Could Twitter’s transcendent clarity trump Facebook?
Filed under: Facebook, Twitter, social media, social networking, walled garden
Like email, IM, and text messaging before it, Twitter is destined to become a common communication tool familiar to all. What might be less clear is the long term fate of particular social networks like Facebook and Linkedin.
How could this make sense? Facebook and Linkedin already have considerable revenues. Twitter has zero. They also have far more users than Twitter. And so on. Some have even said Twitter is not a business.
Yet Twitter has a kind of transcendent clarity.
It’s not that Twitter now tops the list of fastest growing social networks or that Facebook offered to buy Twitter for $500 million.
Blackberry Storm vs. iPhone: Similar Experience or Disaster?
The reviews bear out what I said in May: Overall user experience, not touchscreen or features make the iPhone a winner vs. Blackberry Storm.
Any suggestion that adding a touchscreen would make Blackberry competitive with iPhone was always silly. Blackberry already creates a great experience for some users. To work equally well for another group of users, RIM needs to do more than add features or change input device. Read more
Mr. Obama, don’t give up your Blackberry! Use it differently.
We have never had an emailing President.
The New York Times reports today that Obama is addicted to his BlackBerry, but will be forced to give it up as President. It has served as
…a singular conduit to the outside world as the bubble around him grew tighter and tighter throughout his campaign.
“How about that?” Mr. Obama replied to a friend’s congratulatory e-mail message on the night of his victory.
But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.
I say, don’t give it up. Use it differently.
Be not only the first emailing president, be the first to make all of your email instantly public.
Post the output of your Blackberry to a web page.
Obviously, this will change what you can use email for and how you can use it, but imagine the power inherent in making your electronic communication something you share with the world. The leverage of having each word spread so much further than the individuals on the To: line.
Be the most transparent and authentic leader the world has ever seen.
Salvation Army takes five dollars by text message instead of pocket change
Short on change as you walk by the red kettle and bell ringer? The Salvation Army is testing mobile donations in Atlanta this year. Text “TSA” to 90999 to initiate a premium SMS charge of $5 (i.e., added to your phone bill).
“We are not the most progressive movement in the world, we change very slowly. With the regular use of debit and credit cards, many shoppers are short on loose change or cash in-hand. We want to afford anyone and everyone who desires to make a donation, a user friendly and convenient means to do so.” Says Major James Seiler, Metro Atlanta area commander of The Salvation Army, Atlanta, Georgia, in Mobile Marketer.
Mobile Marketer doesn’t mention the revenue share percentages for this particular program, but a dirty secret of the industry is that as much as 60% of premium SMS transactions are held back by mobile carriers and platform providers. Until recently, this was even for most text-to-give donations.
I checked with a friend at Mobile Accord, and now this drops to 5% rev share held back (min $.25), so the Salvation Army actually nets $4.75 per donation, minus the cost of setting up and running the program. They have a hundred NPOs signed up for text-to-give.
I don’t know about you, but the sound of those ringing bells is enough to keep me away from a mall. What do I have to text to turn down the volume?
Geek Corps for Congress
This morning Jerimiah Owyang tallied social networking stats for the candidates showing a huge advantage to Obama. Now Gene Koo writes that Congress, not Obama, needs a Geek Corps.
What a wonderful idea. I’d love to help “rework the interface between legislators and their constituencies: to rebuild trust and honest, genuine relationships between lawmakers and We the People.”
Certainly, social media could play a role in this. For it to do so meaningfully, lessons beyond those learned in the Obama campaign are needed. The campaign succeeded more in using social media to help spread messages than it did in giving voices to the people.
What’s needed to change congress has more to do with changing the listening habits of legislators. Read more
Celebrating 15 years on the web (or please excuse the mess)
I registered the domain name for my business and started a web site in 1993. You may take down the dumb “under construction” graphic, but you never stop making changes.
The WayBack Machine only goes back to 1996, so I’m left with only vague memories of just how primitive the first page was.
I sold my original domain name to a startup in 1999 and moved to dalelarson.com where I’ve been ever since.
Until this week, a good friend has hosted my web pages continuously for 15 years. (At some point I gave him a Sun IPC workstation as a form of payment. (I had typeset my first book on that machine.)) Thanks, Mark!
Anyway, it was time to switch things up a bit, and there’s always a bit of extra mess when one moves. Not to mention that thing about the cobbler’s own family. Please excuse the mess while I change servers and domain registrars and make the overdue switch from Blogger to WordPress. And thanks for all the fish.
About Dale
Entrepreneur and Advisor.
Founder, LeanScale.
Partner, SF AppStudio.I've been a software engineer, a rocket scientist, a CEO, an author, editor and publisher, a personal trainer (to movie stars, Olympic and professional athletes), and helped build a couple of mobile and Internet ad agencies.
Yeah, I was also the guy at the front of the iPhone line; all three times. iPad, too.
I write about startups, business, technology (especially mobile, social and web), and sometimes I review the gadgets I love to play with.
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