DISQUS

Louis Gray · 9 months ago

Post by Eric Berlin: http://www.friendfeed.com/ericberlin

JulieWilliams · 9 months ago

And skeptics said Twitter did not have a business model, the model has always been there, now it more clearly being realised. I always believed this was the gameplan.

Twitter users are all helping to create a powerful and more robust search solution. We get to tag our own information categories, Q&A's, that we want to refer back to through (#hastags), automatically defining the search behaviour of real users. We choose who we want to connect with and filter out those we choose not to interact with (robot users) . At the end of the day every person we assign as a friend we are defining social groupings and this make the community a rich dimension in a social environment.

What other service on the internet allows the end user to fully interacting with 'search index'. All Twitter users on a daily basis, by the minute are creating valuable usable information.

Google search model is too prescribed and rigid. User are expected to search through reams of pages to find information that is sometimes hit/miss, the best search results ranked highest on the page through a paid SEO, and even it may not be relevant. From a business experience having used SEO - there are no guarantees that the a click is converted in to a new customer.

Twitter has the commonsense approach, real-time collaboration: they ask the user what they want, and the user shows them what they need (win/win)

fredwilson · 9 months ago

the "we" in where we are going is aimed at the television business as this talk was for a private group of TV execs. and i was showing that tv shows generate a lot of chatter on twitter. i did not intentionally show them the new twitter search results page that i, and a lot of others, am testing and will roll out to everyone soon.

so where we are going in no way applies to twitter. but i think you've made some good points here anyway.

fred

Louis Gray · 9 months ago

Fred, thanks for your comments here and on your blog as well:

Suggestion: Talk To The Source
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/03/suggestion-talk...

As I commented on the blog, there is no question that speculation around Twitter is running high. As you are a trusted advisor to the company, it can be easy to jump to the logical conclusion that Eric and others reached. The UI displayed in this slide clearly differs from Twitter's current model, and many are eager to see what the company is up to next. Sometimes, our guesses will be wrong.

Eric Berlin · 9 months ago

Thanks for the comments Fred, and thanks Louis. Yes, looking back I don't think I could have / should have done anything differently with this piece. You'll note I carefully noted that this is a direction that Twitter *might* be going in, and that in fact this was probably not the final design / UI that will eventually be deployed.

I think the fact that you have ties to Twitter, and chose to present a new look search page to signal how Twitter will continue to provide value for users, important partners, and (presumably) advertisers is, in itself, newsworthy. :-)

Eric Berlin · 9 months ago

Just read through Fred's piece and responded over there. My overall takeaway is that I stand behind this piece but will be more conscious of reaching out to people on the web for reaction and perspective going forward.

luca filigheddu · 9 months ago

One of the main missing features on Twitter is a "real" search engine which can show you results according to a rank associated to users. If I'm searching for "nokia 5800 phone" maybe I don't need the last tweets only but: 1) I prefer tweets where there is a link 2) I don't care how old are them, so I don't care whether those are realtime or not.

Peter Efland · 9 months ago

great post Eric. On a retweet i accidentally wrote that the article was from Louis Gray, sorry

Robert Scoble · 9 months ago

Um, Fred Wilson has a bone to pick with this blog. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/03/suggestion-talk...

Louis Gray · 9 months ago

Responded both here and on his site. Thanks for the note.

Louis Gray · 9 months ago

Robert, thanks for linking to Fred. I responded on his site and mine. Absolutely respect his position.

abrudtkuhl · 9 months ago

Taking this away from the drama between you, Fred, etc - let's get back to speculation (that's more fun than blogging drama)

I love the idea of Twitter adopting an AdWords style recommendation engine. They have talked about "charging business" to use the platform. Well this would be a great way to do so - that benefits both the user and the advertiser. If businesses could bid on keywords to have their account contextually "featured" on a user profile screen - that's a great way to make money while still adding value to both parties.

Ken Sheppardson · 9 months ago

Suggestion: The content you publish needs to speak for itself. Fred writes "[A] phone call (or even an email) from these bloggers would have clarified why I was showing that slide and what it means.." Does he honestly expect that anybody who is going to interpret what he published (i.e. his slides) is going to get in touch with him first? Is that realistic? How in the world does it scale? If the slides that accompany your presentation don't make sense out of context, don't publish them out of context.

Hutch Carpenter · 9 months ago

Good point Ken. It's the problem with the accepted wisdom about PowerPoints that they need to be minimalist. That doesn't translate well to SlideShare. No one is narrating the SlideShare for the reader. SlideShares really need to stand on their own, forget the 10-20-30 approach espoused by Guy Kawasaki.

Ken Sheppardson · 9 months ago

Louis: Speaking of out of context, I notice my comment above [which I made on FriendFeed] was pulled into Disqus as a comment on your blog. What system are you using to do that, and do you know if there's something I can do so that those comments are properly attributed to my Disqus account rather than some unclaimed FriendFeed profile? Alternatively, is there a way for me to turn it off?

Louis Gray · 9 months ago

Ken, I use (and recommend) FF2Disqus, which pushes FriendFeed comments to the Disqus thread. https://ff2disqus.appspot.com At this point, it goes to the FriendFeed profile, and not your Disqus profile. I am unsure if plans are to unify the two.

andy brudtkuhl · 9 months ago

Louis - was looking for that myself - thanks

Hutch Carpenter · 9 months ago

BTW Louis - Eric's FriendFeed link above isn't right. He's "ebrage" here. http://friendfeed.com/ebrage

Eric Berlin · 9 months ago

Thanks Hutch :-)

simonbaptist · 9 months ago

I was included in the trial and so have quickly adjusted to the integration.

Though, I'm mostly app based (various) and so generally use the Search there anywhere.

I'm not sure I agree that this really gives us real answers to what the monetisation plans are, I'm still more inline with the recent hype up and down around some comments from Biz Stone.

e.g.: http://www.marketingvox.com/biz-stone-twitter-t...

Though, I still feel this comment on RWW is the best about what monetisation plans are:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_ma...

Mike Elliott · 9 months ago

Instead of saying featured users they should just say users that pay them the most money.

johnhaydon · 9 months ago

Now I can see why Eric Schmidt is a little miffed at Twitter.

One thing that would be cool is if the "Nifty Queries" were relevant to the search keywords (I don't see the connection in this screen shot). For example, "Top Chef" would kick off searches related to food or cooking.

Ken Skiba · 8 months ago

Good analysis..It will be interesting to see what new social networks are spawned or created over the next two years. Some may be out there and transform into something new that meets our needs. Will be cool.