Brian Grey Blog

Don’t ask me how or why, but for some reason I ended up at the broadcast network end of the TV dial this morning.  Toggling between David Gregory and George Stephanopoulos (whom my wife correctly asked “what did he do again that warrants him moderating one of these shows?”) a couple of things struck me that reminded me what  a dinosaur these shows are in today’s media environment.

First, these shows better never plan on making the switch to HD.  Anyone who has to see up close how much make up George Will is wearing or whether Arianna Huffington’s eyelashes are real, will certainly click off to another channel no matter how compelling the chit chat is about North Korea.

Second and most notable is the “fishbowl” feel that these shows have — especially in a digital media world that has rapidly moved to putting a premium on audience conversation.  The old school method of having a moderator like George and David leading a discussion with analysts and experts is way too antiquated.  Having Huffington on the Stephanopoulos panel seemed the most ironic.  Here is a pundit who has arguably embraced the new medium via her Huffingtonpost.com blog platform, yet on George’s panel she appeared as 2-dimensional and archaic as Will and the other two stooges on the set.

How about this for a programming idea for these Sunday political shows.

While they are taping the show, run it live online.  Suck in the Twitter feed — heck bring in the FriendFeed, Facebook Status feed and any other audience conversation that can be gleaned from the Web while the host and guests are actually talking on set.  Then, during the actual taping, have the host dip in to the “conversation” and use the vibe coming from the audience chatter to steer the discussion a bit.  Not entirely audience driven, but enough to make it feel like we’re not just watching the show as though we were waltzing through the Television & Radio wing of the Smithsonian Institute.

Now I might watch something like this — a show where George Will had to reply to what real people were saying about what he was saying about North Korea.  Actually, on second thought, I’d probably just watch the thing online while it was being taped so that I could contribute to the conversation live.  I’ve got better things to do than watch network television at 9 a.m. Sunday mornings!

New beginnings are exciting — doing a restart can be energizing.  With that spirit in mind, and prompted by a blog post forwarded to me by my pal VCMike, I have decided to do a “Twitter Restart”.  What’s a Twitter Restart?  Well, basically I have decided to sign up anew on Twitter using a new user name.

Why do this?

Well, for one reason, I don’t feel as though I’ve really given Twitter that “old college try” as they say.  I kind of stumbled in to it last summer and then stumbled in a bit more in the fall when I moved back to SF and started up with Polaris.  A Twitter Restart gives me a chance to experience Twitter as a “newbee”.  I get to feel the rush of a user who found out about Twitter at a cocktail party in Pacific Heights — or at a Michael Phelps-esque party in the Haight? — and then raced home that night a little buzzed to sign on to Twitter to see what all the Twitter-hype was about.

I’m so giddy right now…

Another driver for the TR (can I be introducing a new acronym in to the Web2.0 lexicon?) is the opportunity to really put my “true” identity out in the Twittersphere:  bgrey.  You see, “bgrey” has been my Internet moniker since I got my first email address back in 1939 (ok, 1995, but it feels like 70 years ago).  Most of my colleagues from places I’ve stopped at in the past — UCLA, Netscape, Shutterfly, Yahoo!, Fox, etc. — know me as “bgrey”.  So may as well make the TR switchover to the brand people know (and trust)!

That post I referenced above is from Max Kalehoff on his blog and Max talks about the importance of not just having a brand voice on Twitter — but also the distinction of having that voice come from a real person versus some “oracle” for the brand.  For example, being able to follow @TonyHsieh talking about Zappos would provide more punch than just following @Zappos.  The former would be authentic, the latter viewed skeptically by Twitterers thinking that it was just filtered corporate speak.

Oh, there is one last reason for the TR.  You see, that mystery “L” that was inserted in to my original Twitter identity has created an issue back on the home front.  Turns out that my dad, for whom the “L” in my middle name comes, feels that I am treading on his brand.  So I am removing it lest I get slapped with some type of Twitter induced trademark infringement lawsuit.  Damn those parents who start paying attention to their own brands in the digital realm!  [Note:  My dad isn't really going to sue me -- he has to learn to type before he can actually use the Web]

So here we go.  A Twitter Restart.  Fresh and new.  An opportunity to dive in to Twittermania again for the “very first time” as Madonna might sing.  Now I just have to figure out how to rewire all the places where my old “blgrey” Twitter account is wired up.

Ugh, I feel the excitement already dissipating…

Dropped by my first Mobile Meet Up SF tonite in South San Francisco.  Overall seems like a good event — heavy on the developer front, not necessarily “investor friendly” in that the discussion is pretty deep on product (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and less focused on the business aspects of the presenters and their potential funding needs.  Of course, this was the only one I’ve been to, so perhaps tonite was a special case due to the focus on Twitter.

After sitting through a handful of mini presentations from early stage companies, the big takeaway is that Twitter is fast becoming a significant part of the Internet ecosystem.  They are thinking smartly about how to embrace the developer community — enabling all types of services to be built on top of Twitter in a way that increases the importance of Twitter not just to early adopters but ultimately every day Internet users.

Based on a sampling of tonite’s presentations Twitter is getting some early traction from developers. A quick run down of a couple of the examples that were showcased this evening:

• Mosio is a mobile community that enables questions and answers — their interesting implementation is on Twitter at twitter.com/qna.  Once you’re signed up at mosio and you start following twitter.com/qna you can ask questions and get answers from the Twittersphere.

• Twittelator is a do it all Twitter app — hard to even explain all of the things it enables you to do in concert with Twitter…I would recommend downloading it if you have an iPhone and just start banging around on it.

• TwitterFon is a slick iPhone Twitter app that enables a robust set of Twitter functionality on the iPhone, while TwitterFox (from the same developer as TwitterFon) is a FireFox plugin that lets you track your Twitter feed from the friendly confines of FireFox browser.
  

• TwitPic — This is the Flickr of Twitter …embedded in to multiple Twitter clients, they got a server crushing boost after the US Airways plane landed in the Hudson last month.  And the guy running it — Noah — is a hoot!
  

Oh, and one other thought from tonite’s gathering:  Apple may want to throw it’s hat in the “who’s gonna buy Twitter” ring if they haven’t already.  Beyond the obvious driver Twitter would be in iPhone handset sales, the real potential upside for Apple would be in Twitter’s ability to bring Apple in to the media business — the new age media business.

If Twitter becomes the conduit through which users communicate, publish and access content, and they do this on the iPhone, well…AAPL at under $100 may be a major bargain right now?

Tonight I tackled the latest Web 2.0 mystery:  how to tie together the convoluted network that exists when one is simultaneously signed up for Facebook, Friendfeed and Twitter.  What happens when you try to use each of these services to make your Web user experience easier and more fulfilling?  Well, you spend a lot of time clicking around to set and reset your settings, linking in to various subsets of “friends” and generally going through various phases of euphoria (“oh, cool, that’s awesome how that works”) and frustration (“what the f@&k is going on now?!”).

Alright, here’s my latest rundown on how these three sites have inserted themselves in my daily existence.

For several months I’ve been cruising along adding friends to my Facebook account and pinging on Twitter every once in awhile some of the same jibberish that I see so much of on Twitter (what I’d really like to see is Twitter to make Twitter Search more integrated and useful at Twitter.com — that’s where some of the useful filtering gets made discoverable to users).

Then, about six weeks ago I figured out that I could actually send an automated Tweet everytime I posted to my blog so I immediately installed the plugin in WordPress to do that.

Meanwhile, in the background I at some point had installed the Friendfeed app on Facebook — and actually set up Twitter and my blog as “services”.  So what happened then?  Well, not much.  Same user experience:  add friends on Facebook and Twitter randomly — with an occasional notice on Twitter that I’d submitted a new blog post.  But at the same time, Friendfeed would pipe in updates in to the News Feed on Facebook (basically resubmitting what was already being posted by Facebook), and oh, yah, I also installed the Twitter app on Facebook so that I could update my Facebook status via my Twitter iPhone app!

Confused?  Good, so was I.

So that brings us to this evening when I attempted to “rewire” my Web 2.0 life.

First, I actually went in to Friendfeed to see if there was more there than just a switchboard for routing stuff I do on other sites.  And actually there seems to be, though I need to put in more work to subscribe to what my friends are doing and to set up “Rooms” and special groups of friends so that I can order the conversation a bit better.  What I still don’t get is how to source meaningful “conversation” from Friendfeed — especially when what might be really meaningful is being said by people who I haven’t identified as my “friends” somewhere else.  For example, how do I find out about a really interesting conversation that’s going on about who the Phillies are going to sign before Spring Training?

As for Twitter, I’m still struggling to find the real value here.  I follow people, see their posts — many of which are like somebody shouting at me in short, inaudible snippets.  I do the same type of posts and imagine people are out there seeing them saying “so what?”.  I guess it’s a decent distribution channel for letting people know I’ve updated my blog — but most people get the update when they see my Facebook status updated (via Twitter of course).  I am going to keep trying to find the value in Twitter — as I said above, there is value in Twitter Search in the filtering that can be done and the corralling of meaningful conversation.

And what about Facebook.  Well they have made many iterations to the service in the past year.  Not the least of which is becoming more “Friendfeed” like.  Though piping in outside services like I can in Friendfeed seems harder to find and do on Facebook.  The real value with Facebook for me is in the fact that I have 600 “friends” on there and when I am on the site I can get a good, cursory update on what my friends are doing and saying.

So, where did I end up tonight?  Here are my conclusions — take them as a work in progress because I am sure that the way I have set everything up I am going to be blasting out multiple updates across these services in a way that will piss off my friends and get me accused of being a rogue spammer (kind of like my friend “EarnCashOnline1″ who is following me on Twitter).  That all notwithstanding, here goes:

1. Friendfeed is worth spending some time with — but I’d really like to use it in a way that allows me to follow and participate in conversations that I care about, like sports, managing, certain topics in digital media, etc.  Today it still just throws in a bunch of “activities” that come from the lives of my friends but doesn’t necessarily add a lot of utility to me.

2. Twitter is the “what’s happening now” platform — but I’d really like to see them invest in bringing the filtering that they are able to foster via Twitter Search in to the core Twitter experience.  Otherwise I suspect that the other guys out there like Friendfeed and emerging services like Twingly will co-opt the “conversation” spaces that exist within Twitter and render Twitter as just the pipes that deliver the messages.

3. Maybe what’s really happening here is another Bernie Madoff scheme.  Could it be that Facebook, Friendfeed and Twitter (along with Digg, Tumblr and the dozens of other Web 2.0 features) are actually in cahoots in all of this confusing interplay?  Any time you spend time on an additional one of these sites you de facto increase the time you sink into trying to manage your Web life at the expense of your real life.  Maybe the guys at FB, FF and T are actually Facebooking, Friendfeeding and Twittering in the background new and devious ways to get all of us to intertwine their sites with our lives (how’s that for a visual?).

Nah, that’s crazy talk.  Now I gotta get back to www.FaceFriendFeedTwitterBookDiggMixxTumblrStumbleBook.com to make sure all my auto updates are, well, up to date!

Bet when you saw the title of this post you expected a deep, analytical outline of how Twitter will grow it’s audience and revenues.

Well, you’re in luck – but to be clear, this may not be the type of analysis you are looking for. That’s because from my personal view, Twitter’s long term growth catalyst will be based on one thing: Guilt.

Guilt you say? Yes, that bad, yucky feeling you get when you do something you know you shouldn’t have done. See, I get a little tinge of guilt each time I receive a text message telling me that another person is following me on Twitter.

And why the guilt? Well, everytime somebody alerts me to the fact that they are following me in Twitter I feel I owe them some “tweets”. I feel that they are sitting with their iPhones in hand waiting to gobble up my Twitter updates and how can I live with myself if I don’t give them what they are asking for?

“KennyB is now following you in Twitter.”

Damn, KennyB is dying to get my Tweets. I better update him now.

“eating club sandwich at JFK…really tasty, never realized how good honey mustard really is!! “

Or even worse, sometimes the guilt is so strong that I feel I owe Kenny a personal message:

“@KennyB you rock! C u soon!”

And how does this translate in to revenues you ask? Well, stay with me here:

Network effects of course!

Everybody starts following people on Twitter, this creates enough pent up guilt in Twitterers (is that even a word?) that everyone ramps up their Twittering to avoid that guilty feeling.

Now remember, advertisers are people – and therefore – Twitterers too, so they Twitter to also stave off guilt. But then they start buying advertising on Twitter as well because after all they would feel REALLY guilty if Twitter stopped working because advertisers didn’t spend money on it to keep it running!

Still with me? If you feel a little guilty, just Twitter!

Few notes of interest from what I was able to scan heading in to the Thanksgiving holiday extended weekend:

AlleyInsider kicks around the idea of Microsoft following Apple and Google’s lead by getting in to the mobile phone business. Doesn’t sound that far fetched when you see how little they stand to make licensing Windows for the mobile world, particularly if people continue buying non-Windows devices like the iPhone in droves. Plus, if you have the size and cash that MSFT has, why would you let pesky OEMs stand between you and the end user. What’s next, buying some spectrum and steamrolling the Carriers?

Speaking of MSFT (ok MSN), good to see my ‘ol pal Rob Bennett getting a bump up in the MSN world. Rob’s taking on role of Network-wide programming czar for MSN. Sounds like a good gig for Rob and will let him do what he’s been doing in an Entertainment context and apply it to all MSN channels.

I am curious to check out Zemanta in more detail. At first glance looks like a cool tool for adding features and engagement for bloggers. Will see if I can pull off the plug-in integration within WP?

What are other guys talking about? Fred Wilson highlights StockTwits, a “bloomberg for the little guy” as they call themselves. Basically culls all tweets (or twits…what’s the difference again?) that reference a specific stock ticker with $ in front (e.g. $YHOO picks up thread about Yahoo investor commentary).

By far, my favorite commentary I accessed after installing the FireFox extension was the following:

The new kids on the block for Election ’08 weren’t even around in ’04. My own consumption pattern tonite started with my wife watching (for the third time this weekend) the veep debate re-run on Fox Business Channel. Of course, it was via DirecTV so it was via DVR — couldn’t name a single commercial if you asked me.

The debate sparked a bit of late Sunday night interest on my part to go a bit deeper on what’s happening on the Election front (notwithstanding Karl Rove’s prediction that Obama will get 273 Electoral College votes).

So as I was updating my Twitter message, I clicked in to their Election ’08 “Twitter” — which brought me to the BBC story about Obama’s iPhone app — which compelled me to download the app from the iPhone App Store — which would have compelled me to “Call Friends” from battleground states if wasn’t too darn late (though that feature is pretty clever isn’t it?).

Add all this up and you get the picture. The way users will increasingly follow everything is via the broader community, not via just the experts on TV (or certainly print). Hopefully the experts will spend time figuring out how to use Twitter and iPhone apps…and whatever emerges tomorrow on the digital media publishing front.

Okay, so what are we to make of Twitter exactly? I get the “micro blogging” definition and the fact that at a certain stage of one’s life, being able to text quick messages for one’s friends (er uh, stalkers) to keep track of your every move has some redeeming social value:

“Walking down Church Street”…”Turning left on to Noe Street”…”Walking in to Starbucks”…

But now that I have a full time job, a wife and a couple of kids, do I really want that level of accountability?

“Leaving finance meeting”…”Reviewing build schedule”…”Leaving office now”…”Damn, now I am expected home in exactly 22 minutes!”

And I know it’s not really fair to be asking about a revenue model at this point right? I read a post somewhere that the idea is to charge “power” Twitterers a subscription (only seems fair given power users suck up most of Twitter’s opex).

I’ll keep toying around with Twitter…if anything to curiously watch what it becomes?

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT: Had lunch with Sandy Alderson, CEO of the San Diego Padres. As nice and humble a guy as I’d been told (and always assumed). This was a ‘make up’ meeting since I screwed up the scheduling and missed our meeting down in SD at the Pads-Dodgers game couple weeks ago. Anyway, really enjoyed meeting and talking some baseball and business with guy who built the Bash Brother A’s of the late 80′s.