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Twitter Keeps Fighting While Facebook Continues to Grow

Posted on October 22, 2009 by jessestay

Ev Williams was quoted recently saying, “The world is big enough for both Facebook and Twitter”, almost as though we were supposed to think Twitter wasn’t trying to be a competitor. Don’t be fooled though, Twitter’s recent lists feature is just one step towards providing the privacy controls Facebook itself is known for. Before we know it you will be able to decide which lists you want to share Tweets with, photo services will be integrated, video, groups, messaging, and more, and Twitter will be head-to-head with the features Facebook currently provides. Twitter wants to go head-to-head with Facebook. There’s no doubt in my mind that’s what Twitter is trying to do – it’s what they have to do in order to continue growing. While Facebook’s weakness is the lack of full openness, Twitter has the greater weakness of lack of control or privacy. Without more than just public status updates their sign ups and traffic will plateau and the service will dwindle and lose value.

Yet, with each update to Twitter comes increased pressure to Facebook to become more open and more public. Just today, in response to Twitter’s partnerships with Bing and Google, Facebook also shared that it was opening up its own public status updates to be indexed by search engines. Don’t forget that Facebook already has an ad deal with Microsoft, along with investment.

Facebook’s Lack of Openness is an Illusion

Despite the criticism against Facebook for not being open don’t be fooled. Not only is your data capable of being open, but you get to control what is, and what isn’t open at the same time. As of today all your status updates set to go to “Everyone” (check your privacy settings) can now be indexed by search engines. Expect this to also open up on Facebook itself, along with Facebook’s own search. Facebook wants to be open – its users have to choose to be open first though.

Facebook’s recent hiring of David Recordon (note that the linked article is by Chris Messina, also a leader in Open Standards technology) is a testament to this I think. Recordon was one of the leading proponents to open standards and data portability before joining Facebook, and he has been put in charge of just that at Facebook. With this hire, Facebook has just become a leader in this space. Notice Facebook’s adoption of the ActivityStrea.ms standard, and open sourcing of the Tornado framework acquired from FriendFeed. Add to that the many other open technologies you can find on their developers site – Facebook is not a follower in this space! Where is Twitter’s Open Source tools page?

Facebook Fan Pages

Let’s add to that Facebook Fan Pages. Each and every Fan Page is indexable by Google. While better integration with personal profiles is still necessary, this is an excellent way to share news and information in the same manner you do Twitter, and build a community at the same time. Each post is threaded so you can build a conversation with your community. Each comment, “Fanning”, and post to the Page gets posted to a user’s friends as well, further encouraging conversation and discussion. This is far from what Twitter offers, and all this is done in a very open fashion – you don’t have to be on Facebook to read the contents of a Fan Page.

I just started building my own Fan Page community (send “fan stay” to 32665 (FBOOK) on your phone), and am already seeing greater interaction there the more I spend using it. The potential is very strong in a very open, and much stronger environment than Twitter.

Facebook’s Terms of Service are Open Too

Now, let’s talk Terms. Earlier this year Facebook instituted a new policy stating that any changes to the Terms of Service will be put up to the users. If enough users disagree, it gets put up for vote by the users. If a majority of those users vote for the changes, they get put in place. If not, they don’t. The current terms are established in such a manner.

Consumerist has a great overview of what these terms changes were. To summarize, you own your content, and give Facebook the right to distribute that content (this is so they can share it with your friends legally) so long as you are a member of Facebook. HOWEVER, the minute you quit the site, the terms state that your information at that point is removed, with exception to the photos, videos, etc. that have already been loaded into your friends’ streams. This is so the stream remains in tact. There’s termination here.

Let’s contrast that with Twitter, whose terms have no termination and are just as strong, if not stronger. With Twitter, when you leave the site your content can remain. There is nothing in Twitter’s terms stating that they have to remove your content when you leave. You give Twitter that license to your content forever. Where’s the outcry about that? Yet Facebook had huge outcry over not having such termination in their agreement. Facebook has remained open and ahead of Twitter even in this regard.

Facebook’s Acquisition of FriendFeed

I think this is the crown jewel we have yet to see. We know the FriendFeed team is working on Facebook as we speak. We also know FriendFeed.com is not going away. Will Facebook have FriendFeed-like real-time features? Will FriendFeed see more Facebook integration? The one weakness of Facebook is the lack of an easy way for those that want to be public by default (which is dangerous) to be public, while integrating that information with the user profile and other integrated parts of Facebook. Search still lacks a public interface. There’s no API to it. Facebook’s stream is still not real-time while Twitter’s and FriendFeeds are.

The FriendFeed team has the potential to change this. I predict a real-time Facebook in the near future, with integrated public interfaces and search enabling users to share the content they want to share with the world. The cool thing is Twitter has already exposed their cards with Lists. Funny thing is Facebook has had lists for over a year now, and you can even filter searches with those lists! Twitter doesn’t have that. The only benefit Twitter’s lists give is the ability to see who other people are subscribing to and subscribe to the same. I don’t see that as being that hard of a problem to tackle for Facebook. They’ve seen Twitter’s cards and no one has seen Facebook’s. Imagine the ability to put Fan Pages into public lists, for instance – I think that would be pretty cool, and pretty easy to implement. Imagine Facebook’s own privacy controls, including the “public option” available for Lists as well as users and Pages. It’s also important to note that FriendFeed also had lists before Twitter did. The combination of both FriendFeed’s and Facebook’s teams means they are the true experts on lists. I can’t wait to see what they do next.

My Point

So what’s my point? My point is stop drinking the Twitter Kool-Aid! Yeah, it has its place – I’m NOT saying get off Twitter, but it’s nowhere near as powerful as what Facebook already offers. I want to see more news people and early adopters like Scoble and Louis Gray and Steve Rubel using Facebook and Facebook lists to provide content and news. I want to see more people sharing and discussing content in my own Facebook feeds. I want to see more people utilizing privacy controls, not available in Twitter, to segregate the content they share, reducing the noise. Spend some time in Facebook – learn what you can and can’t do with it. Try to build a community there and see how effective it is, utilizing all these tools at once.

Facebook is not losing this war. With 10 million fans a day and growing on Facebook Pages alone, 300-350 million users and growing, a much more powerful API and developer ecosystem, Twitter doesn’t even make a dent in what Facebook is doing. It’s about time we start giving credit where credit is due. Twitter launching lists is about as effective in fighting Facebook as this video of Ben Parr is in fighting Chad Vader 😉 :

Image courtesy LDS.org

Comcast Fails to Innovate With Versus/DirectTV Debacle #vfbyu #vftcu #vsstreamit

Posted on October 21, 2009 by jessestay

Versus, the Sports broadcast network owned by Comcast, Inc., has been in a turf war recently as it has pulled customers in the middle of a fight between DirectTV and its Sales team unwilling to give way until DirectTV pays. The fight is grounded in a feud where Comcast wants DirectTV to pay extra to gain access to the network, DirectTV being unwilling to pay. DirectTV customers (disclaimer: I am forced to be a Comcast customer right now) are forced to either switch to Comcast or forgo games like this weekend’s ranked BYU vs. TCU game shown only on the network due to pre-arranged deals with the MountainWest Conference. Versus is even going to the effect of asking viewers to call up DirectTV and request it be added in commercials broadcast the week of critical games. I’d like to suggest to Comcast and Versus it’s time to eat your own dogfood – I want my games online!

Comcast, my internet provider who has the technology to do so is taking this entire approach immaturely, forcing the customers into the middle of it all in a greed for more money from DirectTV. When in reality, Comcast could bypass DirectTV altogether and provide these games, ad-supported for free on their own site. ESPN does this. Heck, I’d even watch it considering I don’t have cable TV at all and I’m a Comcast subscriber! It’s time the cable and satellite providers buck up and start to share these things so all can see – don’t pass the burden onto your customers.

Imagine a day when it doesn’t matter if your cable provider has the games you want to watch. Imagine a day when you can watch the games, provider-free, on your TV or computer or even iPhone, no worries about who is sending the signal. Comcast needs to take the lead in this, that is if they truly care.

I’d like to start a new campaign. No, I don’t have the money or the voice or the bullying influence Comcast has, but I do have a blog. I have Twitter. I have Facebook. I’m creating the new hashtag, “#vsstreamit” and every time I hear those commercials I’m going to be reminded to pass the burden back onto Versus through Tweets, blog posts, Facebook, and whatever means necessary to make people know this is Comcast’s problem, not DirectTV’s. I’m sick of this. This is Comcast’s problem which they created after all. It’s about time Comcast starts to really care and share this stuff with all of us rather than play these silly blame games. Take some responsibility!

The Framework of the Building Block Web – An MVC Perspective

Posted on October 20, 2009 by jessestay

Recently I talked about the new web being that of “building blocks”, or “Lego bricks” setting the foundations for each application or website which encompasses the new internet. Applications that embrace this new architecture will both embrace the strengths of other applications and technologies through third-party APIs, as well as provide their own in order to share their own strengths in the building block web. The idea of the Building Block Web being that of empowering each app that uses your technology to now owning the strengths which you, the developer or entrepreneur or business can add to the puzzle. I’d like to suggest an overall framework for how Building Block Web apps should be built. The analogy to me makes sense, and builds off of traditional MVC (Model/View/Controller) models.

Building Block Web – the Model

Let’s talk Model. The Model component of a traditional MVC framework is intended to provide the structure for abstract data access in a sense that your app never actually sees the underlying data architecture, but rather accesses it through a higher-level layer that can provide inheritance and simple methods for getting at that data. In the Building Block Web we’re seeing this in the form of Cloud data stores and APIs.

Look at Amazon, for instance. Amazon provides SimpleDB for abstract data access and storage into the cloud and easy retrieval of serialized information. Amazon has even provided API methods around processing this information with Hadoop and Mapreduce data processing and crunching (although that could arguably be part of the Controller). Amazon has provided S3 as a simple file storage and retrieval API.

Other traditional services are also providing their own data store APIs. For instance, Facebook itself has its own Data store API allowing simple storage of meta information about users and things in its database. The stream itself allows storage of meta-data with each stream item posted via the API, making the need to build traditional local architecture around social workflows less necessary for the developer. A simple FQL call to Facebook will pull most of the information necessary from the service.

It should be noted that Google also provides similar services. The spreadsheet API or even Gmail storage API can be used as simple data storage mechanisms. Or, for more complex data storage and retrieval, AppEngine provides BigTable for that access, along with an entire API centered around storing, compiling, running code, and retrieving data with that code. The entire AppEngine API itself is somewhat a Model-based Building Block architecture.

It’s interesting to see people try to compare just the Model component of the Building Block web architecture as Web 3.0. It’s not – it’s only one component.

Building Block Web – the View

For a Building Block Web app or website to embrace all the components of the Building Block Web, it should also embrace a view of some sort. Remember a View is code that the user interacts with, usually via a browser, and in the Building Block Web participants must provide components (or “blocks”) that sit at the user level reducing the work a developer needs to do to integrate the blocks into their own environment. Facebook does this very well with its own internal Applications developers can write, as well as Facebook Connect, enabling developers to integrate the Facebook environment in their own websites and applications outside of Facebook.

Facebook has provided XFBML and an entire Javascript Client library to enable, at the View, for developers to pull pieces of the Facebook architecture into their own websites and apps. In addition, they have provided a way for developers to host apps right in the Facebook environment itself, giving an even more native approach to Building Block Web development. Even the Authorization process is taken care of through the View. Facebook provides simple HTML and Javascript code (or even an XFBML tag if you want to simplify it even further), and in just a few steps (or even copying and pasting through a Wizard), a popup login box will show up, right on your site, with no backend code necessary to log in the user. Facebook handles the authorization process all for you, giving a unique way to use a user’s Facebook credentials for login and authorization into using Facebook’s pieces of the Building Block Web.

Google does similar with OpenSocial. Through simple Javascript, any OpenSocial-supported container can run OpenSocial apps. While not quite as simple as Facebook to integrate into your own environment (due to the decentralization of it all, not a bad point for Google), across multiple environments you can write one simple app that uses Google’s standards to share that app, via simple View (aka Browser-side) code one can add to their environment of choice. Add to that the ability to embed Waves into any environment, and the simplicity of Friend Connect for finding and communicating amongst users on a 3rd-party website, Google contributes to the View of the Building Block web as well.

It should be noted that Twitter has no View to contribute, and I think if they’re trying to compete against Google or Facebook in the new web they may suffer until they do so.

Building Block Web – the Controller

The Controller is the component of an application that controls the entire application. It makes the calls to the Model, releases the View code to the browser, and is pretty much the brains of the entire application. Twitter is mostly a Controller-based Building Block web brick. When you write a Twitter app, you are writing mostly server-side code that accesses the Twitter API through your server. No View bricks are provided, and there is no Model API at the moment. Everything is handled at the application level, making the Twitter API a weak set of bricks in this new Web model.

Facebook also provides a Controller set of bricks through its own REST APIs. As an application developers I can access the API fully on my own backend and the user never sees that part of the process. I can even make calls on behalf of the user to do things like send notifications or process data (with the user’s previously given permission at the View level). I can send data and retrieve data from the Model bricks of the Facebook building blocks.

Google also provides a REST layer to its OpenSocial protocols. MySpace has implemented it, as has Orkut (I believe). Developers can do similar things with the MySpace and Orkut APIs that they do Facebook, doing all the work behind the scenes. The Application layer is critical at handling sensitive data that the user may not have access to. It is a critical component of the Building Block Web.

Comparison of Various Building Block Web Bricks

I’m sure exceptions could be made for all of this, especially considering the entire idea behind the Building Block Web is that you should be able to mix and match. For instance, I could technically take an Amazon SimpleDB brick and mix it with an iGoogle brick to give full MVC functionality. However, this table summarizes the capabilities of various players in the space – note that the space is also much larger than this. These are only some of the larger players:

Model

View

Controller

Facebook

TRUE

iGoogle

FALSE

TRUE

Twitter

FALSE

TRUE

Flickr

FALSE

TRUE

MySpace

TRUE

Orkut

FALSE

TRUE

AppEngine

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

Amazon AWS

TRUE

FALSE

TRUE

Wave

FALSE

TRUE

myYahoo

TRUE

If you’re building for the Building Block Web, you will have the most success finding ways to integrate all three elements of the MVC Building Block Framework. The idea is to empower users and other businesses in as many ways as possible to fully utilize the strengths you can provide. If you share graphics (like Flickr or SmugMug for instance), provide not only a REST API to read and post graphics, but a store API for storing meta data about those graphics, as well as a view for enabling developers to create their own wrappers around the graphics. (Note that SmugMug does this, in all 3 layers)

The Building Block Web is about empowering developers and businesses to use a new platform – a platform of platforms, to create, using each brick’s own strengths, their own applications. Developers and business owners can then take their own strengths and add to that, enabling more bricks to the picture. My hope is more apps can start to embrace the entire Building Block Web, and not just pieces of it.

Lists Will Kill the Unfollow Star

Posted on October 17, 2009 by jessestay

All the rage of the blogosphere the last few days has been the launch of Twitter “Lists” to the 5,000 or so “lucky” accounts, enabling users to organize and sort their friends, as well as subscribe to large lists of friends, one list at a time. While not yet available to the masses, lists will revolutionize the way we receive content and the way we organize our communication on Twitter. As Scoble puts it, this is the best thing Twitter has launched in a long, long time. I propose we’ll see a new culture from all this – the death of the “unfollow”.

So many people have complained that building “numbers” is an ineffective means of using the Twitter service. We even talked about it in a panel I was on yesterday at BlogWorld Expo. I think the net result of the panel was that the end result of using Twitter should be about building relationships, converting followers, and encouraging clicks. If numbers help that, then good. They usually are far from the only factor that goes into that end goal though. Because of the focus on relationships, many people and brands (I can confirm this as the Founder and CEO of SocialToo.com) auto-follow. This does one of 2 things – it “initiates” a relationship between individuals, highlighting what could become a potential real-life relationship in the future, and finally it enables users to DM you since you have to be following an individual to send them a direct message on Twitter. For any reason, users usually auto-follow for at least the DM capability.

Now that Twitter is launching lists, I predict a new layer will be added to all this. I predict the stigma of “auto-follow” being a bad thing will go away. People will soon be able to “not follow” as many people as they want while still not offending them because they will technically be able to auto-follow them, but keep them in a list they do not check as often. Now, with lists, you can create lists of potential relationships, and then organize other lists of people based on various categories of how you like to follow. There will soon be no reason to “not follow” anyone any more (unless they are truly a spammer, which SocialToo will help you identify) because if someone is not interesting you can just add them to another list. Now they can still DM you and you don’t necessarily have to pay attention to their tweets mixed in with all the tweets you want to pay more attention to. The entire landscape of Twitter is about to change.

With Twitter’s introduction of lists I predict an entirely new Twitter. I predict an environment where you don’t have to unfollow anyone. I predict an environment where everyone can be a potential relationship, and we’re finally able to listen to the conversation in ways we were never able to accomplish before. Our relationships have officially been organized. I don’t yet have lists at the moment, but you bet I’m checking out Twitter’s API on the matter. How do you plan to use Lists?

Annoyances: My BlogWorld (Coke) Drinking Game

Posted on October 17, 2009 by jessestay

I’ve spent the last 3 days at BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada, and being the good Mormon I am I’ve pulled out my Coke or Pepsi and I played a little drinking game. Maybe it’s because my Excedrin hasn’t kicked in yet, but I’m quite simply annoyed by several things so if you notice me on a sugar-high while at the conference that’s why. Hopefully you picked your beverage of choice and were able to join me. Here were the rules:

1. “Twitter” – every time I heard the word “Twitter”, I took a sip of my Coke. Let’s face it – this is BlogWorld Expo, not TwitterWorld Expo. I think every single presentation I’ve been to has mentioned Twitter in some way. No blogging. No microblogging. Actually, I’m not even sure I heard the word Facebook at the expo (except by myself in the panel I was on, in which I was quickly flamed for thinking it was a good conversations platform, oh, and Mari Smith’s presentation which was all about Facebook). Come on guys – Twitter is not the entire blogging world – it has its place, but it should complement your blog, not replace it. We should be talking about the fact that people are leaving their blogs and losing the previous quality of blogging and switching to Twitter, not the fact that Twitter is a quality platform replacing blogs. Or, what about the simple concept of “microblogging” – Twitter did not sponsor this conference (nor do they have representation in any form) at all. Why not talk about Laconi.ca, or some of the things Automattic or SixApart are doing int he microblogging space? Why not PubsubHubbub or rssCloud? Drink.

2. “Scoble” – I love Robert to death – check the last few articles on this blog and you’ll probably see quite a few good mentions of him. He’s also a good friend. However I’m sick of him being the only blogger people ever mention here. How about mentioning some of the things up-and-coming bloggers are doing, and how pitching a large group of them can often be a more effective technique in pitching bloggers than pitching TechCrunch or Mashable or Readwrite Web? Robert Scoble’s awesome, but there are so many other things to talk about as well. Drink.

3. “Louis Gray” – Last year it was Robert Scoble. This year it’s Louis Gray. Louis is one of my best friends as you can probably tell from some of my tweets, and our families are good friends with each other. If you’re not following him, you should (as I mentioned earlier here). However, again, let’s stop the fanboyism at these conferences. Yes, these guys have influence, but they’re all normal people like you and me. Maybe it’s deserved, but I’m just tired of hearing the same names in every panel or presentation I attend. Drink.

4. “What party are you going to?” – Every day I’ve been here that’s been the topic of conversation. Yeah, Vegas is fun, but BlogWorld has brought bloggers who had no fun in College to the city and they all-of-the-sudden go into “I’m back in College” mode again. It’s like a 4-day frat-party the week BlogWorld is in town, and I’m tired of attending these parties where all they talk about is Twitter and everyone is drunk or gambling. Is this really fun? Maybe I’m missing out on something. (Oh, and why do we call these “Twitter” parties at “Blog” World???) Drink.

5. “iPhone” – Okay, I’m guilty of this as well, but it’s still driving me crazy. Everyone at this place has an iPhone! I kind of feel bad for the Android or the Pre or the Blackberry phones out there. I’m sure they feel a little left out. And when we go places, it’s all about, “let’s check into FourSquare” or “What Twitter Client are you using on your iPhone?” Maybe I’m just a little out of place as a software developer that thinks the Android is cool (when my contract is up I’ll be getting an Android phone). Drink.

6. “FourSquare” – Yes, my last annoyance. People are obsessed with it here! Who’s Mayor of the Expo? Who’s Mayor of the Hilton? Who’s Mayor of the elevator in the Paris. I’ve tried to keep up but I just can’t! Please stop – you’re making me hyper! Drink.

Strategically Growing Your Business Using Facebook & Twitter

Posted on October 16, 2009 by jessestay

I had the opportunity today to sit and listen to Mari Smith’s BlogWorld Expo talk today, “Facebook & Twitter Fortunes: How To Strategically Grow Your Business Using the Top Two Online Social Networks”. I have been on a panel with her before and even spoke for one of her online webinars, but had not yet had the chance to see her in person yet. Such a meeting was a pleasure, as that actually ended up being the focus of her presentation – relationships.

The power of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites is in how you use them to build real-life relationships with others. Facebook itself does this superbly (Twitter is getting there, and can still be used for such if done right). Mari spoke about that connection, stating that “more than content, people are looking for connection”. She had a great quote stating that “if Content is King, Connection is Queen”. The “Pied Piper of Facebook” (and arguable one of the nicest and most genuine people I’ve ever met) knows her stuff, and if you can use these social networks effectively to do this for a brand or business, you will see the most success.

Mari stated that the most powerful part of Facebook was Facebook Pages. She shared that you can encourage people to fan your Facebook Page simply by sending “fan yourpageusername” to “fbook” (32665) on your mobile phone. She uses this in her presentations to encourage people following her presentation to also fan her and mentioned it’s a great strategy to build a fan base. I realized I really need to do this more often as well (my fan page is “stay” on Facebook).

While I do agree with her that Facebook Pages are a powerful aspect of Facebook I do disagree slightly that it is the most powerful aspect of the Social Networking site. I think if more marketers, product managers, entrepreneurs, and businesses spent a little more time learning what they can do with a little knowledge of HTML, JavaScript, and access to HTML files somewhere they can begin to integrate Facebook right on their own site, bringing a user and their Facebook friends into a person’s own brand. If you ask me this is the most powerful component of Facebook and more people need to learn it. Facebook Connect is Facebook’s “Building Blocks” contributed to the Building Block Web I spoke of earlier.

I love Mari’s focus on connection and relationships in her presentation. She also talked about opening up a little, sharing how she shared some of the details of her recent divorce and by opening up she was able to connect with people better. She stated that the new social media marketing methodology is moving from “controlling our image” to “being ourselves”, something radically different from the way it used to be, and these tools are enabling us to do this! She stated that the tools are making people go from “hard to reach” to “available everywhere”. How true that is.

Unfortunately I was only able to stay for half of Mari’s session, but I quickly was reminded how much Mari knows her stuff. If you want to meet someone on Twitter or Facebook who is genuine, will build a real relationship with you, and help you learn how to make money off of these tools at the same time in a rational manner that is not a “get rich quick scheme”, Mari is the person to follow. You can follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/marismith or on Facebook, http://facebook.com/marismith.

What Are You Saying? BlogTalk Radio Introduces MicroPodcast iPhone App Cinch

Posted on October 15, 2009 by jessestay

Some times text just doesn’t cut it. Some times video is too much. Today the popular Podcasting site BlogTalk Radio resolved this issue with its new micropodcasting platform, Cinch, and the release of their new Cinch iPhone app.

Cinch aims to give you a micro solution when a full podcast is just too much. The iPhone app gives you a status bar to describe what you’re saying, along with the ability to add an image to the audio recording. Hit record, you can use the phone’s private microphone or turn it into a speakerphone and catch everything around you. Enter your status update, attach an image, and it goes up to Cinch in just a click of a button. You can also set it to automatically post to Facebook and Twitter, and even send images to a custom photo album on Facebook.

Here’s the cool thing about it: All this is just a wrapper around open technologies. Every “Cinch” you post gets added to an rss feed at feed://www.cinchcast.com/yourusername/Cinch.rss so you can do cool things like syndicate those into a blog or import them into FriendFeed (that goes into Twitter), etc. If you need to send audio to Cinch, you don’t even need the iPhone app. Just add 1-646-200-0000 to your phone directory, attach the name “Cinch”, and call that number any time you want to post a new Cinch.

Cinch’s API

Cinch even has an API! If you’re a developer just go to http://www.cinchcast.com/api.aspx and you can find all the documentation on how to get set up. Remember the Building Blocks I was telling you about earlier? Cinch enables you as a developer, entrepreneur, or business to use what Cinch and BlogTalk Radio are good at, audio and podcasting, and integrate it into your own website.

So FriendFeed, for instance, could automatically integrate Cinch imports into its list of supported aggregation sites. Cinch’s API covers the whole breadth of what it currently offers – via the API developers can create new Cinches, share Cinches, modify user accounts, edit and post Cinch text (you can just post Text and not audio if you opt to), edit and create comments, etc. The list is pretty long so I encourage each of you to get familiar with what you can do.

Also, here’s the cool thing about the API – they provide search at the start. From the beginning, via the API, any app can search for new Cinches, creating unique ways to search for new audio on the network. I think this will be powerful. I’d love to see what people do with it! (Imagine a Wave bot enabling audio in Waves, for instance)

CinchCast.com

Of course, an iPhone app and service like this wouldn’t be complete without a site to complete it all. At CinchCast.com you can also register (as you can straight from the iPhone app or just calling the number above). You can login and register using just your Facebook or Twitter accounts if you like, search the global Cinch directory, view what others are saying comment on Cinches, and follow others. You can follow me at http://cinchcast.com/Jesse-Stay.

With BlogWorld Expo this week and the Real-Time Web Summit, it will be interesting to see the buzz that comes out of this. Could this be the South-by-Southwest for BlogTalk Radio and Cinch that happened to Twitter a couple years ago? Starting tonight and tomorrow I’m going to go around doing quick 1 or 2 minute interviews with people I find around the conference. I’ll post them on my Cinch feed, which also populates FriendFeed and Twitter. Listen for them for some great commentary and opinions on the state of the Blogosphere.

Here’s my first one with Louis Gray, where I ask him about his favorite sessions of the day, and ask him, “Is blogging dead?”:

[audio:http://www.cinchcast.com:80/Jesse-Stay/2118.mp3]

You can follow me on Cinch at http://cinchcast.com/Jesse-Stay – go check it out now!

Disclosure: Cinch and BlogTalk Radio are a client of mine and I am helping them with their API integration and internal API design. They are not paying me to do these interviews or to promote them.

Wanna Launch Something at BlogWorld? Pitch Louis Gray (Here’s Why)

Posted on October 15, 2009 by jessestay

The inside joke at BlogWorld is that while the entire blogosphere is at BlogWorld Expo in Vegas partying and learning about blogging, the entire Blogosphere goes silent. This year, that silence is even more deafening as ReadWriteWeb is running their Real-time Summit in San Francisco and any of the remaining bloggers are there, “tweeting” away the events of the week. Robert Scoble even joked, “There is NOTHING more boring than a blog about blogging. Well, except one thing: a blog about a blogging conference. So, see ya on Twitter!” This is a nightmare for anyone trying to pitch a blogger this week and get any serious attention towards their product at such an ironic time. I have one tip: Pitch Louis Gray.

Yesterday Louis Gray wrote an inspiring post titled, “Hey Bloggers, Step Away from the Twitter for a Second… and Blog“. In the post he talked about this very phenomena and the fact that the blogosphere actually does go silent. He’s right!

In the meantime, Louis has cranked out a total of 3 blog posts since just last night and as I sit next to him at @drew’s cancer panel he is cranking out even more blog posts about various web topics and the panels he is attending. This is a man who wants, and likes to write! If there’s anyone you should be pitching this week it should be him, because you will actually get a real write up, instead of a 140 character Tweet.

Expect to see more blog posts from me as well this week – this whole “Tweeting” BWE09 is unproductive and unfruitful. I’ve got some really cool announcements I’m sitting on – stay tuned! Are there any other bloggers you see spending more time blogging and less-time partying and “tweeting” this week?

Web 3.0: The Building Block Web

Posted on October 15, 2009 by jessestay

Tim O’Reilly is well-known not only for his successful publishing company (which I have written for), but also for his definition of the term, “Web 2.0”, in summary defining the web as a platform, moving from the desktop to the cloud. I’d like to propose we are in the process of taking that one step further, perhaps even moving to our foundations, taking components of that platform, and enabling others to use those components in their own applications. Some talk about the “real-time web” being Web 3.0, or the 2010 Web, but when you look at it “real-time” is just using the web as a platform, making it real-time. The web still hasn’t really changed in essence to something else beyond the web becoming “the platform”. The web needs to shift to something else for that to happen. I think that shift is happening in a form I call “the building block web”.

When I think building blocks I think Lego bricks. Each one has its own unique size and shape, and when you take the basic lego bricks you can add your own, making something unique and powerful. The web, as a whole, is evolving towards this state. We see Twitter, with its open platform enabling others to share in ways they were never able to share before in their own applications. We see Facebook and Facebook Connect enabling businesses to incorporate Facebook activity, relationships, and more right in the bounds of their own brand (Jeremiah Owyang suggested we might call this “farming”). Recently, we saw Google Wave producing ways for users to collaborate in ways they were never able to before, and embed these in new ways into external environments. We see Facebook implementing Facebook credits amongst various applications and enabling some developers to charge using Facebook credits, Facebook taking a cut along the way. Each of these “components” is a building block. They’re each basic foundations, or Lego bricks that have organized the web into components developers can now build new and interesting things with. The new platform is on top of these foundations, which are built on top of the web, and viewable via a desktop or browser.

Robert Scoble, as he was interviewing me and Louis Gray last week, mentioned he thought Facebook should implement reviews similar to Yelp, and they could then profit from the deals made surrounding those reviews of retail and other physical purchase locations. It’s a great idea, but I suggested Facebook doesn’t need to do this. Facebook seems to understand the building block web. They are providing means for Yelp and others to take what Facebook is good at – building relationships and sharing activities and content with your close friends and family, and incorporate that content and social graph into and out of Yelp’s own environment. They are even providing for some developers (as mentioned earlier) the ability to integrate their built in credit system. Facebook provides their own foundations or Lego bricks, provides a means for those people to pay for things, and Facebook takes a cut of every piece of that along the way. Seems like a much better model than reinventing the wheel if you ask me. Now imagine if Yelp joined the building block web by providing their own “blocks” giving other apps the power of what Yelp is good at: organizing great reviews around physical purchase locations around the world.

Now look at Google. Google understands this well. They are providing Friend Connect, OpenSocial, Android, Wave (on 3 different levels!), and letting Developers decide what to do with them. Google is adding to this new platform giving developers new building blocks to play with and create cool things with.

This new web is surrounding us as we speak. Each of the major players is in a race to see who can create the most building blocks for developers and entrepreneurs to incorporate into their own products. No longer are entrepreneurs focused on building for the web. They’re focused on building around these building blocks. The building blocks are the platform. This is Web 3.0. Who will win?