Segundo o que consta em seu blog oficial, o corte acontece por alto custo com o usuário. Por volta de 670 euros por pessoa/ano. A manutenção do serviço aos quatro países destacados ocorre por um acordo com empresas de telefonia.

Twitter, antes uma ferramenta com a premissa "O que você está fazendo agora“, tornou-se um novo nicho de informação colaborativa. Simplesmente um ambiente virtual de "prestação de serviço". Muitos usuários do sistema, quando querem uma informação, vão direto ao microblogging.

Segundo Biz Stone, seu co-fundador, o Twitter vai buscar, aos poucos, acordos com empresas de telefonia. O próximo país que pode alcançar tal trato pode ser a Espanha, que possui uma demanda absurda de usuários no sistema.

How Do You Use Twitter? from biz stone on Vimeo.

Several weeks ago we invited folks in New York City and San Francisco to share with us a little about how and why they use Twitter. We talked to lots of interesting people. Alas, we had to edit way down for time so only a few people made it into the final cut. We plan to put this material somewhere on our site for potential new users to get a better idea of how they might use Twitter. In the meantime, check out the video if you're curious. Thanks to everyone who took the time to chat with us. We enjoyed meeting you! Also, special thanks to @julietweets for taking the lead on this project.

Hey people Twitter is real or should I say the twitter's value proposition is real. MG at Venturebeat has a post nailing the real time nature of Twitter. Big Biz Stone at Twitter opens the curtain to show us the stats (Biz we love stats - keep them coming).

What came out of the blue was David Dalka (one smart guy in Chicago) who brings in his perspective to the Twitter business model question.

David writes: "Graphs and/or alert spikes of user defined keywords - ie ones that are important to oneself personally or to one’s business or clients. I would dare to say this might actually be business model that could lead to meaningful monetization - I think alot of web services haven’t thought this through nearly enough. Organizing real-time data for useful decision making as a business model worked out OK for Michael Bloomberg if I recall correctly. Some might say Google Trends does this already from a search perspective, but it doesn’t break down the word clusters to core words with “sidekicks” and is not the leading indicator that Twitter is by an uncertain but definite time margin."

The triple net is this: take MG's post, Big Biz, and David's and you have the Twitter business model. It's a communication system about real-time but with asynchonous logging as well. It's a data mining "quantjock's" dream. Expect some real innovation around this new twist on Unified Communications.

That is why convergence is happening around presence and why I believe that the Unified Communications (covered on my other blog BroadDev.com) sector may be a pipe dream if presence paradigms like twitter continue to provide real time and non-linear value.

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ver entrevista AQUI

,

The ground zero of social networking gone wild is Twitter. We got a look at their offices days before they prepared for a move to a more grown-up space.

fonte: www.technologyreview.com

Q&A with Twitter's Biz Stone
Twitter has received a truckload of criticism over the last month for its frequent service outages. Some members of the microblogging community even organized a Twitter tough love protest (aptly dubbed a “Twit-Out“), which sparked some intense discussion about the service, its features, seeming lack of communication and future. While the stability debate is intense, I got back to basics with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone about what’s on the radar in terms of features, battling bots, community engagement — and why he isn’t afraid of a “Twitter killer”.

Read the ZDNet Feeds blog for more.

Of course Twitter's most popular user is Robert Scoble, and as far as numerous successive posts have argued, he is the real source of the problem (prompting some not-unexpected foot-stomping on Scoble's part).

I wrote about Twitter's problem in a post last weekend and how they should charge for people like Scoble, Michael Arrington and myself for using their system so aggressively. Our use of Twitter benefits our businesses. Links to Scoble's posts can drive traffic to his site or his videos, which in turn drives attention to his work and his employer. Same holds true for Michael and for me. On a more philosophical basis, it allows us to stay in touch with our readers, who in turn keep us in business.

Nevertheless, since common sense and paid services are apparently not part of this brave new Web 2.0 world, my idea didn't play well. What was I thinking? Instead there's this belief that Twitter, the ultimate tool of our collective narcissism, should be so lucky to have super users, that they are what make it popular with everybody else. I don't subscribe to that point of view, but hey that's just me.

For Twitter, the challenge of keeping the service going while at the same time fixing it to scale up is immense. Thankfully they have the money and what looks like the will to fix the problems. Will they? We shall see!

Update: The debate about Twitter rages on. Scoble met with Twitter team and talked about the various issues in a video interview. I got an email from Even Williams who is one of the founders of Twitter and this is what he had to stay:

We like the idea of charging for commercial use. That's something we've been talking about for a long time (you can probably find my quoted saying that from a year ago). We're just not there yet.

Given all different opinions, and other issues that have emerged, I have to reiterate that by charging the super users, I am suggesting that costs will bring in a sense of responsibility to the entire ecosystem. When there is no tax involved, there is no cost to having thousands of followers, or sending hundreds of messages. When asked to pay, heavier users will use the system responsibly.

Official news of the deal is eventually going to percolate out, and hopefully I will be able to nail down the specifics on who is the lead investor. Valleywag and Silicon Alley Insider had mentioned Spark Capital as a potential investor. Meanwhile, I am told that Charles River Ventures, after fighting a bit, is now out of the race. The news of new funding comes at a time when Twitter is dealing with a whole slew of scaling and infrastructure issues. Today, the folks there almost threw their proverbial hands up in despair.

Update: Twitter the great facilitator of e-narcissism also can't keep secrets. As Michael Arrington points out, two tweets from two parties add fuel to the rumors of Spark being the mystery investor in the San Francisco company.

“The walls around the garden are coming down-the implementation of Data Availability injects a new layer of social activity and creates a more dynamic Internet,” said Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of MySpace. “We, alongside our Data Availability launch partners, are pioneering a new way for the global community to integrate their social experiences Web-wide.”

Data Availability - User Interface

Data Availability pioneers a new way for users to dynamically share their user generated content and data with websites of their choosing. The Data Availability initiative is founded first and foremost on the simple and comprehensive user control of their own content and data - users will have control over what information they share and who they share it with.

Additionally, rather than updating information across the Web (eg. default photo, favorite movies or music) for each site where a user spends time, now a user can update their profile in one place and dynamically share that information with the other sites they care about. MySpace will be rolling out a centralized location within the site that allows users to manage how their content and data is made available to third party sites they have chosen to engage with.

Inside this opt-in framework, they will be offered the opportunity to share their MySpace profiles with the site they are visiting. MySpace, and its landmark launch partners, will be allowing users to dynamically share the content and data of their choosing including: (1) Publicly available basic profile information, (2) MySpace photos, (3) MySpaceTV videos, and (4) friend networks. Integration of the Data Availability project will roll to MySpace users and participating Websites in the coming weeks.

“The launch of Data Availability is an unprecedented move to further socialize the Web and empower users to control their online content and data,” said Amit Kapur, Chief Operating Officer, MySpace. “We are thrilled to begin this initiative with a world class suite of landmark partners and invite websites around the world to participate.”

Partner Website Functionality

Data Availability is about enriching existing Internet destinations with social functionality and valuable pre-existing user generated content and data.  By empowering users with the ability to dynamically share, those destinations will create deeper levels of social engagement and new functionality throughout their site. As the online home to 117 million users worldwide, this groundbreaking initiative enables the larger Web to leverage the highly engaged and passionate MySpace global community.

To ease implementation for participating sites, the MySpace Data Availability initiative uses OAUTH and Restful APIs as its core technology underpinnings. MySpace is using open standards in an effort to embrace the open source community and allow the implementation to be as non-proprietary as possible. Today’s announcement is the first step of MySpace’s larger data portability initiatives coming down the pipeline. MySpace is officially joining the Data Portability Project demonstrating our continued commitment to openness and open standards.

Data Availability on Yahoo!

MySpace’s Data Availability complements Yahoo!’s recently announced Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS), a company-wide initiative to open Yahoo! to application developers, unlock the rich social connections across the Yahoo! network, and enable users to customize and make more personally relevant their experiences of Yahoo! and other Internet services.

On Yahoo!, the Data Availability initiative may appear to users in a variety of ways.  For example, users that have chosen to share their MySpace content and data with Yahoo! Instant Messenger might find their MySpace default photo, interests, and favorite music displayed to their Messenger contacts directly in the IM client.  Additionally, MySpace users will be able to choose to display their data within Yahoo!’s universal profile or leverage it in Yahoo! Mail's smarter inbox, once those upcoming releases are deployed.

“Yahoo! believes in an open Internet that gives users the flexibility to make their Web experiences as relevant, social and personalized as they can.  As a longtime collaborator with MySpace on a variety of projects, including the OpenSocial Foundation, we’re thrilled to support this new initiative,” said Ash Patel, Executive Vice President, Platforms, at Yahoo!.  “The Yahoo! Open Strategy and MySpace Data Availability are a giant leap towards a more social and open Internet.”

Data Availability on eBay

Through the MySpace Data Availability implementation, eBay profiles can be easily enhanced with MySpace bios, interests, pictures, and videos. In a socially driven marketplace, this will yield a deeper connection between individuals. When browsing or transacting on eBay, the availability of external social information can help users make good decisions quickly about whom they can do business with, and perhaps even make a new friend.

"The MySpace Data Availabilityinitiative will further enrich eBay profiles and create a more elaborate social experience for buyers and sellers worldwide," said Matt Ackley, VP of Internet Marketing of eBay.  "As the world's largest social commerce site, eBay is dedicated to creating a social context and personality for the people with whom you transact."

Data Availability on Photobucket

MySpace's Data Availability initiative will allow Photobucket users to enjoy a more seamless photo experience with their MySpace profile.  Photobucket users will be able to have a single view of their photos across multiple services, as well as opt-in to displaying their MySpace profile data in their Photobucket albums.  Users will also be able to leverage their existing connections on MySpace to share their content on Photobucket more easily, without having to re-establish connections and friend lists.

"MySpace users invest a huge amount of time populating their profile and personal interest data.  With the large overlap in users, the Data Availability initiative will allow Photobucket to utilize this profile data to enhance its own products," said Alex Welch, President of Photobucket.  "The combination of the Data Availability initiative and the recently announced Photobucket Open-API provides new opportunities to create a more open web"

Data Availability on Twitter

Twitter profiles at present are primarily focused on current updates and are relatively sparse on user information. The MySpace Data Availability initiative enriches the current Twitter profile by empowering users to incorporate their MySpace profile content and data points previously not included in the Twitter product suite.  Once the implementation is complete, a user will be able to bring in their MySpace content and data including their bio, blogs, and photos, ultimately making the Twitter site a more enriching site with content previously unavailable in its interface.

"Finding friends to follow is central to Twitter's value as a real-time communication utility." Says Biz Stone, Co-founder, Twitter. "This project enhances discovery and connectivity making Twitter more relevant and useful-we're very excited."

Stay Tuned for more updates, later today. Subscribe

Being interested in both, I took a gander at an interview FastCompany (Shel Isreal) did with the Twitter team a few weeks back. As usual my raw notes are below, but here are the thoughts that jumped out at me as I ran (i.e. jogged) along.

It's interesting to watch the movement of how technologies like Twitter are trying to enable interaction between people. Even more so when you consider the daily conversations that happen in corporate environments. I am going to do a writeup on Jive software (one of the major Enterprise social networking stacks) in a bit ... you will see strong similarities between it and the 'free web' tools like Twitter.

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/a-talk-with-twitter-guys

.................○ 4/29/2008, 6:12 AM

.................○ Biz Stone

..................................§ Story of how he went from seeing a txt to vision

.................○ Twitter Users

.................○ Jason Goldman

..................................§ 3 is average updates a day

..................................§ Program Mgr

.................○ Stats

..................................§ API traffic is 20* web

..................................§ Web traffic 20% is non US

..................................§ Japan market is largest after US

...................................................□ They use a twitter app to talk to their virtual pet

.................○ Use of twitter to build a follower set

..................................§ Scoble is only 5% of their use case

..................................§ 50% of twitter users .. Follow 10, have 10

..................................§ Real friends

..................................§ Interesting to hear about those you know.

..................................§ Mapped twitter activity versus superbowl and super Tuesday

..................................§ Match sxsw activity … Mark Zuckerburg keynote

.................○ Odeo

..................................§ Started to thing beyond Odeo

..................................§ Realized they were not helping Odeo (podcasting) … plus they were not passionate about

..................................§ Told investors to look for a buyer … couldn't come through

..................................§ Created Obvious company … they acquired Odeo (which had twitter)

..................................§ Twitter took off

..................................§ Side projects were killed

.................○ Team

..................................§ 17 people, 5 are engineers

..................................§ Get ahead of curve … so they can build ahead not at capacity

.................○ Pushback from business, not a fit

..................................§ Evan … not designed for that

..................................§ Bauer comment - Jive think it fits

..................................§ Biz … visited Nike … they wanted to know about tools

..................................§ Its just SMS or some client … no big deal like MySpace … fade in / out of focus of the employee … so its not as much of a risk of continual distraction

...................................................□ Bauer comment - true after the initial period ..

.................○ 4/29/2008, 6:22 AM

.................○ Example of remote teams

..................................§ Using this to keep the remote team together

..................................§ Check in for work

..................................§ Asking for help

..................................§ So great tool for distributed team

..................................§ Positioning is key for enterprise … how it is seen … not social … more of lightweight memmo dispatch … IM client w/ a memory

.................○ 4/29/2008, 6:24 AM

.................○ Jet Blue

..................................§ Was on twitter watching people talk about SXSW

..................................§ Added flights from AUS to SF … when all flights were booked … drove availability

.................○ 4/29/2008, 6:25 AM

.................○ How make $

..................................§ Realibility is core concern (TP99)

..................................§ Some success (per him) recently

..................................§ Super reliable

..................................§ Global utiliity (of IM w/ a memory) … so they want to centralize and provide at cost

** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

今朝のTwitterの記者会見について
今朝の１１時に、Twitterの記者会見があり、会見の中継をユーストリームでみた。

残念ながら、マイクの位置の関係だと思うのだが、通訳さんの声が蚊の鳴くような声にしか聞こえなかった。途中であきらめそうになりながらも、辛抱して雑音の中聞き続けた。おそらく、Ustreamのライブコメントでもリスエストがあったのも関係あるだろう。、途中で、だんだん音質がよくなり、全てが聞こえるやすくなった。

Ustreamのライブビデオを見てみると、前面には大スクリーンがあり、Skype videoを使って、 San Franciscoからも生中継があり、TwitterのファウンダーEvan Williamsさん と Biz Stone によるビデオでのメッセージ紹介がされた。あと、デジタルガラージの伊藤嬢一さんからの日本語メッセージも。

Twitter 日本語バージョンのローンチが始まる
そこで、Twitterでは初めてのローカライゼーションとして、日本語バージョンが今日 ローンチがされたと、Evan から紹介があった。

世界初、日本からの広告実験が始まる
現在の広告の位置は、ログアウトの下の部分に大きく。 トヨタと、Twitter の本、エンジャパンの広告がローテーションで切り換え表示される。例えばバナーをクリックすると、Twitter の本の場合、購読できるサイトへ、エンジャパンの場合は会員登録のサイトへ、トヨタの場合は、トヨタのwitter アカウント紹介ページ、gazoo.com へ。さらに画面の下をクリックするとfollow できるように設定されているようだ。

なぜ、これらの新サービスを本社、米国で発表せずに、日本から？
New Service を始めるので、そのよい機会を利用して同時に、Commercial Model を試して、ユーザーからの反応を知りたかったという理由らしい。

Twitter Japanの歴史、現状
◎ 日本語の打ち込みできない頃から日本のユーザーが多かった
◎ 当時、Open APIとして遊べるツールが少なかった
◎ twj のアカウントを公開してから、一日、１０００人以上の人が登録していたという
◎世界からのトラフィックは、２月時点で４０％が米国内から、米国外のトラフィックの中で、３９％が日本からだった、、、など

Twitterの広告展開残された問題点は？
Q. TwitterをAPI から使うと、広告を目にすることがないが？
A. API ではなく Web で表示しているのは、わかりやすい実験になると思ったから。これを基に、他のサービスも試していくようだ。

Q. 今後のサポート形態はどうなるのか？
A.Twitter 本社が日本語を立ち上げたことで、今後の日本語版の運営はTwitter 本社、米国で行われる事になる。日本語サポートも同様、米国で行う事になる。＜付けたし＞ただし、壱号さんの会見後のコメントによると、一応デジタルガラージとしても、必要な場合は？日本語のサポートの部分で、こういう風にしたらよいかも？というようなサポートはしていくことはあるとのこと。

そういえば、よく聞こえなくて残念だったが、『通訳の方』は偶然にも、私と同じ名前で、『 Fumi ちゃん』と 呼ばれていた。英語の発音が、バイリンガルというか、北米生まれのアジア人の発音する英語の音に聞こえたが、日本生まれの方かもしれない。

ちなみに、 Ustreamでの 会見Viewerは約170人。会見終了後、壱号さんがライブでコメントの質問を、音声で返答していた。とても感じのよい人だった。で、そこでちょっと小耳にした話だが、画面に映っていたTwitterのスティッカーをほしいと言う声にこたえて、Twitterのスティッカー配布？用の専用のオフ会でもして、国内をまた巡ってくれるらしい。一応、Ustreamのコメントでも、名古屋にも来てほしいと書いておいたが、その声は届いかな？

おっ、さっそくも、Mashableにも記事が、、、。　Twitter Launches Japanese With Ads, If You Please

<ニュース業界、プレス関連の参考記事>
ミニブログの米ツイッター、日本語版23日開始
twitter in Japanese is on twitter.com with ads
Twitter for Japan
Live Report From Japan: Twitter Goes Live WithJapanese Localization
Twitter日本語版記者説明会
ミニブログ・サービスTwitterの日本語版がスタート

＜ブログ内Twitter、関連記事＞
TwitterアカウントをEbayオークションで販売？
『Twubble』　TwitterでFollowingしてる人達は誰をフォローしてる？
採用者が語る、Twitterで採用活動をしてみたら、、、。
「Twitter100」　followしてる人たちのアップデイトをMax.100人まで一揆に見れるアプリ。
Twitterの日本語版！賛否両論。なぜ今更、デジタルガラージはTwitterに投資したのか？
TwitterからFacebookへのアップデイトが可能になりました。

Menos de una semana después de haber anunciado que borraba su cuenta de Twitter para concentrar su tiempo en otras cosas, Hugh Macleod (Gapingvoid) decide restaurarla y volver a escribir actualizaciones regularmente. ¿La razón?

“Muchas de las personas con las que hago negocios están también en Twitter. Estar fuera era imposible. Fue un error.”

La entrada (y la viñeta, dibujada el año pasado) resumen muy bien lo que está pasando con el progresivo crecimiento del fenómeno del nanoblogging: empezar a responder con una cierta regularidad a la pregunta de “¿Qué estás haciendo” delante de una serie de seguidores en público o en privado, era algo que tenía que tener, lógicamente, sus efectos. En algunos casos, como reflejaba Hugh en su viñeta, se trata de efectos en el tipo de cosas que escribes en tu blog: para mí, por ejemplo, mirándolo en perspectiva, Twitter ha significado una caída importante del número de entradas del tipo “mi querido diario”, de las de “estoy aquí, voy allá o hago ésto”, que ahora son recogidas de manera puntual por ese “diario constante” que es Twitter, un protagonismo que no pensé que alcanzaría cuando empecé a jugar con esa herramienta. Pero además, se ha convertido en un elemento importante de la vida cotidiana: como en el caso de Hugh, muchas personas que tienen relación habitual conmigo utilizan Twitter para localizarme, saber de mi vida, decidir si utilizan medios síncronos como el teléfono o la mensajería instantánea, o si en su lugar me escriben (o me dejan por imposible), etc. La evidencia de ese uso, comunicado por muchas personas de mi entorno, es tan clara que desembocó en la decisión de, aprovechando que se me acababan las tarjetas de visita, poner en las nuevas la dirección de mi página de Twitter: cuando das una tarjeta a alguien se supone que es para que te pueda contactar, y contactarme a mí es decididamente más sencillo teniendo en cuenta lo que dice mi página de Twitter. Sin olvidar, por supuesto, de la función que valoré originalmente en la herramienta: mantenerme mucho más en contacto con mis amigos (y puedo asegurar que mi distancia con aquellos a los que sigo en Twitter se ha reducido de manera importantísima, tanto como lo que conlleva saber, en cada momento, lo que tus amigos te dicen que están haciendo, o recibir comentarios sobre lo que estás haciendo tú).

De manera natural, una herramienta tan flexible tenía que favorecer una amplia variedad de usos. Más allá de los idiotas que se dedican a criticar eso de “la página de Twitter de Fulanito es muy aburrida, fíjate qué ególatra, se dedica a contar su vida, y eso no le interesa a nadie…” (¿y qué quieres que se dedique a hacer en una página diseñada precisamente para eso?), y sin llegar al divertido extremo autorreferente de Biz Stone, en cuya tarjeta de visita pone “¿What are you doing? Giving out my business card”, lo cierto es que el nanoblogging empieza a alcanzar una madurez de lo más interesante, al tiempo que van apareciendo alternativas que extienden sus prestaciones, compiten con los actores iniciales, o plantean prestaciones relacionadas: aplicaciones como Jaiku, adquirida por Google, en pleno traspaso al nuevo Google App Engine y que extiende el concepto de agregación RSS; Pownce, que incorpora nuevas posibilidades en la definición de los receptores de los mensajes, o las españolas Twitxr, con posibilidad de geolocalización e incorporación de fotos; o Jisko, desarrollada mediante código abierto y que avanza en una muy interesante lista de funciones que van incluyendo casi todas las que poseen sus precursores.

Un modelo, el de nanoblogging, que se extiende además apoyado por una gran compatibilidad: toda la información producida genera un feed RSS que permite consolidarla usando otros servicios a modo de contenedores, o las aplicaciones ofrecen APIs que posibilitan la integración. Ahora mismo, tiendo a alimentar mi Twitter porque me resulta cómodo hacerlo así, fundamentalmente por la posibilidad de uso de GTalk o TwitterBerry en movilidad y por la existencia de Twitterrific en el Mac, pero puedo usar tambien Jisko (si hago una actualización en Jisko aparece automáticamente en mi Twitter) o en Twitxr si quiero subir una foto (que igualmente es trasladada a mi página de Twitter con el correspondiente vínculo). Un panorama de aplicaciones combinadas donde cada usuario encuentra su forma óptima, y que parece estar llevando el fenómeno del nanoblogging a una incipiente madurez, superadas ya la explosión mediática inicial y la cara de haba de quienes no alcanzan a entender qué tipo de razones llevan a alguien a mantener un diario de sus actividades de ese tipo. Algo más de un año después de su puesta de largo oficial en el SXSW de Texas, el nanoblogging sigue aquí, se extiende su uso y se diversifican cada vez más sus ofertas y posibilidades.

.....

This month Inc. magazine has wonderful profile of Williams, called Anything Could Happen, which explores his uncanny ability to cultivate ideas into companies, to build something of value out of nothing -- even that which is "useless, in a sense", as Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey put it to Inc.

Ev's gift isn't so much genius, as it is genius-execution. This means you can not only learn from him, but probably replicate Ev's methods to your own benefit (if not to Ev's level of success). Writes reporter Max Chafkin:

...unlike many of the most successful, he's no genius when it comes to programming. [Ev's] specialty is taking a tiny, almost nonsensical idea and turning it into a cultural phenomenon. "He's like a master craftsman," says Naval Ravikant, a serial entrepreneur who is an angel investor in Twitter. "There are entrepreneurs who are financial geniuses, and there are raw coders. Evan is the master of creating a product where there wasn't one before." If Williams's art is the conception of inconceivable products, then Twitter is his chef-d'oeuvre.

It's a long story, but one filled with important insights. We offer some highlights.

1) Ev believes that small ideas are almost always better than grand visions...

"I think features can make great companies," he says... "Applying constraints can help your company and your customers in unexpected ways. [The] default thing we do is ask how we can add something to make it better. Instead we should say, What can we take away to create something new?"

2) Paul Graham believes in small ideas, too:

there are smart people, like start-up financier Paul Graham, who argue that technology start-ups are undergoing a fundamental change, becoming smaller, cheaper to start, and more numerous--in short, commoditized. We may be entering an era of the little idea, a time tailor-made for Evan Williams.

3) Practice makes perfect and Ev has failed plenty. Let this hearten you:

Williams grew up on a corn farm in Clarks, Nebraska (population 379). He's a self-taught coder, having dropped out of college after only a year to start a company...the companies--there were three failures in five years--were unambitious, money losing, and admittedly dopey. Williams's most successful product was a CD-ROM for fans of the Cornhuskers football team. Finally, convinced he still knew little about how to run a business, he cut his losses, took a Web development job in California, and started writing about it. [This led to Pyra Labs, which led to Blogger]

4) Ev really struggled to get Blogger off the ground. It forged a core principle: Patience.

The experience of shepherding Blogger through growth, then hardship, until he finally turned it into a real company cemented Williams's philosophy of business. He would be an entrepreneur who looked for value in things that seemed worthless. Faith--in one's ability, in one's chosen path, and, above all else, in the fact that there are always opportunities ahead--was a company's greatest need. Stick to your product, forget about scrambling for deals, and good things will happen..."[Ev] has a tendency to wait just a bit longer than everyone else would, to give an idea more time," Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, says. "It is patience and perseverance and hope--all those things rolled up into one."

5) Ev sold Blogger to Google, and wrote "my best blog post ever", a founder's opus: Ten Rules for Web Startups

6) Then at his next gig, podcasting startup Odeo, Ev broke them all (Hey, nobody is perfect!):

...He wasn't even podcasting. As Odeo sputtered, struggling to gain new users, Williams began to see his problem as one of corporate structure. He had accepted millions of dollars in investment capital, built a team, and worked the media before he knew what his company was.

7) When in doubt, hold a "Hack Day":

[Ev] broke the company into small groups and told them to spend a day experimenting--not just with podcasting, but with anything that struck their fancy. It was [cofounder Jack] Dorsey's project that struck Williams's. Dorsey had long been fascinated by the status function on instant message programs: the short, pithy postings that allow you to tell your online friends what you are doing. He built a prototype of Twitter in two weeks.

8) From this experience Ev built Obvious, a kind of incubator where ideas can get hacked and where he can offer them the patience they need to germinate:

The goal is to separate the creative environment of the start-up process from the regular work-a-day of running a business. "It's all theory for now," Williams says. "But we're hoping that by setting up an environment with multiple projects at once, these happy accidents [like Twitter] can occur."

If you have the time, read Max's whole story, it is far more thorough than even these many highlights suggest. And for more of Ev Williams's wisdom,. see: *
Do as I say, not as I did
* ‘Will It Fly?’ - Ev Williams, on Idea Evaluation
* And again, his classic: Ten Rules for Web Startups

Como ha sido el evento de blogs en español del año, voy a limitarme a linkar lo que resume para mí el TOP 5 que hay publicado sobre el evento. Así os hacéis una idea de lo que fue este EBE07: un fin de semana inolvidable.

1. Web del Evento Blog España 2007
2. Las mejores fotos de Victoriano (ironía y mucho arte)
3. Blogsearch de Google sobre EBE07
4. Tweets de Julio Alonso comentando el EBE07 en directo (estuvo sencillamente genial)
5.  Mis videos en Blip.tv

Ésta es la foto que hizo Victoriano de familia (no, no estoy porque dormía profundamente).
Por último, agradecer a Luis Rull y toda la organización, que estuvo siempre prendiente de todo y de todos y citar los blogueros con los que pasé un fin de semana estupendo: Mantero, Rubén, Eduardo Arcos, Paniagua, Ismael, Jose Luis, Rosa, Quatermain, Edgar, Rodrigo y muchos más. Nos vemos en el Beers&Blogs.

So on Monday I attended Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford for the second year running. Last year’s conference was held on 20^th November 2006 - just after we launched the first version of ClickUni. I found the event particularly enlightening. The masterclass from Matt Cohler, VP Strategy & Operations, Facebook stands out. He gave a talk entitled “What is Silicon Valley?” which was my first proper insight into the place and culture that has spawned so many of the successful technology companies in recent years.

It was also the first time I met Bob Goodson (former President, Oxford Entrepreneurs) Chris Sacca (Head of Special Initiatives, Google) and Reid Hoffman, the world’s most successful investor in consumer Internet. Reid’s LinkedIn profile alone names some 44 companies in which he’s angel invested including Facebook, Digg, Friendster, Ning, Flickr, Last FM and Six Apart. He claims to have help finance over 60 companies in total.

This year, the 7^th year of the event had an exceptional list of speakers as always – Reid Hoffman, Chris Sacca, Bob Goodson, Kirill Makharinsky and also Auctomatic boys Kulveer and Harjeet Taggar were back again. New appearances were made by Biz Stone (Co-Founder, Twitter), Kim Polese (CEO, SpikeSource) and Bill Byun (MD, Samsung Ventures) but the highlight for me was Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston from Y Combinator. Having keenly watched their scheme develop over the last couple of years, and written about it in a recent post, it was great to see the people behind it face-to-face.

More on what happened when I met them coming soon...

People either love Twitter, or don't seem to understand why the people that love it find it meaningful. To be honest, after a month of usage (which might be a bit short for a review), I'm having a love/hate relationship with it. The usage of the service is dead simple, so that is of no concern.

Twitter is a non-stop stream of 140 character messages flowing across the world. You simply tap into this flow by starting to follow people. You need to follow the concept of information handling if you want to deal with the flow of information.

In my mind it was a mobile service first, but letting the flow of messages reach your phone is not advisable. There have been times where I easily got 20-30 SMSes in 5 minutes. Going through them (and deleting them again) is a mobile RSI enforcer.  Sending twitters from my mobile work like a breeze, but there comes another issue. In what language do I twitter? I follow (and am being followed) by Dutch people but also English speaking people. So what to do. Twittering in Dutch seems rude to the foreigners, twittering English seems a bit overkill for the Dutch. Anyone got a solution for that?

I found the best way to leverage the power and fun of Twitter is to use it from the desktop. I use TwitBin, a small Firefox add on that installs a pane on the left of my browser allowing me to follow the flow of information without the hassle of removing messages form my mobile.

So why is Twitter fun? I like it for 2 reasons:

1. Twitter is emotions. Forget the 140 character messages, forget the scoops that arise faster on Twitter than on Techmeme. I don't care about them. But the emotions and conversations that arise after the scoop are so much fun. As an example, I got the "Jaiku is taken over by Google" scoop from a number of twitter messages. The initial WOW effect wears off very quickly this way. But the comments, analysis, congratulations, jokes, rants that followed that scoop (actually same thing happened on Jaiku). That was fun!
2. Twitter gives me a very nice picture of what people I haven't actually met are about. It is amazing how much you can read about someone's character, believes, hobbies, opinions etc. by simply following a flow of small messages.

So why do I have a love/hate relation with it? Well, besides the flooding of my mobile phone part if not used carefully, the one thing I hate about Twitter is the asymmetric following concept.

I can follow other people that don't (or don't want to) follow me. As a result of this I am reduced to a Groupie instead of a friend. I can listen to all their messages, but I can't reply, add to them, or choose not to answer them. I follow a few people I don't really know, but judging from the messages they twitter, i would like to interact with them on Twitter.

So here is my request to Biz, and the folks I am following on Twitter. Make follow each other the default in Twitter, the user can always block someone later if he becomes annoying. I have written about the "having to ask permission to become a friend" issue in social networks. I hate it. And if someone takes the effort of following you, why not follow him back. Who knows what great things will happen in this interaction!

Biz Stone: Yeah. The API has been arguably the most important, or maybe even inarguably, the most important thing we’ve done with Twitter. It has allowed us, first of all, to keep the service very simple and create a simple API so that developers can build on top of our infrastructure and come up with ideas that are way better than our ideas, and build things like Twitterrific, which is just a beautiful elegant way to use Twitter that we wouldn’t have been able to get to, being a very small team.So, the API which has easily 10 times more traffic than the website, has been really very important to us. We’ve seen some amazing work built on top of it from tiny little mobile applications like an SMS timer that just allows you to set a reminder over SMS to call your mom or something like that, to more elaborate visual recreations of Twitter like twittervision.com which shows an animated map of the world and what everyone’s doing around the world with Twitter. Twitter is popping up from Spain and Japan and United States.And that’s very, sort of like, “Look at that!” It’s like staring at a fish bowl or something – an aquarium. You just find yourself getting lost in it. The API has really been a big success for us, and it’s something that we want to continue to focus our efforts on, looking forward.