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Tag: Evan Williams

  • Twitter Co-Founder Doesn’t Give a Sh-t About Instagram’s User Metrics

    Twitter co-founder and board member Evan Williams thinks it’s stupid to put so much stock in user metrics.

    Well, he put it more bluntly.

    Fortune’s Erin Griffith has the quote of the week – at least from a tech leader. No minced words to be found here.

    It’s a question of breadth versus depth. Why is users the only thing we talk about? The crazy thing: Facebook has done an amazing job of establishing that as the metric for Wall Street. No one ever talks about, ‘What is a [monthly active user]?’ I believe it’s the case that if you use Facebook Connect—if you use an app that you logged into with Facebook Connect—you’re considered a Facebook user whether or not you ever launched the Facebook app or went to Facebook.com. So what does that mean? It’s become so abstract to be meaningless. Something you did caused some data in their servers to be recorded for the month. So I think we’re on the wrong path.

    If you think about the impact Twitter has on the world versus Instagram, it’s pretty significant. It’s at least apples to oranges. Twitter is what we wanted it to be. It’s this realtime information network where everything in the world that happens on Twitter—important stuff breaks on Twitter and world leaders have conversations on Twitter. If that’s happening, I frankly don’t give a shit if Instagram has more people looking at pretty pictures.

    The whole reason Williams is expressing his lacks-of-shits-given opinion is that Fortune asked him about the recent news that Instagram has surpassed 300 million MAUs. Twitter, according to their last report, has just under that number.

    In a way, he’s right. There’s no way that you can say that Instagram is affecting the global dialogue as much as Twitter. But it should also be pointed out that while he doesn’t give a shit about the number of people looking at pretty pictures on Instagram, people with money do.

    What do you think?

    Image via Evan Williams, Twitter

  • Twitter Co-Founder Evan Williams Launches Obvious Ventures

    Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter and Blogger, is back with his third version of Obvious, the previous versions of which spawned Twitter, Medium, and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s Jelly and Super.

    This one is called Obvious Ventures, and running the show with Williams are investors James Joaquin and Vishal Vasishth. The firm is what it sounds like – a venture capital fund, but it focuses on what they refer to as “wold positive” startups. A message on the Obvious Ventures website says:

    We’re entrepreneurs. We’ve helped a lot of companies launch, grow, and generate great financial returns. A few of these companies also deliver positive social and environmental benefits with every dollar of revenue they earn. We want to fund and build more of those. That’s what we call #worldpositive venture capital.

    Why should these companies work with us? We’re experienced investors, with several IPOs under our collective belt. But we’re product designers and company builders first, and we are on a mission to help fuel startups that combine profit and purpose. Startups that create new solutions to big world problems in a profitable and scalable way.

    Obivous Ventures has invested in eleven companies so far, but has only revealed nine of them. These are: Olly, which makes nutritional supplements; Beyond Meat, which makes meatless protein foods; Breezeworks, a business operations app; Flux, which makes architectural design tools; Loup, a ride service; Magic Leap, a screen interface developer; Miyoko’s Kitchen, which makes plant-based cheeses; Workpop, a work marketplace; and ZenPayroll, which makes payroll software.

    Image via Obvious Ventures

  • Medium Now Counts Barack Obama Among Its Users

    The White House announced that the president has joined Medium, the blogging platform Twitter co-founder Evan Williams launched roughly a year ago.

    Lindsay Holst and Kori Schulman wrote in a post on The White House blog on Thursday:

    We’re really excited to announce that the White House joined Medium, a new, self-publishing platform that encourages people to share ideas and stories that matter. And today, ahead of his visit to a tech hub in Los Angeles, the President published his very first post. The post talks about the new American economy and the innovations that are driving it forward — and, specifically, what that economy looks like for Millennials…

    You can read Obama’s first post here.

    “On Medium, you can expect to hear more from President Obama and his administration on issues from technology and innovation to education and the economy,” wrote Holst and Schulman. “Here at the White House, we’re continually looking for new and innovative ways to connect with people where they are. That’s where Medium comes in – and why you can find us on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and more.”

    Obama is surely the highest profile user Williams’ service has, and could be just the thing it needs to really generate more interest from the public. It’s a fine platform, and there is plenty of good content on it, but let’s be honest. It’s not exactly another Twitter at this point.

    It will really be interesting if the president starts using Jelly, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s Q&A service.

    Image via Medium

  • Biz Stone Looks To Lead Jelly As A Cross Between Evan Williams, Jack Dorsey and Dick Costolo

    Twitter co-founder Biz Stone appeared on Bloomberg Television today to talk about his new app Jelly, but ended up talking a bit about Twitter as well.

    His time at Twitter and the people he worked with there are apparently having a major affect on Stone’s first go at the CEO role.

    “It sounds kinda cheesy to say this, but I look up to Evan and Jack and Dick,” he said in the interview. “I like to kind of steal their best traits and fold them in to my own leadership skills. But my main thing as a leader is to be as communicative as possible. I think that’s like 50% or 75% of the job as a CEO — to make sure everybody knows everything they need to know.”

    “It is great,” he said. “I love it. The fact that I have Kevin Thau at my back, that really made all the difference. We were talking before about how we didn’t really intend to make this a company. In fact, I was telling Kevin Thau, one of my friends and trusted advisors, about the idea. And he just said, ‘I’m in.’ And I thought he meant he likes the idea. And then I went to dinner at his house and he said ‘hey, Biz – Jelly, I’m in.’ I said, what does that mean? Is that something the kids are saying? He said, no, I want to do this. So once he decided to come on board, that’s when really I said, well with your help, I think I can make a good CEO.”

    Stone’s new app accumulated Twice as many new accounts in three days as Twitter did in an entire year. I’d say that’s a good start.

    Stone, by the way, thinks the story in the “Hatching Twitter” book is a fair representation of the founding of Twitter.

    Image via Twitter

  • Medium Opens Up Its Doors with a Few Caveats

    Medium Opens Up Its Doors with a Few Caveats

    Medium, the blogging platform developed by Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams last year, is finally opening its doors to the public – but there are still a handful of restrictions.

    For the uninitiated, Medium is a blogging platform that is closely tied to users’ Twitter accounts. It allows users to publish longer-form thoughts, complete with images, links, etc. Medium allows users to “recommend” posts that they like, and trending posts are shown to users on a homepage. Medium also features “collections” that users can follow and contribute to – for instance “Best Thing I Found on the Internet Today” and “Comedy Corner.”

    “Not too big, not too small” is the platform’s slogan.

    If you head on over to Medium.com, you’ll see a prompt at the bottom left-hand corner that says “sign up via Twitter.” Once you do that and confirm access through your Twitter account, the green button will change to say “request writing access.” From there, you’re just an email confirmation away from posting on Medium.

    Why does Medium want you to have a confirmed email address?

    “Why, you ask? Connecting with other readers and writers is a big part of the Medium experience. We’ll email you about interactions with other people on Medium. We also regularly invite users who read to write on Medium. We’ll email you when you’re invited to write,” says Medium.

    Before today, access to write on Medium required an invite. The Next Web was tipped off to the open registration in a weekly email to users.

    About those caveats…

    You can only post to Medium if you’re on Chrome, Firefox, or Safari. Sorry IE users. Also, mobile creation is a no-go, for now.

    “Creation is not yet available on mobile devices, so even if you can post on the web, you won’t be able to post on your mobile device. We’re working on this,” says Medium.

    Anyway, go check it out.

  • Evan Williams’ Medium Buys Kickstarter Project ‘Matter’

    Medium, the current company of Blogger and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, has acquired Kickstarter-backed journalism startup Matter.

    For a better idea of what Medium itself is, read this.

    Matter describes itself as a publication based around a new way to create really great long-form journalism about science, technology and the future. Apparently Williams himself was one of the earliest Kickstarter backers for the project.

    Paid Content points to this blog post from Matter discussing the acquisition. In that, Matter says, “He [Williams] and his team want Medium to be the best place on the internet to read and create high-quality content, and they suggested that we become part of that project.”

    “Working with the team at Medium gives Matter a greater chance of success,” the company says. “The biggest draw for us is that they believe in high-quality writing, just like us, and want to see the journalism we produce be as successful as possible.”

    Of course it remains to be seen just how successful Medium itself will become. However, Williams has an indisputable track record so far.

  • Is Medium The Next Step In Blogging?

    Is Medium The Next Step In Blogging?

    Can the creators of Blogger and Twitter really revolutionize web publishing again? We may find out soon. If they don’t, it’s not for lack of trying.

    Blogger and Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams are at it again. After the two stepped back from Twitter, they resurrected their startup Obvious. A few months ago, Stone told us about Medium. Kind of. Details were vague. Here’s a snippet of what he said at the time:

    Thirteen years ago we helped democratize publishing with a web-native approach called blogging. That was a long time ago and everything is different now—social networks, mobile devices, you name it. We felt compelled to build a content network for the technology age we’re living in now, and we have a vision for what publishing should be.

    Putting ideas on the Internet is great, it makes them available to more people. However, printing words on a screen like we do on paper doesn’t take advantage of the fact that we’re all networked and using powerful computers. There is so much room for improvement and innovation in the publishing space right now because it’s operating on outdated legacy concepts. Everything from the way we consume content to how that content is created needs re-imagining.

    In late October, Williams shared a little more:

    It’s not too late to rethink how online publishing works and build a system optimized for quality, rather than popularity. Where anyone can have a voice but where one has to earn the right to your attention. A system where people work together to make a difference, rather than merely compete for validation and recognition. A world where thought and craftsmanship is rewarded more than knee-jerk reactions.

    Truth be told, we’re just starting the journey of figuring out what all that means. We have an amazing team with a ton of relevant experience, but we’ve built just a sliver of what we have in mind. And we know it will be a learning process as we go.

    Still not much in the way of details. What the hell are these guys doing this time? Well, finally, Williams has provided some details. They’re creating a form of web writing/publishing where the WSYIWYG interface is actually what you get.

    If you think about writing and editing a blog in edit mode, the edit mode, would also be the product. Of course, much like with Twitter, they seem to be going for the simplicity approach. Here’s what it looks like (so far). It’s a screenshot of Williams’ post:

    Medium

    Medium’s editor gives the user few options, and that appears to be the point. Simplicity. In the way of formatting, you can use bold, italics, H1, H2, blockquotes and links. You can add pictures. That’s about it. A few more options may be added, but consider how simple Twitter stayed while these guys were running the show (even if it’s evolved significantly since then).

    It would be easy to sit here and say, “So, that’s it?” To be perfectly blunt, the whole thing seems a little underwhelming on the surface. It basically sounds like blogging with less features. However, I can also distinctly remember a time when Twitter largely faced a similar reaction from the masses. Now, look at it. These guys have a proven track record for this kind of thing, so I would not be so quick to dismiss what they’re up to.

    Check out Medium. You can sign up, but you can’t use it to publish yet (apparently unless you work at Twitter).

  • Obvious (Twitter Co-founders) Announce Lift

    Obvious, the company that Evan Williams and Biz Stone left Twitter to work on has announced its first official partnership called Lift.

    Earlier this month, Stone posted an update on what the company is doing at the company, which originally incubated Twitter itself. At the time, he said they had signed up their first “Obvious Entrepreneur”.

    Now, Stone writes,”It’s important never to delude ourselves into thinking that technology changes the world. People are responsible for change—technology just helps out. At Obvious, our goal is to foster systems that help people work together to improve the world. Our approach is threefold: Build, partner, and invest. We’ve started working on some ideas ourselves, we’re researching how best to create an investment vehicle, and today we’re thrilled to announce our first official partnership.”

    “Tony Stubblebine and Jon Crosby have created an interesting new application for unlocking human potential through positive reinforcement,” he adds. “We love this software for what it does, and because we’ve tried it and it works. Our plan is to build something extraordinary together. The Obvious Corporation will assist the talented Lift team with strategy, design, funding, recruiting—in general, we’ll be helpful wherever possible. In exchange, Obvious will own some equity in Lift.”

    Not much has been revealed about Lift so far, but Stone says that will change soon.

    @biz
    Biz Stone    Lift.do is founded by @tonystubblebine and @jcrosby—Obvious is helping out. Not much details yet but more to come, we promise! 11 hours ago via Twitter for Mac · powered by @socialditto

    Unfortunately, the Lift site at lift.do isn’t much help in the details department either. It just indicates that it’s invite-only right now and you can give them your email to get updates as they become available.

    Once you sign up, you’ll be send an email from Stubblebine, which says:

    Hey there, thanks for signing up for the Lift Beta!

    We’re not ready to let people in yet, but when we are, we’ll make sure you get an early invite.

    What is Lift? We’re interested in ways new technology can help unlock human potential, especially through the use of positive reinforcement. That’s all we can tell you right now.

    So, since we don’t have a ton to tell you about Lift the product, here’s a little bit about Lift the company:

    We’re a small San Francisco-based startup. There are three of us full time, Tony Stubblebine (me), Jon Crosby, and Connor Montgomery. We also have some part-time support from the folks at Obvious. If you want to get in touch with us, I’m probably the best person to reach: tony@lift.do

    Look forward to connecting with you again soon!

    Tony Stubblebine
    CEO/Co-founder
    http://lift.do

    Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb was able to dig up a little bit about Lift, in that it was previously called Mibbles, and at that point, he says, “users joined multiple groups with names like Happydog (as in “I want to keep my dog happy”), Love or Home. Then they gave themselves Awards when they achieved accomplishment leading towards the goals they were grouped around.”

    “It sounds like Twitter in its simplicity and from what I’ve seen it looks a lot like Twitter too – but with more structure,” he writes.

    @tonystubblebine
    Tony Stubblebine    @marshallk just curious, what genre of source did you use for that Lift post? Made me wonder if I had an old instance of Mibbles running. 3 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    @tonystubblebine
    Tony Stubblebine    @mdbraber We really tried to stay away from calling ourselves a health app. I don’t think we’re competitive. 3 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    @jcrosby
    Jon Crosby    Thanks re: Lift, everyone. Happy to be working with this crew on a meaningful product. 10 hours ago via Twitter for Mac · powered by @socialditto

    Whatever Lift turns out to be in its usable form, there’s no indication of when it will actually be available.

  • Twitter Co-founders Reunite to Make Obvious Dreams Come True

    A few months ago, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Evan Williams announced that he was leaving Twitter. This came just after it was revealed that co-founder Jack Dorsey was returning to lead product, and six months after Williams handed the CEO reins to Dick Costolo.

    Now, Biz Stone, the other co-founder, has announced that he too is stepping back (not completely away) from Twitter.

    Stone and Williams are trying their hands at a new (or resurrected rather) startup called Obvious, along with former Twitter VP of Product, Jason Goldman. Here’s what it says on the Obvious site:

    The Obvious Corporation makes systems that help people work together to improve the world. The proliferation of technology can seem superfluous, but with the right approach, technology can benefit individuals, organizations, and society. We are relaunching the company that originally incubated Twitter with a high level of commitment to making a difference and developing products that matter.

    In more than a decade of developing large scale systems on the Internet, we’ve never been more excited than right now. The possibility to reach and connect expansive numbers of people fundamentally changes the nature of what’s possible when it comes to building businesses on the Internet. Also, there’s room for innovation in how businesses measure success and more meaningful definitions of ambition.

    @biz
    Biz Stone    Our new startup, in case you haven’t guessed, is http://t.co/WcL1zUO #excited 17 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

    @ev
    Evan Williams    Just (re)launched a new web site. It doesn’t do much yet: http://t.co/i75z1II 17 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

    @goldman
    Jason Goldman    Launching @obviouscorp with @ev and @biz. I was eating chicken wings when @ev pushed our new site at obvious.com. Good omen. 17 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

    Stone, Williams, and Goldman all used to work on Google’s Blogger team. Then, Williams left, and the other followed him into Obvious, and eventually Twitter was born. Now, it seems that they’re going back to where they can make new things, rather than work on their creation that proved to be a succes, which is now largely in the hands of its other co-founder Jack Dorsey and CEO Dick Costolo (also formerly of Google).

    On his personal blog, Stone writes:

    My work on Twitter has spanned more than half a decade and I will continue to work with the company for many years to come. During this time—especially lately, it has come to my attention that the Twitter crew and its leadership team have grown incredibly productive. I’ve decided that the most effective use of my time is to get out of the way until I’m called upon to be of some specific use.

    Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has been very supportive in thinking this through with me so I can focus on new endeavors while remaining a strategic asset to Twitter. My plan is to take a bit more time to focus on helping schools, nonprofits, and company advisory boards as well as The Biz and Livia Stone Foundation. I’ll still commit part of my time to hands on help with Twitter wherever and whenever I can be of assistance.

    As for the bulk of my time day-to-day, I’m thrilled to announce that Evan Williams, Jason Goldman and myself will be relaunching The Obvious Corporation as co-founders. Our plan is to develop new projects and work on solving big problems aligned along a simple mission statement: The Obvious Corporation develops systems that help people work together to improve the world. This is a dream come true!

    When Williams stepped down from Twitter, he also noted that he would remain on the Board of Directors, so it appears both he and Stone will still remain close to Twitter, just not as hands on as they once were.

  • Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone Talk Twitter on Piers Morgan

    CNN’s Piers Morgan had a show all about Twitter this evening, at a very interesting time in the company’s history. One co-founder that has been gone for years is back, and another one is basically gone (he’s still on the board).

    Morgan had co-founders Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey on, along with other guests including Martha Stewart, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Alyssa Milano, journalist Nick Kristof, the Wall Street Journal’s Katherine Rosman, and social media wine guy Gary Vaynerchuk.

    Unfortunately, there was no juicy company-related news or any discussion about the new change in leadership. That’s not to say it was a bad show. It did provide an interesting look at how Twitter was intended, what it has turned into, and how it is used in different ways, from tweeting mundane things, to preventing brutality, raising money for causes, etc.

    Some quotes from new Executive Chairman Jack Dorsey:

    “It’s extremely humbling to see how quickly the velocity of the service – how it’s taken off.” (note: Dorsey seems to use the words “humbling” and “velocity” a lot.)

    “Early on we knew how engaging it was and how magical it felt, but had no idea what the users would do with it.”

    “It’s always been focused on the recipient. You can write something and it goes out to the world, and people choose to follow it or not….They follow their interests, what they’re passionate about, and then they talk about it on the service with their friends.”

    “The amazing thing is it depends on the content. There was a man in a boat in the Hudson River. He had 20 followers. A plane landed in the Hudson, he took a picture, and suddenly he was in the national conversation within a minute. So it’s not so dependent on the followers The followers certainly help direct attention, but it really depends on the content and what you’re sharing with the world.”

    On mayoral use of Twitter: “It’s amazing what people are doing with it, and they redefine the service every single tweet.”

    Years ago, you may recall that the biggest Twitter-related topic of discussion was about what it is for. Interesting to see now that this is still being discussed, and that getting people to figure it out is still one of the main goals for Dorsey.

    When asked, “Should you drink and tweet?” Biz Stone said, “Absolutely not.” Dorsey concurred.

    The subject of Evan Williams did not come up. Square came up briefly at the end of the show as a simple, quick plug.

    @jack
    Jack Dorsey    In the green room with @biz @MarthaStewart @CoryBooker waiting for the @piersmorgan show to start 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

    @biz
    Biz Stone    Hanging out in the green room of @piersmorgan with a bunch of superstars #hummusfight 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

    @piersmorgan
    Piers Morgan    Live pix of @jack and @biz on @PiersTonight set right now. #cheerupyourebillionaires http://yfrog.com/h376kxtj 1 hour ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® · powered by @socialditto

    @jack
    Jack Dorsey    Talking @Twitter & taking money from @PiersMorgan w/ @Square tonight. And then no appearances for a long while: work! Unless @Oprah calls… 5 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

  • Twitter’s Evan Williams Talks About His Future

    As Jack Dorsey unexpectedly came back to Twitter to take the product lead, serving as Executive Chairman, it quickly became clear that Evan Williams had his mind elsewhere.

    Williams made a post on his personal blog this evening, discussing his plans in no great detail. The plans do, however, include staying at Twitter as a board member. Willimas wrote:

    After stepping down from CEO six months ago, my mind started to wander. The reason I left Blogger/Google when I did is that I felt it had reached a place where it was on solid ground and in capable hands (at the time, Jason Goldman’s as product manager). Though still an independent company, I realized Twitter may be at a similar point today. So, as was reported in various places yesterday, I’ve decided to scale back my role at the company. (I’m still involved, but it’s no longer my full-time job.)

    I’m not ready to talk about what I have planned next, but I will venture a prediction about what’s next for Twitter: It will be bigger and better.

    …

    First of all, I’m not disappearing from Twitter. I remain on the board of directors and will frequently meet with many folks there to help in any way I can.

    However, now that Twitter is in capable hands that aren’t mine, it’s time to pick up a whiteboard marker and think fresh. There are other problems/opportunities in the world that need attention, and there are other individuals I’d love to get the opportunity to work with and learn from. (Details to come.)

    @ev
    Evan Williams    Me on the future (and recent past): http://t.co/tN558uk 1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    Jack Dorsey is appearing along with co-founder Biz Stone on CNN’s Piers Morgan tonight. More on that to come. Here’s what Dorsey talked about at Columbia University.

     

  • Jack Dorsey’s Twitter Return Accompanied By Questions

    After rumors suggesting as much, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced yesterday that he is indeed returning to Twitter in a day-to-day capacity. He will lead product as Executive Chairman of the company, while also keeping his role as CEO of the up and coming payment acceptance startup Square.

    It’s an interesting move, and one that many have been questioning. Can he successfully do both at the same time? They both seem like full time jobs, but evidently Dorsey feels pretty good about it. Square investors? That might be a different story. Nicholas Carlson at Silicon Alley Insider reports: “Last night, one of Square’s top investors, Sequoia partner Roelof Botha tweeted, “To do two things at once is to do neither. – Publilius Syrus. Then Botha deleted the tweet.”

    @josephcohen
    Joseph Cohen    Find it amusing that people really think the guys at Sequoia don’t know what they’re doing. 4 days ago via Twitter for Mac · powered by @socialditto

    Note: The above tweet was in reference to another Sequoia-backed service – the much talked about Color, but it seemed appropriate to bring the point up again. For further context, know that Sequoia has provided funding for Apple, Google, Oracle, PayPal, YouTube, LinkedIn, Cisco, NVIDIA, Yahoo, Kayak, and Zappos, to name a few.

    There are plenty of questions surrounding Dorsey’s return. For one, what does it mean for fellow Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, who has apparently spending less and less time actually dealing with Twitter, since he turned the CEO reins over to Dick Costolo last year. Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch shares the following statement, obtained directly from Twitter:

    Ev decided a couple months ago to be less involved day to day at Twitter. He continues to have a close relationship with the company providing strategic advice and, of course, he remains an active board member.

    Meanwhile, Williams is reportedly considering a new startup, and as previously noted, has (along with other Twitter co-founder Biz Stone) yet to tweet about Dorsey’s return to the company as many other Twitterers have welcomed him back with open arms.

    Even as Dorsey takes on a new/reprised role at Twitter, he hasn’t slowed down on the Square promotion so far:

    @jack
    Jack Dorsey    Talked with NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly about Twitter & Square. And the Twitter board in the command center. http://instagr.am/p/CoYIr/ 15 hours ago via Instagram · powered by @socialditto

    @piersmorgan
    Piers Morgan    At dinner on Sunday @jack showed me how his new Square credit card device works – quite amazing. Will get him to do it again tonight. 2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

  • Twitter Founders Discuss The Origin Of The Name With Jimmy Fallon

    Last night, Twitter founders Evan Williams (@EV) and Biz Stone (@Biz) were guests on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and pair discussed the origins of the Twitter name, and a few that didn’t quite make the cut.

    According to Biz Stone, the names that were initially kicked around were, "Jitter" and "Twitch", but those seem to much like a "drug addict". They wanted a name that depicted speed/urgency, so they happened to look in a thesaurus and Twitter was mentioned along with the other possible names… and the rest, as they say, is history. (You can watch the interview for yourself below)

    Do you think Twitter would be as popular with a name like "Jitter" or "Twitch"? Tell us what you think.

  • Dick Costolo Appointed CEO Of Twitter

    Almost exactly 13 months ago, Dick Costolo joined Twitter as its COO after founding FeedBurner and working at Google.  Now he’s received a considerable promotion, with Evan Williams announcing that Costolo will serve as Twitter’s CEO.

    Williams explained the change on the Twitter Blog, writing, "I am most satisfied while pushing product direction.  Building things is my passion, and I’ve never been more excited or optimistic about what we have to build. . . .  This is why I have decided to ask our COO, Dick Costolo, to become Twitter’s CEO."

    Dick CostoloWilliams, meanwhile, intends to focus on product strategy.

    Want to know more about Costolo?  Here’s his LinkedIn profile, and Williams wrote, "During his year at Twitter, he has been a critical leader in devising and executing our revenue efforts, while simultaneously and effectively making the trains run on time in the office."

    Also, for whatever it’s worth, Costolo’s famous (in some circles) for his sense of humor, having once worked as a comedian.

    On that note, here’s the rather ironic screen we encountered when trying to look up Twitter’s new CEO minutes ago:

  • Why the New Twitter May Benefit Businesses and Marketers Greatly

    This week, Twitter introduced a new redesign of Twitter.com with a two-pane format aimed at providing a richer user experience, and you can easily tell by looking at it that it does just that. 

    Do you think the redesign will get more people using Twitter? Share your thoughts.

     

    "Twitter has always been about getting a lot in a little," writes CEO Evan Williams. "The constraint of 140 characters drives conciseness and lets you quickly discover and share what’s happening. Yet, we’ve learned something since starting Twitter—life doesn’t always fit into 140 characters or less."

    Twitter has partnered with Dailybooth, DeviantArt, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, Twitvid, USTREAM, Vimeo, Yfrog, and YouTube to make tweeted content more useful directly from Twitter.com itself. Users will have less reason to click away from the site.  

    The first pane is essentially the single pane from today’s Twitter – the timeline. In the second pane, referred to as the "details pane", users will see additional info related to the author or subject of a tweet, when clicked. This pane will also display things like @replies, other tweets from that user, maps, videos, photos, etc. Users can click the @username to see profiles from the same page. 

    Making Twitter more appealing to the mainstream means greater value for businesses and marketers.

    Ex-Twitter engineer Alex Payne, who parted ways with the company after failing to see eye to eye with executives on the direction Twitter needed to go in, had some interesting things to say about the redesign. 

    "While Twitter has been growing in mainstream significance and popularity, it hasn’t managed to adopt a strategy that clearly aims the company towards mass market success," he writes. "I think #newtwitter changes that, turning the site into a rich information discovery platform, if you’ll excuse the buzzword bingo. The new design is a pleasure to use, and encourages a kind of deep exploration of the data within Twitter that has previously only been exposed in bits and pieces by third-party applications. Browsing Twitter is now as rewarding as communicating with it."

    "One of the striking things about #newtwitter is how clearly it’s designed to allow room for advertisements and promotions," adds Payne. "As an early employee who heard a lot of internal discussion about monetization strategies that eschewed the typical Silicon Valley ad play, Twitter’s accelerating turn towards that business model is, on some level, a little disappointing. But as a stockholder and someone who wants to see the company survive and succeed, it’s clearly the most pragmatic way for Twitter to capitalize on its substantial and growing network. Ads have their role in the wheel of commerce, and just as Google’s text ads are more palatable than most forms of advertising, Twitter’s approach could end up being eminently tolerable, even useful."

    Search and the New Twitter

    Danny Sullivan has a great article about the impact the Twitter redesign could have on search. This is obviously a key element for businesses to consider. Among his points:

    1. The search box becomes more prominent. 
    2. More filtering options
    3. "Save this search" becomes more prominent
    4. Infinite scrolling on search results
    5. People and company results more clearly separated
    6. Tweets Near You feature
    7. Tweets with Links feature
    8. Searches for retweets by others, retweets by you, and your tweets, retweeted

    Danny provides a detailed analysis of all of these items.


    How Will Users React Once its Rolled Out?

    The changes will be rolling out over the next several weeks as a preview. During this period, users will be able to switch back and forth between the new design and the old one, though frankly I can’t see any advantage to using the old one. 

    Redesigns typically get some amount of user backlash, and this will be probably fall in line with that tradition, but this particular redesign has some advantages. For one, many Twitter users are already using apps rather than Twitter.com anyway. Secondly, Twitter has left a lot of people wondering what the point of the service is. This has been a problem since it launched. This will help people understand its value more. 

    Now, if Twitter could just get those Fail Whales under control…

     

    What do you think of the new Twitter? Tell us what you think.

    Note: This article has been updated from its original form.

  • Twitter CEO Talks Stats, Ecosystem, Hints at New Features

    Twitter CEO Evan Williams revealed some numbers about Twitter usage on the company blog, while talking about how the Twitter ecosystem (of third-party developers and apps) continues to play an important role in the company’s success. Twitter has over 145 million registered users, he says.

     

    Not that this is a surprise by any means, but mobile is also playing an increasingly important role. "Total mobile users has jumped 62 percent since mid-April, and, remarkably, 16 percent of all new users to Twitter start on mobile now, as opposed to the five percent before we launched our first Twitter-branded mobile client," says Williams. "As we had hoped in April, these clients are bringing more people into Twitter, and, even better, they are attracting and retaining active users. Indeed, 46 percent of active users make mobile a regular part of their Twitter experience."

     

    Speaking of mobile, it has been confirmed that Twitter is testing push notifications for its iPhone app. MG Siegler shares a statement from the company: We’ve been testing push notifications internally. When we launched Twitter for iPad, there was a configuration error that caused us to offer push messages to a small set of users. We’ve stopped sending push messages, but users may see an option to turn on push until we release an updated version of the app. So, push isn’t ready yet but we look forward to rolling this out soon.

     

    Williams provided the following chart of applications showing how people are actually using Twitter:
     

    Top Twitter Apps

     

    "And, while the percentage of overall users drops off pretty sharply after the few listed here, there are a tremendous number of other apps that people are using, not necessarily as their main Twitter client, but as an alternative way to create or view Tweets," Williams says. "The number of registered OAuth applications is now at almost 300,000—this number has nearly tripled since Chirp. (This can include multiple instances of the same software.)"

     

    Willimas spoke last night in San Francisco. Liz Gannes has a summary of what he had to say, which was mostly about how Twitter is diferent than email and Google, but Willimas also hinted at some upcoming features. 

     

    Gannes reports, "Williams also said to expect forthcoming products that would help filter relevant tweets around events, similar to what it’s doing with location. This would go beyond the user-developed convention of hashtags, he said, though he didn’t elaborate."

     

    The biggest thing Twitter has done to reduce noise since its launch has been the launch of lists. This has helped significantly, but I think Twitter users will gladly accept other ways to accomplish this.

  • Liveblogging: Twitter CEO Evan Williams Keynote at SXSW

    We’re here at SXSW Interactive waiting for the keynote with Twitter CEO Evan Williams who will discuss "The Next Generation of Social Media." There has been some speculation that an announcement of Twitter’s ad platform could occur at this event, but that may or may not happen. We’ll see.

    Either way, I’ll be liveblogging the keynote below. Please forgive the inevitable typos.

    Williams will be interviewed by Umair Haque of the Havas Media Lab."

    Liveblogging starts

    02:00:  Still waiting…

    02:01: Introduction beginning…

    02:03: Here we go…

    Evan Williams announces…A new platform for integrating twitter into websites: it’s called @anywhere

    Signin using twitter id, your own publications can be followed starting with amazon,huffpost youtube yahoo,….a bunch of others.

    Umair asks – if i’m at newspaper and i want to read one of fav columnits

     

    ev: @anywhere reduces friction – not strict rules lleaves alot of innovation up to devs and third parties…a lot to be done with it

    easily tweet from column itself. you may just want to follow the columlnist….straight from byline

    "one of the things we’ve found with twitter is discovery is one of the hardest challenges…"

    twitter is very easy way to keep in touch.

     

    Umair: what are key benefits to site?

    ev: give you connection back to users that you didn’t hav before – twitter drives tons of traffic, so should reslt in more followers for a site than just sending out links…

     

    hopefully result in more people who are your fans using twitter, talking about you content…

    you can bring in users’ tweets into your site, and create a sub community with it

    Umair: people and organizations build stronger relationships?

    about lowering barrier to that according to Ev.

    03:13: Ev: We’re still focused pretty much on how do we create the best experience for users and businesses…

    How do we create a business out of this? There’s tons of business users on twitter today..

    We just want to make that better, easier, and faster.

    What is Twitter? Maybe the right question is what is twitter evolving to?

    It’s always been a difficult question to answer. We think of it as an information network to help people discover what they care about (in the world)

    You can follow the flaming lips if that’s what you care about….you can be smarter and make better choices…that’s valuable…

    its like saying "what’s the internet?" it’s about who you are. what you need at the time.

    02:16. As we grow, one of the things that becomes painful is having a lot of centralized decision making and forcing poeple through slow processes, so we have teams and try to give them the resources they need…

    Role for interacting with teams?

    I don’t get into the nuts and bolts of code…I personally like to get inovled in product and strategy…what we should be doing…the nitty gritty, work wth product teams. half my time. the other half think about company and right culture internally…

    been thinking a lot lately about how to scale the company and adopt the characteristics we want…how to define these characteristics..paralllel between service and the company we want to create – openness big value of twitter . transparency. a company that behaves by that as well. easy to say and harder to do as you grow…

    02:19 Openness means a lot of things. we debated whether openness or transparency is the right word. you can let people see what you’re doing, but a door lets people come in and mess with what you’re doing ..users have taken twitter and morphed it into what they want it to be. ….we’ve encouraged and supported that. a core part of being open.

    Your basic assumptions are usually wrong. "Openness is a survival technique."

    We talk about nine assumptions you should have one of them is assume there are more smart people outside the compay than inside. it’s a key thing to remember as you get bigger…

      02:21:   Deals with Bing/Google first guys we shared full stream of public twitter data with. a lot of debate…people inside twitter…if there’s all this data that could be highly moentizable., does it make sense to give this data away? We came to the decision by going to the principle by how do we create the most value for the user….the reason google/bing could help that – ther’es valuable knowledge within the twitter network. there’s a lot of valuable tweeting that people don’t necessarily see…it’s a way to bring more valuable to the tweets.

    02:24: It was a tough decision to come to….big partners aren’t who they want to limit it too..announced a couple weeks ago that they would license the data to other partners…

    One of the exciting next things to happen with the ecosystem …creating core experiences that fill holes in user expereince…sharing photos, shortening links, apps, etc.

    Real businesses built off twitter – cotweet,etc. we know twitter can be used for customer support, but twitter.com interface isn’t built for that. cotweet recently got acquired who wants to focus on that more.

    We’d love to see much more focus on creating those deep experiences.
     
    "We’re pretty open." THere is some control we need to employ. if we were completly open, it could hur the users in time….it has to be managed a lot – being open and having an open api makes it much easier to build apps to spam twiter. sending cease and desists every day to spammers – using the twitter brand…

    One reason third parties are so important – a lot of people falling for these guys’ tricks…we have to assert some kind of control.

    02:29: An email i recently got…to support – someone in chile thanking twitter for helping communication…this is very gratifying for us because we’ve always held it important to make twitter reach the weakest signals in the world…because twitter’s so simple….sms still really important to us…

    We’re really happy we’ve been able to get sms coverage…not as easy as just providing a service on the internet.

    02:21: To me it comes back to is someone getting value out of twitter. if they’re search google and they come upon a tweet and get value out of a tweet, we consider them a user…ther is a curve for adoption. "we have a pretty wide definition of user." we’re trying to lower the barrier…at the beginning a lot of focus was on telling the world what you’re doing…now we’re getting to the point where there’s something interesting on twitter for almost everybody…mentions flaming lips again…critical that it’s a two way medium, but this could be as simple as a retweet or a reply…

    02:35 Press secretary of the white house started using twitter in an authentic way from inside the white house in a way that you wouldn’t usually see things….official channel, but they’re using it in a new way. "very fun" to see.  It’s about reducing the walls beween people who have a lot of influence and the people they influence. That’s the most profound promise of the Internet, and we’re riding the wave I started on ten years ago with blogging…"

    02:41: There’s more and more stuff every day you may want to follow and search for…our goal is not just to maximize that. We understand that people have limited time/attetion. We have no interest in increasing just the amount of time you spend on the Twitter site. "If anything, we’d like to decease it."

    The open exchange of info has a positive impact on the world…

    02:46: The obvious stuff will be just signing in and tweeting more stuff, but there’s another level of value created by lowering frition (@ platform)

    If the channel helps the business get better, that tha’s very powerful.

    02:49: If you live on the web, you’re used to having a relationship with companies/services you use..

    A lot of people walked out of this keynote. I’m pretty sure the guy next to me fell asleep. No joke.