The battle for Tw*tter took another interesting turn as Identi.ca developer Brad Williams rolled out a bridge between Identi.ca and Twitter. Register for the beta service and all subsequent posts on Identi.ca will be reposted on Twitter, prepended with a user configurable flag that defaults to Identi.ca.
I’ve been self-exiled from posting on Twitter for a month now, but the new service does for the rest of us what Dave Winer rolled for himself to bridge from FriendFeed to Twitter. When I left Twitter posting behind, I left the Twitter inputs in FriendFeed alone and added a new Identi.ca hook when FriendFeed began supporting its XMPP stream. But with the new bridge, I had to go in and cut the Twitter feed, leaving old messages intact with FriendFeed’s handy switch.
Monitoring the Twitter flow continues to be a hack, with TwitterSpy limping along on its quasi-authorized siphoning off of the old Summize-now-Twitter Search API feed. Twitter has long since proven that Track will only return when the company has figured out how to monetize the process or lock everybody else out from its cloud. Twhirl and FriendFeed provide a reasonable way to monitor the Twitter side by side with the fast Identi.ca stream, but the reverse direction underlines the handcuffs Twitter has imposed.
Switching back to posting to Twitter via the bridge stirred some debate among the Identi.ca crowd, particularly among the open source advocates who looked somewhat askance at this new service and its possibly commercial roots. It’s easy to forget that Identi.ca is both open source and openly commercial, as its creator Evan Prodromou is quick to note. But what fundamentally separates Identi.ca from Twitter in my book is not the roots of its code base but the fact that the XMPP stream is open in one and only via proprietary business deals in the other.
In the month I was silent on Twitter, the Identi.ca community quickly became a haven for an open conversation about what capabilities the new network needed to survive and prosper. I’ve lobbied so far unsuccessfully for an iPhone port similar to Twitter’s mobile client, which although limited to about 10 screens of data (same as the parent Web client) is functional with font size and formatting that’s easy for most boomers to read. Identi.ca’s Web site has no limit on going back in time, but I have to resize each screen and rotate to landscape mode to be able to read without squinting.
IdentiSpy has ably filled the Track shoes, displaying new hits within a second or two of sending them from Twhirl or the Update IM window in Gtalk or Gchat within Gmail. There’s talk of unifying the IdentiSpy, TwitterSpy, and Update IM windows, but for now you can input from any, even from one network to another with appropriate flags. With the new bridge, I can sit in Twhirl and post from the Identi.ca window and watch the posts appear first in FriendFeed and then moments later on Twitter.
As my posts began to proliferate, several Twitter followers complained. I suggested they unfollow or block me. On the Identi.ca side, some argued for limiting the @message syntax across the two networks on the theory that it would be just noise to the folks on Twitter. Again, unfollow or block. Several lobbied for a bridge coming the other way, and I suggested that not only was that not a good idea, but that if it was implemented I would drop the bridge service and wait for one that went from open to closed and not the other way around.
Earlier in the day I had lunch with the CMO of an enterprise company that’s in the process of implementing an XMPP gateway to enhance its collaboration toolset. The software literally adopts the nomenclature of microblogging, letting you “follow” people inside the firewall and even remap the UI from “follow” to “subscribe” as Identi.ca calls it. The company’s chief technologists are contributers to the open XMPP community, the CTO having served on the board of the XMPP Standards Foundation.
Here we have convergence between entrepreneurs leveraging open source contributions, open standards coalitions, and open transparency in giving users and groups the confidence to enter into social contracts for personal and professional productivity. As if to round out this fascinating day of progress, Google finally closed the hole they opened up with the misuse of Gmail contacts in exposing Google Reader Shared Items without the consent of the user.
From now on, users will be able to define “friends” overtly, and configure who can see their shared items and hide the ones you don’t want to see in Reader. After months of rising the issue and having it go largely unheeded, a series of NewsGang Live podcasts consisting of anyone who wants to call in led to one participant calling a friend at Google who subsequently called me and arranged for a dialogue with the company that led to today’s announcement.
Taken alone, these small bricks in the wall seem frail and even trivial, like the reconstruction of how an argument started after it’s over. But taken together, they illustrate the power of people to work together with just a few rules: openness, respect, and integrity. There’s nothing inherent in any of these constructs - commercial, open source, enterprise, consumer, local, or the cloud - that rules them in or out of this social journey we’re on.
Dave Winer has suggested we convene a MicroBlogging Camp to help continue this effort toward an open microblogging community. I second that idea and will work to find a venue and resources to help make that happen. If you’re in, contact me @stevegillmor on Identi.ca, FriendFeed, or Twitter, or leave your thoughts here on TechCrunchIT.
I believe it is about time you guys start a new blog titled “TechCrunchTwitter”, so this post can sit where it belongs.
I’ve read your past responses to “no more twitter @ techcrunchit” comments, and you’ll probably dismiss this comment as well claiming that the twitter phenomenon is so massive and great, and its effect on the IT world is so great, but we IT people are just not seeing it yet.
My theory is different, I believe that you guys are biased. Bloggers are expressive folk, good ones have exhibitionist personalities. I’ve got a hunch that this makes you become extremely emotional when it comes to twitter as It’s close to your heart.
I don’t see how microblogging will have a bigger effect on the IT world than IM did. You see some IM in enterprises today, but it’s just another tool we use. I don’t think it had such a dramatic effect on enterprises as the introduction of email did.
So, bottom line, I think that you guys are overemphasizing the importance of microblogging and its significance as it’s a subset of blogging (understandable, that’s what you do!) but I expect the amount of comments you get asking to stop blogging on blogging to open your eyes a bit. I love reading good quality posts such as this one, but on topic!
-Ben
One other thing, I’ve just looked at TechCrunchIT’s “about” page, quote:
“TechCrunchIT (TCIT) is the newest blog in the TechCrunch network. TCIT is dedicated to obsessively profiling products and companies in the Enterprise Technology space.”
and another one:
“This new blog features a range of Enterprise-related news and analysis including applications, open standards, platforms, cloud computing, microenterprises, customer experience, legacy enterprise, social media, information management and software among other subjects.”
Where’s microblogging? by the amount of posts this list should be updated. and more important, where are all those posts regarding all other cool technologies?
-Ben
Free classified ad website for all broken equipment.
This will be the next big site…
http://WWW.brokenequipment.com is the next craigslist
for all broken equipment.
I took a look at http://www.brokenequipment.com and
the site is cool. I used to throw out stuff that
broke but know will post it on http://www.brokenequipment.com
Thanks…..
Jeff
If it were simply annoying, yeah, of course I’d just block/unfollow the user. But when I see people using replies wrong, I’m going to call them out.
@ has no context inside the twittersphere, just like @ is worthless inside the identisphere. It doesn’t guarantee mapping up to the correct user. It makes it a pain in the ass to figure out the conversation as you have to switch networks then cut & paste that username into the URL just to hopefully find out what the discussion is about. What if a viewer doesn’t realize a person’s tweet containing @ that is reposted to Twitter isn’t actually referring to that same username on twitter, then joins the conversation including the wrong user? What about the clients out there that try to be intelligent about routing and linking @replies and messages between services? This just presents another headache. And regarding the “Identi.ca: ” prefix, that’s what the “from ” field is in the tweet footer is for. If you want it to say “from identi.ca”, have @evan talk to @ev and let them work it out.
Cross-posting belongs at the client level, that way a user actually has control over what service tweets are targeted at, and it also encourages maintaining a presence on the targeted service because it implies you have a multi-service client. I was auto-reposting Twitter tweets to Identi.ca a couple months ago, but quickly turned it off as I realized until I use a client that supports Identi.ca, I’ll spend zero time over there and my tweets would just be spam.
Just because you *can* do something, doesn’t mean you should.
Nice… the comment html parser broke my post (my fault), let’s try this again.
===
If it were simply annoying, yeah, of course I’d just block/unfollow the user. But when I see people using replies wrong, I’m going to call them out.
@[identica_username] has no context inside the twittersphere, just like @[twitter_username] is worthless inside the identisphere. It doesn’t guarantee mapping up to the correct user. It makes it a pain in the ass to figure out the conversation as you have to switch networks then cut & paste that username into the URL just to hopefully find out what the discussion is about. What if a viewer doesn’t realize a person’s tweet containing @[identica_username] that is reposted to Twitter isn’t actually referring to that same username on twitter, then joins the conversation including the wrong user? What about the clients out there that try to be intelligent about routing and linking @replies and messages between services? This just presents another headache. And regarding the “Identi.ca: ” prefix, that’s what the “from [appname]” field is in the tweet footer is for. If you want it to say “from identi.ca”, have @evan talk to @ev and let them work it out.
Cross-posting belongs at the client level, that way a user actually has control over what service tweets are targeted at, and it also encourages maintaining a presence on the targeted service because it implies you have a multi-service client. I was auto-reposting Twitter tweets to Identi.ca a couple months ago, but quickly turned it off as I realized until I use a client that supports Identi.ca, I’ll spend zero time over there and my tweets would just be spam.
Just because you *can* do something, doesn’t mean you should.
TechCrunchTwitter
I’ll second that.
For what it is worth…
http://ping.fm is a service which allows you to have everything posted at the same time on various social networks (twitter, pownce, jaiku, and identi.ca included) so why the hell would you need a bridge? Just signup for ping.fm and forgo the department of redundancy department.
Derek
XMPP on Twitter is broken. Until it’s fixed, I’ll ignore the various attempts at fixing @replies and concentrate on encouraging the conversation to move to Identi.ca.
Thanks for the plug Steve! There is definitely a love/hate feeling about this bridge, but I’m glad to see you and many others are enjoying it. The basis was to make it simple, without all the extra bells and whistles that most sites have. Thanks again!
-Brad
@devnet - Problem with Ping.FM is that it isn’t a full blown client. Reading in one place, posting global messages in one, then @replies in another is too much. Should all be done in one window.
@Nick - tweetcrunch.com. Sadly, it isn’t a TechCrunch sibling site.
@steve - At least I understand your motivation, burn the village down cause you didn’t get your cookie for dessert. =D
derek
the conversation does not equal burning anything down. track over XMPP is not dessert; it’s the whole meal.
Why are there so many posts on techcrunch about Twitter?
Good day! mircette acne
Hello! tennessee breast enhancement