A Meaningful Life

If I was in Jack Dorsey and Biz Stones I would be monetising their Twitter asset fast, damn fast. Sell it, open it up, whatever it takes. I think they aren’t far away from being standardised out of their current business model unless they can quickly fix their scale problems.

Driven by reliability issues on the Twitter platform, a plethora of conversation emerged this week. Bloggers and tech commentators are turning their conversation to workarounds. It’s as though the conversations and connections in Twitter have become bigger than Twitter itself. The conversation is alive and it wants to fix itself.

One example is Techcrunch’s coverage by Chris Saad of Dataportability.org. His workaround is micro bloggers using tools that are certified as compliant with a microblogging standard (posts of 140 characters and no titles). Users install complaint software on their own servers like you would blog software. He expects this to emerge from the opensource arena.

Personally I disagree, Twitter is successful because it’s easy. Easy to get started, easy to play, easy to have fun. I don’t want to install an app on a server to use a Twitter like product. I love the SaaS Twitter engine and the ecosystem of desktop and websites that have evolved around it.

It’s much like blogging where it’s just a small hassle managing a blog on a server. However, it’s still a hassle. I’d rather someone take care of that for me. My attitude to Chris’s self hosted microblogging application is the same - you’re taking my time away!

Twitter is most at risk from 3rd party application builders who have built desktop apps for Twitter. They are well positioned to build into emerging microblogging engines and thus becoming the microblogging feed readers. In much the same way RSS Readers cover many blog platforms. To do this standards are needed.

So there’s three pieces to the microblogging picture:

1. Platform
2. Reader
3. Standard

I expect one ‘rough’ standard across many platforms the way RSS has evolved. After all who seriously owns a 140 character field limit? How can you protect that?

Twitter the nuclear option
Stilgherrian points to a great read. I particularly loved this quote describing the potency of Twitter….”This newest of new things has only just started to rise up and flex its muscles. The street, ever watchful, will find new uses for it, uses that corporations, governments and institutions of every stripe will find incredibly distasteful, chaotic, and impossible to manage.”

Frasers Broadway
Grant Young points to this amazing (looking) bit of Green architecture. I have to agree with Grant that the various artists impressions always leave me a little skeptical. I’ll track the detail on their website with interest. Draping plants over balconies never seem to last long. Why? Because humans let them die. Let’s hope the building has systems for managing humans lack of plant care.

Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth
Photosynth is getting a run in CSI NY episode “Behold the Future”. CBS’s trailer is out but I don’t think the episode has aired yet. I first checked out the Photosynth technology mid last year when it was soft launched via the Microsoft labs blog. It’s worth a look through the tech preview on the Photosynth website - stuff of the future.

I often do a spring clean through folders, bookmarks, contacts and now my twitter account. I could use the time savings excuse not to do it but I know it’s an excuse. Small amounts of time spent on cleaning pays wonders in productivity. The kicker is that great clean mind feeling. It’s so much easier to work.

Yesterday while working on some demo/marketing slides for Saasu I realised how many web-pages, screenshots, images and thumbnails that 8 years of business will accumulate. It made life very slow and very difficult, surfing the directory structure and filtering. It took half a day to do something that should have taken an hour. So post our next release it’s getting a spring clean.

Clean out some people

Likewise my twitter account. I cleaned out people. Yes, that sounds horrible. If you aren’t following me then I cleared you out. Main reason is that I like twitter for the conversation and will push not to have it become a marketing soapbox. A little marketing is ok, but balance is required. After all the real world soapbox is pretty dead, and that’s because it wasn’t a conversation.

Time cost vs. benefit of the clean-up

There is a peak where productivity gains are lost relative to time spent cleaning. So the short sharp super clean is the way to go.

Minimalism is a great antidote for messy

The simplicity of minimalism is so rich. When you distil out the very best ideas and possessions from your life and concentrate your thoughts and energy on them then their richness grows immensely.

If you’re messy your probably impacting others

Just look at messy teens sending their parents nuts. That problem pervades the world and no doubt is a major factor in parent/teen relationship problems that are all too common.

Last word

Stay messy, if you like it. I saw a pig once who was damn messy and he looked very happy, happier than me I’d say. So there’s nothing wrong with being messy if your happy in it and it doesn’t impact others.

Twitter is a community website where users post publicly or privately what they are doing during their day in succinct comments (140 characters).

In my opinion, the magic 140 characters and getting a feel for peoples day to day lives are the biggest reasons for it’s success. It keeps communication precise, moving it away from long emails and IM ping-pong.

Twhirl is a great app for getting your twitter feeds. Why? I work a fine balance of communicating with people and getting some coal face work done on Saasu.com. This productivity dilemma of being “fuzzy” versus “bundy-clock” in my work style is improved with the right tools like Twhirl. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn all require time to keep track so when a tool comes along that will at-a-glance give me the updates I need, then I’m on board. Thanks to @alegrya and @jodiem at BarCamp Sydney who pointed it out.

To learn more about what the fuzzy worker concept is read Stephen Collins acidlabs blog.