainment, music, music addtions, games etc. So do we feel different about these applications? I think we might. I’m even starting to buy some and prefer the 99c type. I’ve also noted that Apple’s iTunes store has probably billed me more in the last six or eight months than it did in the preceding five years. That too is huge! However that’s not my real point about why these apps and the iPhone is revolutionary. It’s simply that I’m happy to buy and have these new services and items in the palm of my hand. Example I met with the Taxi developer the other day. A simple app today but one that tomorrow could change the ways Taxi’s are actually despatched and identified. I have a Bart button on my home screen. I would never bother to have the same thing on my laptop. The apps have a greater reward and I may well end up having a closer bond with their services.  Many also have a web version too. So I expect that apps will migrate from the iPhone to the PC and no longer from the PC to the iPhone. Successful ones will be judged increasingly first by whether or not they work in the palm of your hand.

Design Simplification. I’ve been quietly assessing all the current Twitter apps. I’m also testing many more looking to glean some insight into how the design challenges are being handled. The best apps can get you signed up and going immediately. Many still do this poorly where required. I’m a big fan of simplicity in the use of the layout and the screens. All the fancy stuff that has been junking up the web pages or ajaxed behind them doesn’t work so well on the iPhone. We don’t consume the info the same way. Gmail may work perfectly well on Firefox but they needed a whole new look/layout for the iPhone. Yes it works. In fact I like looking at my gmail account on my iPhone mail client many times more than the gmail equivalent or even on firefox for the most part. It’s simpler. I’m sure there are lessons here. Whereas pre iPhone I would say I looked at my email on the move with my t-mobile always on connection and dealt with perhaps 5% the ratio of dealing with email on my iPhone is now easily 50%. That’s a massive shift and I enjoy the new flexibility. So design for simplicity and mobility is key. It must be easy to read and use the space efficiently. What we are learning from the iPhone we will expect in other new devices. Not just touch screens and quick navigation. We will expect to be able to quickly add new features. We will expect consumer products to be designed with additions of software in mind. We will also increasingly expect that tablet in our hand to do a lot of the things the laptop used to do. I may be getting away from my point however I can’t see why I can’t have iPhone like devices in multiple screen sizes. Why can’t I just use it with a keyboard and HD TV?   In fact what do I really need the laptop for anymore? The iPhone finally has computing at a point where a step change is about to take place. It’s going to be the new web and the neat thing is many more people are going to be included.

In the intro I said I’m not sure that Nokia or Blackberry or other handset manufacturers really understand the shift yet. I think the difference that iPhone apps are being developed for you and me for a new army of people developing stuff we seem to use when we didn’t before. Example. “The Weather Channel”. The iPhone comes with a weather/temp app although it is basic. My daughter checks the Weather Channel each day on her phone before she leaves. It’s part of her dress routine. The mobile is at hand, it it one tap for the info. Pre iPhone she would have asked what do you think etc. She is disparaging about the iPhone weather app which I would say is adequate and I only use for other countries. Now she would never have booted up the PC or have an icon on her desktop to make the same check there. She’s personalized her’s in other ways too. So maybe the new Nokias and Blackberries will have a “weather”  button. But if they don’t or you can’t add it so quickly, then it is a good guess that they don’t get it yet. Even in this little story I believe there are some pointers on how to think differently.

I’ve been writing this post in my mind since 26/11 and the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks. These attacks hit me at my core and were assault on my values, my friends, my beliefs on how we should work and live together. With messages from @dina and on Twitter it hit my screen instantly. I was soon watching it live on Indian TV.

For me Mumbai Terror was personally more impactful than the 9/11 twin towers which I saw brought down live on TV. I’d been to the top of the Twin Towers (WTC) and underlying it was an act against America. It was something I could understand. It was symbolic and while deplorable, despicable and wrong it didn’t change too much around me. It grounded the planes and I didn’t make a business trip. It was a lapse in our security. It was a few people and it should have been stopped long before it happened.

Our responses as a nation after that event have not made the world safer. Mumbai brings that home!

For Mumbai the Taj  is an icon every bit as powerful as the World Trade Center in New York was. It too is a center of power and a symbol both historical and of prosperity. I’ve had tea at the Taj. I’ve looked out the windows from the Sea Lounge at the Gate of India. It’s a place where business, entertainment and tourism is done. This symbol is every bit as important (vs WTC) to India and probably more important than attacking a government building.

Terrorist attacks in Mumbai made terrorism real for the whole world. It wasn’t just Americans killed, and the stories that are being broadcast back to the US are going to other countries too. For the first time, my first point of information was NDTV, links to which I got off Twitter. That’s India television streamed live over the Internet from the first minutes. I heard Indian announcers, I heard real voices talking about it in real time. It wasn’t filtered with an American accent. Within seconds I was also seeing a whole lot of on Twitter #Mumbai.

Like at the WTC, only a few terrorists were involved in Mumbai. 10. That so few can terrorize so many is completely wrong. The damage is massive and under-rated at this time. Half a world away I directly felt the effects as “travel bans” were put into effect by large US corporates killing Mosoci projects planned in December. I’m sure “flights” to Mumbai are cheaper today. This of course is minor by comparison to those killed or maimed.

Let’s look at the Global Corporate reaction. They say, let’s put in place a travel ban! Look people it is not a war. It should not lead to war! Putting in a travel ban just plays to the few and wreaks havoc on the earnings of many. By all means change hotels. Be smarter about security but like Suketu Mehta wrote in the NYTimes it doesn’t worry me. Going to India is as safe as anywhere else right now. And in my simple opinion the airport security is always way better than it is in the US. It’s a good place to start.

Corporates should be part of the solution.What corporates have said they will step forward? Are they prepared to publicly create reviews (wikis) on tech and materials gaps? Are they analysing how well the communications and emergency response systems worked? What did they learn from social media and the impact of Internet? If you are a large corporate with ties to India you need to think hard about your strategies and how you might move forward.

I think the world has changed. Rather than pull back perhaps you should consider what you can do to move the world forward.

Some reasons why i believe the world has changed:

1. The Taj assault was a dramatic and impactful follow up to 9/11. Global governments have failed since 9/11 to make the world a safer place. All governments are culpable. Terrorism now strikes anywhere and will almost always involve a global audience and instantaneous reporting and live accounts. The reporting tools depending on the location are only getting smarter and easier for anyone in the street to use. Terrorists can attack anywhere. Mumbai is not an “armed” society. Nor are other large metropolises around the world. Anyone with an AK-47 could raise havoc quickly. Heads are already rolling in India, ministers have resigned. I see that as window-dressing. Terrorism won’t ultimately be solved with more guns, and security. We have to fix the factors that lead to it in the first place.

2. Mumbai, while a growing financial capital, is more about trade and a growing economy. 1 billion people won’t and can’t be ignored, it is too big a prize for global multinationals. Should they protect their officers with armoured cars and extra guards? No I don’t think so as it hasn’t worked anywhere. If anything, corporate travel bans are wrong. We should run faster to provide help and support. That support should not be given to governments. Instead we need new vehicles to provide the help. Just like the reporting, these need to be self-organizing in the places where it can help. It can help where terrorists are breeding in the first place. The help in Mumbai after the clean up is how to make the populace more self-aware and be more willing to report concerns.

3. That such small groups can have such a large impact and capture so much television is wrong. It’s community apathy and terror that has lead us down this path. We all need to understand the roots of terrorism better and actively do something about it. Youth and young people don’t just accidentally turn into martyrs and follow suicide missions. I’ve also seen some posts on bullying something I had more than my fair share of as a child. Terrorists are bullies and we should take more action to address them like that and early on.

4. Governments are failing to protect the people. As I sit and write (I hope purposely a little provocatively) I watch governments handing money over to bankers, a destroyed banking systems, poor uses of funds everywhere and layers of bureaucracy in heath care and contracts that is just another form of graft. Add in communications policies and watch a war that should have never started in Iraq and you realize that the complicity or duplicity is global not national. It may be my background (Brit, US, Kiwi) but my identity is global not local and my friends are global, my business is global and I have come to expect very little of my various governments. So for the most part I take things into my own hands and have done very little about or to understand the root causes of terrorism. Till last week it was never in my backyard. I now wonder how I can help to change it.

5. Connectivity too had a new resilience. The world could watch via NDTV not via CNN. While the numbers may still be small, Twitter and blogs rapidly began capturing information. It provided more transparency and put a more personal face on the tragedy as it unfolded. As a QIK user and as the London attacks showed video is now just a mobile away. Flickr quickly became a repository for latest pictures. In fact the combined updates on search.twitter.com #mumbai rapidly came faster than updates on the live newscasts and from more directions. They also suffered new problems and issues. Eg were Tweeter’s giving away important info etc. For the most part, common sense prevailed in the early days and hours. The beliefs of open channels / fact checking were spelt out by a few Tweeters @dina included. It’s important to see this form of communication as open and unmediated and self-correcting. You can’t control it. If someone will Tweet a police position and not use common sense then it may pay to put some more time into educating in “common sense”.

Terrorism is now in my backyard.  You, me, all of us, we need to acknowledge it. We will not be bullied. What if I put in 5% of my time/resources into stopping it? Or even a larger percentage. What commitment can I make? Really we need to be more vigilant as a society.

• PE Obama’s Phone Records Breached By Verizon Employees - GigaOM
  The phone company should be concerned but this applies to your bank etc too. The system is breaking down!
  (tags: privacy)
• Twilio Comes Out
  Great review by Thomas Howe that helped my perspective.
  (tags: voip telecom voicexml)

• Twitpay!
  Tweet someone some money! I was very skeptical at first and still am. Executionally this is rather neat. Another example of the Twitter community developing a full set of trading tools.
  (tags: twitter paypal trust mashup)
• Soft Phones: An Opportunity For Someone
  Picked up via Andy Abramson this rant by Michael Graves on the state of soft phones. There's no progres or revolution afoot here. Where I'd look is where I've been playing. There's a whole host of Twitter Apps that don't yet talk but manage many conversations in different ways. I think we will want to have this level of customization to personal needs and productivity in the future. I can see many different apps evolving. Escalation to voice will be one of the capabilities that is plugged in. These app developers shouldn't have to worry about how to do voice merely have a set of commands. These new dashboards will be much more effective and flexible than the IM and softphone clients that came before.
  (tags: voip)
• Rebtel Blog » Blog Archive » Rebtel Takes The Price Lead - By a Mile
  Low rates are no longer enough to get me to change or adopt a new behavior. Rebtel's rates to India are certainly low although temporary for new users. Minute rates isn't the long term way forward
  (tags: voip telephony)
• New Study Shows Time Spent Online Important for Teen Development
  Long term results and summary of a three year MacArthur Foundation project.
  (tags: kids, youth, internet research ethnography)
• Teenagers Are Not Being Driven Crazy By The Web
  Stowe, thanks for point me to this study! Very appropriate.
  (tags: kids internet research)
• FINAL REPORT | DIGITAL YOUTH RESEARCH
  This is worth reading!
  (tags: youth internet research)

• Why There Is No More space for new VoIP Players | LucaFiligheddu.com
  I'd add to these clones the oovoo and Voxox I looked at last week. It's a difficult market today.
  (tags: voip)
• $6K per gigabyte? No thanks, Ted. — Alec Saunders SquawkBox
  I may need to get a rebelsim still waiting for a software iPhone unlock solution. Separately, Alec organizes his bottom row for the second most used items. SMS, Twitter etc. Found it intersting as I still do topleft to top right. So many variations are possible.
  (tags: iphone rebelsim unlock)

• Why Traditional Recession Tactics Are Doomed To Fail This Time - Umair Haque
  (tags: economics sustainability recession networks)

Sometimes reminders and special conversations come out of the blue - unexpectedly. I had one of those Phweet calls today with @transitioner which pointed me back to the work of an old friend Jean Francois Noubel which is perhaps more relevant than ever today. If nothing else just read the description for the conference and think about banks, mobility, and the rise of our networks. This description resonated with me.

Conference Nov. 2008 Mexico - The Future of Money: how millions of currencies are going to change the world - TheTransitioner - Pioneers

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