Thursday night Twitter engineer Alex Payne finally acknowledged the obvious regarding the firehose – the full stream of data sought after by third-party developers to add back the long-withheld Track service. Twitter executives have been all over the map on this, sending developers on a wild goose chase to obtain access to the XMPP stream that the company has failed to provide since May.
Payne’s post describes how Twitter provided the firehose “on an experimental basis some months ago, but had to limit its distribution to just a few subscribers while we worked on technical hurdles.” At BearHug Camp, developers were told to contact Gnip as an intermediary, but now Payne says Twitter has decided to keep the service in-house with a newly-staffed team and yet another undetermined delta between promise and reality.
Friendfeed’s realtime beta service and promised improvements in auto-provisioning of Friend Lists may have done more than all the BearHugging and developer consternation combined to smoke Twitter out. While Twitter tap dances and stonewalls, Friendfeed releases a steady stream of features that, in aggregate, add up to a whole lot more than promises and lipstick back-pedaling. Today, for example, Friendfeed Rooms were transformed into a comment management system:
Room admins can also now choose whether they want comment moderation on their semi-public rooms. This can be particularly useful if you want to embed your room on your own web site. When commenting in a moderated room, a user will see “Pending” before their unapproved comment, and will also have the option of editing or deleting the comment without needing to wait for an admin to approve or reject it. Room admins will see the approval-pending comments at the top of that room and also in the entries themselves.
This leverages the new realtime features as well as the embeddable widget option to receive such a room feed. It also solves one of Friendfeed’s most fundamental problems, namely the siloing of the comment stream. Not only can rooms be used to aggregate comments, the widget lets you spread the comments around in context of blogs, portals, and other social networks. In one fell swoop, Disqus, coComment, and even other aggregation points such as Microsoft Sharepoint become objects looking smaller than real size in the rear view mirror.
Friendfeed becomes a conversation hub that can be threaded through Twitter and other micromessaging platforms at the cost of a tinyurl. What we’re seeing here are the primitives needed to assemble conversational routing at the micromessage level, something that is more valuable to Twitter users than the limited realtime tools available from the Mother Ship. Friendfeed is in a real conversation with its developers, in contrast to the snipe hunt Twitter keeps sending its developers on, only to admit they are really just buying time until they can figure out how to keep the ideas in-house.
Twitter’s bigger problem is that Track is a commodity once Twitter finally releases it. Regardless of its cost to users – which will likely be subsidized by advertising models – the benefits of tracking a notification service for valuable conversations held and managed by users on a competitive network are also commoditized. The longer Twitter waits to get into the game, the more valuable Friendfeed rooms and conversation streams become and the more opportunity for Friendfeed to release its own Track.
Friend List modeling will then become the analog to Twitter Follows, and Rooms a way of aggregating discovery of new friends. Track across both spaces with realtime output and API messaging back out to Twitter will be hard to compete against, especially when Friendfeed is using Twitter as its viral marketing tool. And history is telling us the only thing likely to get Twitter moving is competition. That they now have in spades.
I still haven’t found a way to follow all dispersed conversations on Friendfeed and somehow clump them together for easy response.
As for me, I don’t bother reading Twitter posts. i prefer reading from the actual blog sites. But Twitter is useful tool for reminding others that you’re “active” within the blogosphere :)
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Are you a Googler? If you are…
Here we go,
Here we go again,
same time, same place,
Now you tell me,
That she is just a friend!
Here we go!!
It’s a little wierd representing these services as “realtime” communication. Even instant messaging isn’t truly a realtime medium, in the sense that there is no requirement for syncronous communication such as there is with voice calling or videoconferencing. I suspect most people are still publishing and subscribing to Twitter via the web, which further waters down its case as a realtime communications platform.
That people are falsely ascribing these attributes to Twitter and even Friendfeed are flattering to those founders, I’m sure, but person-to-person chat is not their forte for a number of reasons (including privacy).
Every important service on the web will have a real time stream very soon. What we need is NetNewsWireRT.
What would that look like?
It Looks Good To Me,
Beaucle……
a>
Sucks that gainful employment prevented me from following this today and Brian Roy has real time FF in XMPP already. How did he get it? More specifically, how can I? I care less about rooms, except during the debate and such, than I do about friends.
Thanks for posting on this. You are the warrior in this fight, dude. And for that I admire you.
@Ian That’s what IM is for. But here we are talking about the beginnings of public realtime services.
On a side note, I think realtime can be considered a few seconds or less for services that are not audio or video. Close enough for what needs to happen to create a paradigm shift.
I still don’t get the craze over twitter. What is all the fuss about anyway?
It’s the world’s most expensive (or famous, take your pick) reinvention of IRC. And…”rooms?” Is Steve Case among the investors?
very funny. and I appreciate your point. . .somewhat. . .but
Even if Twitter were just IRC and there are a couple KEY differences, it’s not always the first with an idea that makes the diff. . .
Vikings were in North America first but they didn’t have the same impact that Columbus did.
Why don’t we all just go back to Usenet?
@I don’t get it — One way to look at it (and there are more) is that the web disintermediates everything. It brings people and information togther without a media source in between. The telephone did that as well, but the web takes that to hyperspace (pun intended).
Twitter is (was?) one of the first realtime examples of this power of the network.
Furthermore, once we have true, pure, disintermediated conversation in realtime we have arrived at the cluetrain.
No, it is the Borg.
Will it be worth listening to?
NO.
From my first blog post circa 2005:
I no longer believe in the web. . .
So what do I believe in? Instant Messaging. Once we add social network and RSS features to IM applications, this will be the only platform we will ever need. At that point, we will emerged from the wormhole we are now traveling in.
http://everybuddy.org/2005/10/08/my-new-web-world/
Sorry, but I tuned out after reading the words “Twitter executives.”
This is bullshit. If one can build a pipeline where an artist can manipulate +100 million polygons representing a super complex 3D environment in real time while the client watches and direct changes then this problem can be solved.
I think you’re right. Not the bullshit part, but that this problem can be solved. Looking much more likely in the last few days.
I’ve played a bit with Brian Roy’s xmpp workaround. It’s nice,but right now it’s pulling in everything with no filters (he knows that…is working on it). When he gets it to where I can pull in specific lists or rooms, then FF will really be useful.
I haven’t figured out how to post to twitter/identi.ca from it or if I can. That would be next on my wish list, because then I could turn off all the spies and let FriendFeed do the walking.
your comment sold me! assuming you are right, thank you for the clarification
Its a twitterful world after all!
its good MR.PYNE is over viewing problems of twitter and trying to up grade it.but they must up grade room admins,users must options as they need.
Friendfeed initially looked like an interesting aggregator but I personally struggled with the interface. The multiple sources and threaded comments were great but I was more comfortable with the chronological nature of Twitter. Now with the real time beta, Friendfeed clicks. The ability to group contacts is even better, especially when needing to dispose of noise and distractions.
Being that I travel most of the year for business, the only thing I am missing is a mobile client or IM feed to post and read. Having used the Blackberry with a client, IM and the web browser, I am fully aware of the limitations of the hardware and software. The Jabber interface to use for Twitter and Identi.ca suits my needs when it works and Dustin’s workarounds give me the option to track while on the move. These work for me and I realize that is not the experience that people with iPhones and stationary work places may be looking for.
I still hope that the developers keep moving in the direction where mobile capability is the future; as much as people want glossy UI’s and all the bells & whistles, stripped down real time feeds with powerful baked in functionality (track, filter, groups, etc.) are important until the hardware catches up… if it ever does.
I suspect the iPhone nation has a view of how they want this to look but for someone who thinks that the IM portal is very important (SMS is not practical for even moderate streams and a browser open refreshing every 30 seconds would need a car battery), I hope that Friendfeed as well as third party developers keep this in mind. Especially until mobile power gets stronger, the group function can also help pare down the feed to essential information, saving battery life and preventing holster elbow.
As for Twitter, they never listened in the first place…. my two cents.
The idea that “primitives needed to assemble conversational routing at the micromessage level” are being worked out is spot on. Very early stages but we are getting there..
Twitter for all its ‘issues’ has a spartan feel that other me-too services have not replicated. Every feature added, say like a Yammer or Plurk, have not felt normal.
Friendfeed in adding features like rooms etc makes itself distraction free for us but its utility as an alternative for Twitter is questionable.
You seem to of missed gnip in this blog post, twitter publish to gnip and therefore developers can just go to gnip.
For crowdstatus I am currently using my own service but for the new version I am moving to gnip and the plus from this is I can also get updates from other services too.
I actually believe twitter could run a ping like service where developers.
Is this all Steve seems to report on nowadays? His gripe with an API for some website? Ares you serious?
Steve seems to make this out to be some big issue as if the world is going to end. Twitter is just for random thoughts, it isn’t used for storing important content so I fail to see the need to have API extended right away otherwise Steve will die. If it was something like WordPress or Facebook I wouldn’t mind, but Twitter come on?
This isn’t about “twitter” it is about XMPP-PubSub and real-time communications across disparate devices. Twitter is relevant b/c they have tight SMS integration and SMS is how to reach the masses on their phones which they take EVERYWHERE.
Get it?
pick up speed? woowww… its really?
think we all know who was responsible for that, the Godless liberals who cannot stand having their immorality shoved back in their ugly face!! The defenders of free thought, the Big Bang theory and evolution, are not only striking out at me, but at all Christians. . Last night, while I was sitting on my front-porch swing, gazing up at Heaven, President Bush appeared to me in a vision. He told me that my work was not yet finished, there were still many liberals who had not yet seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!! President Bush would not be in the White House right now if God didn’t want him there. President Bush was put in a position of leadership in order to wipe the devil’s religion of Islam off the face of the Earth, so that the Christian God can fill the world with His message of peace and love. President Bush has stated numerous times that he speakes with God in the Oval Office, he even asked God for military advice before the invasion of Iraq. Modern liberalism is the equivalent of atheism, liberals are in favor of killing babies, raising taxes, teaching evolution, and same sex marriage. Jesus is opposed to all of these horrible things.
i agree with you
I understand and appreciate Twitter, but I have no idea what Gillmor is talking about here. As usual.
Maybe he did too much acid in the ’60s, or maybe he’s just so self-satisfied that we’re supposed to run to Wikipedia to look up background explanations on “the long-withheld Track function”, etc.
But in High School Journalism 1A, they teach you to include EXPLANATIONS of what you’re writing about!
Do it right or go home, Steve.
Just want to toss my hat into the Gillmor WTF group. I was thinking acid myself, but lately I’ve been considering that it might just be an ongoing coke habit. It tends to give people a tone of extreme urgency and egomaniacal grandeur. If only there were some Web 2.0 way to crowdsource firing. Hmmmmm….
Are you people really that thick? Gillmor is not a journalist, he is a blogger.
If you guys haven’t taken the time to listen and read, I dont give a flying fuck if you understand. I can follow him easily because I take the time.
I’m not a Gillmore fan, and I have made many negative comments about Gillmor posts in the past, but this post made sense and was mostly possible to follow.
Steve, keep up the good work. You’re improving.
It’s a shame Twitter is going to abandon Gnip. Where does this leave the gnip service?
From the Twitter blog post linked above:
So, idk wtf you’re talking about.
Steve’s posts are as comprehensible as the African woman Eddie Murphy describes as his “bush bitch” in Raw – When he talks you don’t hear words – you hear *click* *pop* *click* *click* *pop*
… that’s because Steve is a looney who has no real grasp on tech. Oh, Twitter is so important. Why don’t you call up Twitter, book a room and nail the XMPP stream for a night or two? You’ll regret it in the morning but eh. You seem so in love with Twitter you’re a knob.
Awwww, I see some folks didn’t have dates tonight. Such frustration over information. Good grief.
The choice is clear:
1. Create yet MORE detritus, filling up the Net with useless BS; allowing the trained mindset of easily manipulated data to flourish. Welcome to Orwell’s 1984, only you help build your own trap.
Or:
2. Create lasting (‘evergreen’) materials and data, which are not only well-linked and cited, but also linked and cited to traditional, (less easily manipulative) hardcopy sources.
Twitter – yet another detritus dumping distraction. Be the time wasting trendoid twit, they want want you to be—or learn how to back-up the blah-blah with substance… The old saying applies, “garbage in – garbage out.” In this case, fluff in – fluff out… We all have a choice, and what we choose helps to define us.
thank you friends.
thanks you.
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