I’m starting to see the “Sign in with Twitter” button in more places on the web. I’m still trying to figure out what the bigger picture plan is for this service. To me, it looks very similar to Facebook Connect – it’s a simplified way to log into 3rd party sites without having to create […]
Read More “Does “Sign In with Twitter” Make Sense Without an Web Ad Play?”
This has been a really interesting week in the world of platforms. Between Fred Wilson’s blog post on filling holes and the subsequent Tweetie acquisition announcement and Apple’s announcements about some of the social gaming features that will be part of the next iPhone OS release, it reminded me of some things I’ve thought about […]
Read More “Three Reminders about Platform Businesses (Apple, Twitter, and Facebook)”
I’ve been playing with Google Buzz for a few days, mostly to get a better sense for the interaction model. I’m a heavy Gmail user, so I’ve been particularly interested in how the service integrates with Gmail. While I have enjoyed using Buzz, it has helped crystalize some of my thoughts about why using email […]
Read More “Google Buzz and the Challenges of Using Email as a Social Graph”
I’ve been thinking about doing a 2010 predictions post for this year. In lieu of doing one, I thought I’d highlight the biggest platform battles that I find interesting in the upcoming year: Facebook vs Application Developers I (obviously) have a vested interest in how this plays out given my work with Serious Business. Nonetheless, […]
I recently started using Tumblr about a week and a half ago on the recommendation of my friend, Hiten Shah. I have to admit, that I was really skeptical about whether I would need / enjoy / find use for another microblogging or content sharing service. I was also perplexed how Union Square Ventures could […]
Read More “Some Early Thoughts on the Differences between Tumblr and Twitter”
I have been thinking a lot about whether Twitter will ultimately become as fertile a place for social games as Facebook has become over the past 18 months. I have to preface this article by saying that I am not actively involved in building games on the Twitter platform nor do I have any firsthand […]
Read More “Why Twitter Is (Probably) Not the Right Place for Games Today”
I would not describe myself as a power user of Twitter by any means, but I continue to be fascinated by the amount of energy and time people spend building tools on top of it and generally commenting on how it’s the next next new thing (double nexts were intentional). I do, though, use FriendFeed […]
I’ve now posed roughly 30 questions to Aardvark and I think it’s one of the more useful services I’ve used of late. In addition to being useful, I also think it has a reasonable shot at becoming an interesting business as well. In the interest of fair disclosure, it’s worth noting that Aardvark has good […]
Read More “I’m Bullish on Aardvark (and Twitter should take notes)”
I’ve been fascinated by the blogosphere’s musings on Twitter’s downtime. I, for one, am relatively sympathetic toward their plight – there’s nothing tougher than trying to scale a system that’s growing quickly and has a very unpredictable, bursty traffic profile. And as much as I like and enjoy Twitter, it’s not a life-or-death kind of […]
Read More “Solving the Twitter Business Model Problem – Your Guess is Probably Better than Mine”
I was checking out tweetmeme today and I thought it was pretty clever. Twitter is its own community with its own dynamics, but I have lately been itching for a service that would help me get value out of the status updates that my friends are constantly posting. I just came back from a trip […]
Read More “Mining Facebook Status Updates – Search and Trends”
