User's Definition

So, what is a user?

a user is some one who use something, that all.

web-developer define users by a set of information that are mainly regrouped in users profile.

but is a profile a true definition of a user? No.


A user is defined by his activity and his connectivity.

1)the activity of a users reflect what he (she) do regarding the service or a set of service.

2)the connectivity in the other side reflect a list of people to witch the user is connected.

user's activity and connectivity define the user, and they are closely dependent.

the activity of some one can lead to more connectivity, and vice versa.

now, why all this speech about, user's definition, user's connectivity et activity?

it is a quite simple.

yesterday or the day before I don't remember, there was an article about how to sell your soul on twitter and whos buying I enjoyed reading it and agree with most the author say in.

1)twitter is big cake.
2)twitter is a sweet cake.
3)many are lurking on.

and this paragraph say it well :

So there's the Twitter-sphere for you! Bring on "real time search," bring on a globally connected community, bring on vapid, vile, stupid shilling. It all seems pretty sad to me. And to the advertisers out there - is this cynical scheme the best you can do to engage with all the new ways people are communicating online? That's pretty bad.

now some think that all have the right t promotion, after all any twitter user is free to tweet what ever he want. so why not to include promotion in your own tweet.

the reason is a quiet simple:

you activity determine who you are. and your activity determine your connectivity. that all.

such monetization way (via tweet) are risky both for the publisher and for the advertiser.

1)the advertiser risk a failing brand image (such campaign can easily be compared to a spam).
2)advertiser loss of credibility.

3)the publisher will loss credibility and connectivity.


so the question to ask if you are going to take the be-a-magpie deal is:

what is you twitter contact 's value?

are they less or more then the hypothetical ad revenue?

but the most important is what stick and label this activity can bring to your front?

remember your activity determine your connectivity. and that the both define who you are.

What FriendFeed, Twitter and Facebook have to do next?

yesterday was the Beta Day for friendfeed , before this facebook too make some change in it UI (user interface).

facebook new change made huge noise inside it own fan and passionate users.

in the new facebook the change where done toward a better public streaming.


mean to open facebook to a third part source of content by aggregating content.

while at friendfeed this was done years before :)

so:

1) facebook
facebook leaders noticed that in order to reach a wider audience they have to open their CONTENT to a wide contribution and here occur the third party content aggregation.

2) friendfeed
friendfeed lead at the same time anticipated such facebook move and introduce a total complete realtime content browsing and aggregation.

in terms of content aggregation and consumption facebook are at mile from friendfeed.

3) twitter
twitter leader understand from the begining that the other way to have a large audience is by opening their service via their API.

friendfeed and facebook are both at miles from twitter in term of third party API-based application.

now who will win the game of sociability?


friendfeed bring real time into an height level. but friendfeed will have to face some problem that I will try to enumerate later.

facebook in walk behind friendfeed will face the same problems or even worst.

a) the problem that may face friendfeed regarding the new change that they operate in their UI.

a-1) the difficulty to translate such change in their API.

friendfeed have to grant to the developer of API based application, the tool to bring the same features that FF are offering in their beta service.

there are change to come in the side of friendfeed API this is clear and simple, but the way to it is a bit longer then supposed.

to transcript the "real time " feature that exist in all the part of FF (list, home, filtering,..) FF-API will expose an advanced use of the Simple Update Protocol.

but then there will be really a new paradigm about the use of SUP couple to REST-API.

this is the new challenge that FF team have to face.

now let ask a question :

are "twitter, friendfeed, facebook" trying to make content more public?more open?

it is delisional to think so becaus, none of those service offer a way to export users data synthesis to others servers rather then by rss feed, witch begin to be obselete in real time communication.

those 3 service are still now offering to users:

1)the ability to read from different source (agregation).
2)to filter the source by author , keyword, like comment etc..
3)to contribute to the stream.

but all the 3 service do one common thing :

users stream retention .

a user in those 3 service can't export his stream elsewhere in a decent format rather then the obsolete rss or atom feed.


those service have to offer a way to export users stream to other service as they offer the way to agregate other service content. at the same rate at the same speed, without latency.without delay.

those services have to offer users at least a way to export their syntheis to their blog at the same rate as they import from their blog.

going public induce a biderectional way.

thinking "bidirectional" is a safe thinking, content retention may lead to crash.

so what those service "twitter, facebook, friendfeed" have to avoid ?

1)users retention.
2)content retention.
3)service retention.

this induce what they have to do next :

1)open authentification (openid, Oauth)
2)real time (third party) content sharing, such export to blog or to twitter of to FF or to FB.
3)better API.

ok I am done.

an Hour without Tweet

I was on twitter then I saw this message :

Twitter will be down for 1 hour of planned maintenance at 10a PST on April 5.

it make me smile really. but a concept emerged in my mind again, when you are pretending to serve people in real time you can't afford the luxe of using such message.

and here is why :


1)twitter is in a dominant position regarding the micro-blogging sphere.
2)twitter serve people in real time, there is no delay no latency.

such situations are frustrating users.

would you stay a week without electricity?
would you stay a week without mobile communication?

there is a part of dependency that such service induce and that providers have to assume like users.

in such situation the elementary human reaction is "the search for alternative".

could organic search survive without google ? yes.
could social network survive without facebook? yes.
could the blog-shpere survive without blogger and wordpress? yes.
could the holly sharing file picture survive without filckr or picasa? yes.
could the wiki-universe survive without wikipedea? yes.

because there is always alternative.

so what are the alternative to twitter?

1)identi.ca
2)open microblogging.

some have to agree that they arn't so spreaded as twitter, jaiku got a chance to be a concurent of twitter but google killed that chance.

so to resume :

1 hour is a too much too big delay in a environment where change and information are expressed every milli-seconde. or less.

is it legitimate to ask what Plan B twitter has? what can twitter offer us if something go wrong for a long period?

hope they have one.

and hey in the universe of micro-blogging, micro-maintenance has a chance to emerge :)

will google buy twitter, my african point of view.

this morning I come up this post dear europe how would you feel about google buying, in this post the author asked a question :

What do you think? Could this be good? Will it be bad? How do you feel about it and what do you think it might mean?

so here is my answer :

1) if google buy twitter then this may be a proof that a big company can make the same error twice, remember google acquired Jaiku, some have to ask what Return on investment google made in the Jaiku case.

2) will twitter accept google offer? (is twitter for sell)?

then the answer is NO, and here is an element that may support this reasoning, twitter raise for fund (read here), may be at the first stage of twitter the monetizing schema was "build to sell" or "acquisition model" as suggest this article.

twitter isn't for sale, it is a common sense, reasoning, why selling when you are able to get money keeping the company yours. with the stepping in fund raising twitter show the desire to grow by it mean, to grow to a stand of A corporation.

is facebook for sale?!!
is myspace for sale?!!

the same applied here.

now regarding the fact that google may acquire twitter, I think that there is some action (strategic one ) made by google leader that can inform us about the futur decision.

the case of Open Social Fundation , to face the monopole that may cause the growth facebook google decision was to open the door of the social universe to a large audience to a large community of developer to make open, and free.

it is a simple thinking :

if you can't monopolize a domain, open it to other in order to make the emergence of a dominant a no chance.


of course the fruit the result of such strategic decision aren't a short term one, they will be in a long term, facebook is growing for now but there will be an end some day.


so using the same strategic decision, google will help and grow the open micro-blogging, rather then buying Twitter , and there are some element that may argument this reasoning :

1) making Jaiku open source, and easy migrating it to Google App Engine
2) the future enhancement to GAP read this .

to resume google will not buy twitter, but what about Microsoft ;).

Tell me who you Follow I will tell you who you are

Good morning Twitter.

so this morning I remembered the old adage "tell me who are your friend, I will tell you who you are", in this social media ERA, in this "fellow me plz" environment people tend to give less importance to social behavior like making friendship or being with others.

it is so easy to follow some one in twitter or elsewhere, it is so easy to be a friend with some one in this virtual environment, damn it cost a click on a link no more.

so here is the question :

do you make the same decision concerning your relationship in real life, like the one you make in social network?


for those who follow more then 200.000 people in twitter, my question is do you really have 200.000 friend in real life?

the evidence is NO.

so why making friendship over twitter is so easy , so evident, so sweeted for business?

tell with who you are, I will tell you who you are.

it is a quit simple and reflect the absurdity of fellowing 200.000 people.

in any relation there is an exchange of knowledge of ideas of information stream.

what do you will really learn in a noise of 200.000 talking to you?

some will argue that they can listen to 200.000 people at the same time , they have just to filter the information to read the usefull one the interesting one and to be blind regarding the others.

ok so here is my main argument :

before filtering the information , why not filtering the source of the information.

choose who you listen for and who not listen for before trying to sort huge amount of tweet.

people have to be honest there is an EGO manifestation, when people try to follow 200.000.

so relax, make a break and try to know who are you friend, cause it is the only way to know who you are.

Is Twitter Out Of Control?

the answer is YES.

due to the nmber of users.
due to the frequency of tweeting.
due to the diversity of third party application using the API.
due to the diversity of third party application aggregating the tweet.
due to the obcession of Real time show (earlier introduction).

due to the obsession of getting more follower.
due to the obcession of making money using twitter.
due to the sneaky Tips and tactics used to gain reputation on twitter (READ THIS).

Twitter is a closed system and like any closed system it is aimed to crash simple entropy deduction.

so what make Twitter a closed system?

if you have some ideas let me know : abdellahdz at twitter.com

The Power of a Community

Today I want to talk about the hidden community power's.

each community take it power from it users, the most "community based users" the most powerful is the community.

in every group when the element that constitute the group work and make effort toward a better community future, the benefits are backed to their members.

the members make the community, and without a community members are just individual (and feel lonely) :).

this isn't a discussion of "socialist vs capitalist" schema of community, beyond all those differences there is a common element which is :

in a community people have rights and obligations, it is a common sens evidence.

when you want to join a community you have to be ready to accept the obligations in order to aspire to the rights.

it is so evident in real community, but when it come to virtual one's, people tend to forget the basis.

in virtual community such as "twitter, facebook" or any other community people tend to forget that all the advantages that they have joining the community are dependent on how member will respect their obligations.

in a community the "star", the VIP the most considered is the community not the members.

in virtual community people tend to bring the light to them selves.
people tend to ask what the community can do for them before asking themselves what they can do for the community.

What are you doing in your virtual community, and how your acts reflect on the whole community.

some tend to believe and they are wrong that they can USE the community, when people begin to think in such way community (vanish).

so to resume, community is the extension of the COMMON YOU, the better or the worst, it depend just on how you are?

take cae and spread a big hug in your community.

Who Else want to buy Twitter?

Yesterday I come up this article Traffick: Yes, Twitter's Business Model Is To Be Acquired, and Yes, It Will Be: Search Engine Enlightenment , I enjoyed reading it and I agree with the author at a point.

For companies like Twitter, the messy and as-yet-unconsolidated patchwork left by the also-rans (Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL) in the digital space may be bad news valuation-wise, as it creates too many distractions for these lesser candidates, and points so heavily towards a single acquirer.

twitter business Model is "To Be Acquired" , it is so evident that no other model can be used to monetize twitter.

would you pay in-order to use Twitter ? the common answer will be No. this is really interesting to read the hoax about Twitter Primium Account.

no one will pay a dime to use Twitter.

now if Twitter is for sale some day, who will buy?

the acquiror of twitter have to establish a better model to get a ROI (return on investment). they will not do that for free.

so the question is :

how to make money if you purchase Twitter?

the answer is clearly simple, none buy trouble.

why would you buy a service, when you can build an other one based on this service.

the easy way to make money using twitter is to build a (well studied service with a well studied Business Plan rather then "build to sell" ).

A similar game of chicken happened before -- with You Tube. And the valuation was a bargain for Google and didn't exactly make paupers out of the company founders and their investors. If I had to lay down a chip, I'd expect Google to acquire Twitter by the middle of May. We'll see.

here is where I disagree with the author of the cited article.

my prediction is that Google will not acquire Twitter for the simple reason that fellow :

Google acquire Jaiku in the past and it was a loosely investment, Google turned Jaiku to an open source, Google initiate GAE aka google app engine and it plan to ad some feature to GAE in the near future such XMPP, and then google will surely open the micro blogging to every one, this is the hidden plan to kill Twitter, not to buy it.

For The Glory of a Comming Redundancy

I just take a tour to this site The ReTweetability Index it offer an index of the top retwitter?

so a question come to my mind, what is the job of a retwitter?

what does this word "retwitte" mean?

it is just an other elegant way to say redundant tweet.

so what are the risk of overuses, and abuse of such feature?

1)redundancy.
2)incoherence.
3)copyright infringement.
4)saturation.
5)data entropy.

there is no blame to spread words, tweet or ideas, the blame is to over spread.

the dangerous way is the bulk retweet that may appear, and then some bad social behavior may emerge.

retweet my tweet, so that I could retweet yours.

some time the idea have to walk their ways.

now the top 20 retweeter have to know their responsibility, their position give them a form of power but each power induce responsibility.

the more followers you have, the more severe is your filtering schema and criteria.

the more tweet you retweet , the more prudent you have to be in regard to what retweet and to what ignore.

because it isn't just virtual.

Twitter Ads Strategy

this morning I come up this post Twitter Ads Make an Appearance .

how could twitter investor get their Return on investment?

the answer may be advertising "Ads".

a simple look to twitter recent change, may give us an answer.

1)introduction of twitter search a real time tweet search engine.
2)the "may be" site ads include like suggested in the article Twitter Ads Make an Appearance .

the problem of making money from such system is the risk of "self-spam", let me make it clear.

tweet base isn't enough significant (in term of relevance) to be mimed, it is too complex to copy the same existing "ads include search result" of any classic search engine, to a real time tweet search engine.

notice that I insist on the separation between, classic search engine, and the tweet search engine.

the first (classic like google or yahoo) are based on pages (web page) on a very detailed content, targeted, and detailed.

the second will be based on a very condensed content mainly 140 cars one. fuzzy and dispersed.

now let try to answer the main question :

how to make money if you are in a twitter team, or how to make a better ROI in a twitter case?

this question is equivalent to this one: what twitter offer and what is the valuable twitter product.

twitter product may be summarized as fellow :

1) content ( tweet data base).
2) result of traited tweet (visualization, miming, search, analyze).
3) the access to the data (API).
4) inside tweet.

if twitter leader want to exploit the content by introducing ads on their unique support ( mean web site), then they have to answer the question :

a) how many people are using twitter web site in order to tweet?

the diversity of twitter tool (desktop or IM ...) make such action risky, could twitter leader push people outside the website by an intensive and abusive use of ugly ads?

and what about the conversion? is it worth such effort? how many people are still using twitter web site to tweet? 10%, 20%, 50%?

so let down the ads on the website.

b) the same apply to twitter search .

c) now would people some day pay in order to use the twitter API or a part of Twitter Api?

this option is really interesting and may be worth study.

d) inside a tweet?

in this case of figure, twitter will have to build some official channel let say #ads or some thing and to overflow it service by "tweet ads", a tweet ads will be a 140 car ads.

such solution may be considered as spam, even if it come from twitter.


so what to do?

think ubuntu.

sell consulting.

twitter can provide marketer, industry with real time people behavior trend.

the future of twitter will reside in their ability to trait and analyze the data that come to them, so if some one is going to build a startup, here an idea worth money :

"chart, chart chart, visualization, data mining"+tweet.

Twitter, made for humain, suited for machine.

again, lost in thoughts about a better future for twitter.

I have to confess it the question "what are you doing now" is intimidating.

none are doing interesting stuff every time or at every moment of their daily life.

the question "what are you doing now" encapsulate in itself the future the prophetical twitter destiny.

I was trying to visualize the impact of twitter on human life, on human behavior, on human evolution, then this damned question make it clear for me :


it is cristal clear that twitter is fuzzy.

twitter as a system is a fuzzy one, the quest of comprehension is a quest for the holly grail.

1) twitter isn't for conversation.
2) twitter isn't for idea spreading.

may be twitter is just for event reporting no more.

again the question "what are you doing now" gives me more detail on how human approach twitter, on how people interact with that concept.

they are just answering a question keeping in mind the 140 limitation.

"what are you doing now" is doubly frustrating :

1) no one want to always share what he (she) is doing right now.
2) it is too short to describe what people may doing in 140 caracters.

in the earlier step twitter was a tool for human, it was the holly tool tha make people share a bit of their life with strange people, they can do via the mobile the web or any other application, by the time twitter become the new TV concept, and in this era people escaped the TV to the INTERNET.

now, I am a fanatic of usability. (mean people have to make better uses of what they have in hand).

my question is how could we make twitter more useful?

in the first days, twitter was a trigger a human trigger that enabled human to trigger each other with a 140 characters message that encapsulate a temporal answer to an eternal question : "what are you doing now".

my proposition is to elevate twitter to a height level.

I am thinking about a twitter that will be a machine trigger, a big really big and real time shell.

where message will be commanded.

could we some days uses twitter to send command to third part web service?
could we some days uses twitter as a real time bridge between third part web services?

until then, I will try to find a more original answer to this arrogant question :
"what are you doing now"

Twitter search is irrelevent

so here  is the the second part my personal try t o answer this simple question: is twitter search the new real time search you can count on?

in this second part I will try to make some hypothesis on twitter search results, and how would those result be relevant or irrelevant?

what make a search result relevant or irrelevant? is it users appreciation? or just well trusted efficient automated  based algorithms that guaranty an optimal maintaining of information consistency?

let make it in plain simple words:

1) people trust their classic usual search engine, because they know that they will get the answer to their query in the first 20 results or less.

2) people know that behind the summary of the result they can find more compelling data with a click on the hyper link.

now twitter search have to resolve 2 problem :

1) make the (tweet) result of a query self satisfying, I mean that a tweet have to be so concise so detailed so targeted that it make a further (clicking ) useless. which is  a big challenge (a tweet is  all about 140 car).

2) tweet order and ranking algorithm. let call it (T.R.A) or (S.R.A) for Social Ranking Algorithm.

so this is the challenges.

and even if they do they have to bring a good anti spammer policy, this quote from Trisha Lyn Fawver post  is inspiring.

Of course, for the searches to be relevant you have to participate genuinely.  If Twitter becomes a haven for spammers and marketers just pushing links and deals, then of course the search results you get on Twitter will be clouded.  But I have high hopes that the few of us preaching Twitter clarity will win out and the user base will continue to participate on a human level, making the search results that come from Twitter more rich in content than even a Google search.

 now, time to think about Social Ranking Algorithm. (I will try to post on this notion sooner).

Is twitter search the new real time search engine you can count on? (part1)

so , this is an interesting question to ask : is twitter search the new holly Real Time Search Engine?

My answer is NO.

the difference between Google, yahoo or any traditional search engine is the fact that they are based on real indexed content.

while any social search engine (like twitter search) is based on real human (reporting/commenting/reaction) to event or information.

the main difference is there :

Google point you to th desired data, google bring to you the data you are searching for.

twitter search grab just people comment reaction link or what ever personal interaction with the data you are searching for.

now the question is : will twitter search replace some day Google search?
my prediction is NO a big NO.

how could I argue such claim?

one vital element is to try to understand how people use the two service, people use show how their interaction with the service.

let try to see the trend in the two service (twitter search and google search):

a)twitter search trends: 

1.  Watchmen 
2. #naace2009 
3. #dna09 
4. #TFest09 
5. #cebit 

b)google-hottrends :

1. terrell owens 
2. t.o. 
3. russell brand 
4. dallas cowboys 
5. danger radio 

c) Yahoo Top Search

1. Jillian Harris 
2. Katie Holmes 
3. Mariska Hargitay 
4. Unclaimed Money 
5. Pink Dolphins 

it is really interesting to see what people are searching using twitter search or Google search. there is a huge distortion between the two.

so would twitter search replace someday Google search?

I think no, even if twitter search evolve, there will always be a need to search for picture movie local to do all what Google search is offering at this time.

any social based search engine will never replace the classic one, for one reason and this reason is the relevance of result.

when people do a search they are waiting for the relevent result, the relevent answers, they aren't waiting for an (ego centred subjectif apreciatoin or interpretation).

add to what precede, some technical reason that will make the social based search engine less valued then the organic one.

1. query length.
2. advanced search.
3. height spam ratio.

to get a relevent result, some have to optimize community contribution, and it is more easy to optimize content submition and indexing, then humain real time submission.

I have to digg it more (part 2) coming soon.

Google's Twitter Accounts!! what else?!!

So I read this Google's Twitter Accounts a few days ago, and it make me thinking.

does Google really suffer from a lake of infrastructure or knowledge to delegate it (real time user interaction) to tweeter?

may be the Jaiko fiasco was the begging of Google give up?
do they really surrender to tweeter?

the interesting question is :

is it really interesting to reinvent the wheel?

Google teams need a real time interaction with their users this a quit demonstrated by the vain and loosely way Google teams tried to implement such "feature" in the past.

let me explain :

1) do you remember Google doc poll?
2) do you remember Google talk gadget?
3) do you remember Google moderate (GAE) application?
and finally what about Jaiko?

so to resume :

a) I love Google effort. really and I am gratefully for all the effort they are doing.
but something have to be said:

Google have to make more initiative in this field and sooner.