2above.com

With twitter and facebook, now google buzz become mainstream media, it’s a matter of time for more “status update” ad network. I have written about “how to make money with tweets” through this type of ad network such as revtwt.com, but I have not come across a legit ad network focusing on facebook status update. Facebook has been very aggressive on shutting down any ad networks that serve “sketchy” ads, and I can’t agree more with that. Just take a look at revtwt.com which is the #1 “tweet” ad network you will find many advertisers are really sketchy. For a new ad network to succeed, it has to add value to facebook eco-system using the core of the facebook platform: social graph. There also has to be a quality control system in place to preselect the advertisers, only allowing the formats and contents that are in par with Facebook.

Who can build that out?

With Google buzz rolling out today, Google cofounder Sergey Brin spoke up about why he thinks it’s important. Pay attention: there are lot of hidden wisdom in his words that our entrepreneurs would find valuable.

This one hints social media/personal communication will become extremely lucrative market just like web search.

“Extracting signal from noise is one of our core competencies, it’s one of the key things we do in our web search product every day. And I think that now peoples’ personal communications are getting to be on a scale comparable to that of web search, so those technologies are becoming far more critical.”

This one hints the state of today’s recommendations technology (hence, lot of room to improvement)

Brin says that he’d like to make the recommendation technology more transparent (as opposed to a black box) but hasn’t yet discussed those details with the Buzz team.

This one hints how to have a successful technology (it’s detail, detail, detail, lot of work, not just ideas)

“I think if you look at the history of technical products, there are a lot of details that matter. It’s not just the general idea, oh I have Email and social. And you know maybe, maybe we got the details right, maybe we didn’t, we’re going to see from today on out. Internally I’ve been very happy with the result. There are a lot of detailed things. If you look at the success of the world wide web, you look at Xanadu (an ongoing Hypertext project founded in 1960) for example by Ted Nelson that had a lot of these concepts yet it wasn’t so successful. There are a lot of details, perhaps chance and timing. I wouldn’t discount something because it’s similar to something in the past…”

Let’s look at the three web services Getsatisfaction.com, uservoice.com and followbase.com, see what lessons entrepreneur can learn from them. If you don’t know about them, Getsatisfaction and uservoice are similar web service offering businesses an easy way to get customer feedback and track them, while followbase is a customer service app via twitter. I personally like getsatisfaction and uservoice, and don’t think followbase can be a lasting success. Following are 5 things I use to evaluate the potential of a startup, including projects I personally involve.

1. Is the market (I am trying to enter) big enough?
Getsatisfaction and uservoice mainly target at businesses with a website, which is pretty much all businesses. Every business wants to hear what their customers think about them, and there were not an easy, affordable way to do it. They come in to fill the space and become a runaway success stories. Now think about customer service, does everyone need customer service? Yes and no. Among all services I buy (cell phone, airline, cable, credit card etc.) I probably call customer service once every two to three months, so it’s not a whole lot for me. It’s probably the case for most of people. If I am targeting at everyone, then the problem I am solving should be more than the need for consumer customer service.

2. Is it a niche problem in a big market that really needs some help?
Getsatisfaction and uservoice are solving a niche problem of a big market (all businesses with website) by offering a feedback forum that websites can carry with them wherever they go and easily get feedbacks. I think that is MONEY! Now let’s look at customer service that followbase aims. I already said consumer customer service is NOT a huge market. But are there opportunities? I think so. Customer service is a HUGE headache or issues for most businesses, more so than to consumers. Each industry is different and customer service can get really complex. A twitter based customer service product like followbase is a good idea, but it won’t solve problems for consumers nor businesses. Businesses need an industry specialized service/product to address their unique problems; consumer, again, unless, they really are passionate about certain market, they won’t care it enough to use followbase. I just don’t care about the pains from cell phone services enough to use another service just to complain; but if I am a x-box fanatics, I would care not only about problems of my x-box, but every move microsoft will make to x-box.

3. Can it be successful trying to cover all segments?
Since most of people don’t complain very often about a particular service they purchased, would it make sense to get all services in one site, so it will address everyone’s problem about every services under the sun? Followbase tries to do that. I think there is a chance, but a small one. They will have chance when majority of brands join it to become one stop twitter customer service central. Can this happen? Possibly. But unlikely, unless the service provided to businesses or brands are so appealing (think about cotweets, which can be appealing for brands or businesses).

4. Think again, are you serving opposite parties? (comcast vs. consumer, e.g.) who are you serving: businesses or consumers? (hence the future business model, and oh, forget about advertising for now)
You tend to answer: I want to serve both. Followbase might think it serves both sides. But I tend to think an early, focused startup with big potential has to pick their focus. You either become service provider for businesses, or consumers, hence you provide value to that party and you can get paid by the party you serve. Getsatisfaction and uservoice serve the businesses with a website, and businesses are glad to pay them for that. Would businesses pay followbase, hardly. But it’s very early for them, they can come up with better killer product be it a destination website, or white labeled service. I know consumer would not pay for that any time soon, unless, unless, it’s industry specific.

5. Real time is not enough, Tweets are not enough.
Most twitter apps are half idle. A few super successful of them includes mobile/3rd party clients, twitter visualization or analytics app such as twittercounter.com, twitter multimedia app like twitpic etc.; twitter search engines such as tweetmeme and topsy.com; (even tweepz and twazzup are trending down). Majority of twitter apps pump live tweets into their app. I have news for you: tweets are not enough. Because most of individual tweets pumped through are out of context and meaningless on the app, apps relying on that either have gone completely idle, or limited by growth potential: I liked stocktwits, cheaptweets, they are profitable, they are great. But how big can they be? Twazzup? Well, they are brilliant engineers, but showing tweets alone with some data processing, featured people, photo, tweets is not enough, it isn’t on the same level with big guys like topsy.com and tweetmeme.

6. Which API should I use? Should I develop twitter app, or linkedin App, or iphone App, or facebook app?
My suggestion is: forget about API all together. Think about your unique vision. Vision comes from expertise, project experience, or just repetitive life experiences about things we go through. Rachael Rae’s vision was 30 minute meal, Jack Dorsey’s was information dispatch, hence twitter; Instead of thinking about what APP you can build with what API, think about your vision and life experiences. That will lead you to the problems or pains you see while others don’t. After that, think about solutions to that problem. Technology comes last.

I write this article to help myself to clear my own mind as well. And I find myself no longer trying to ride certain wave to make quick money, rather, I am focusing on what my vision will lead to. That is more tangible and lasting.

I have been dormant on twitter for a while, ever since I decided to keep my head down and focus on building stuff without tweeting too much before internal beta. However I do read tweets on regular basis and always end up finding interesting people, brilliant services. Here is an example from today, an overcast Saturday while the city soaked in the mysterious pacific mist outside my window is perfectly picturesque.

Not sure how @gwenbell merged into my feed, but her tweet “I never hire somebody without having a meal with them, Would you?” got me curious. (yes I would, lol). A visit to her twitter profile landed me on her website http://www.gwenbell.com, completely pleased with the way it was designed, I clicked on her note at the bottom of the page: “Krystyn rocked the shit out of this”; Naturally, I clicked to Krystyn’s website, completely enjoyed her design style and hence followed her on twitter @squaregirl; at this point, I was also drawn by the touching photo of her Fiancee with her notes

“After a beautiful day in the city and playing in the snow, @richyferrell asked me to spend the rest of my life with him.”

. Although it made me feel sad about loss of my love of life, it did not stop me from clicking on “Come in, we are hiring” attached to something called “Authentic jobs”; As you will discover like I did, I was utterly impressed with the simplicity and powerful utility of Authenticjobs.com (@authenticjobs), it quickly becomes my favorite recruiting web services. Of course, I came across this great company who Krystyn works for, called http://www.squarespace.com/about

That wraps up my 1 hour adventure on the web, starting with a simple tweet.

To sum it up, my little journey (or dynamic social graph) was like:

@gwenbell
-> http://www.gwenbell.com
-> http://www.squaregirl.com
-> http://www.authenticjobs.com
-> http://www.squarespace.com/about

In this process, I was influenced by two creative women, inspired by one great web service (authenticjobs.com), and encountered a great company called squarespace, while enjoyed about 20 photos from flickr streams of these people.

There is one common trait among all these people: they seem to care deeply about what they do, and strive to put their best foot forward.

I have been thinking about this for a while. I have two kinds of entrepreneurial friends in real life, the first type is dreamer, or I call them A-lister: they have an idea, or a killer technology, they work really hard and set the goal very high, they get the venture money, often from the best VC in the valley, however it’s not uncommon to not having a penny in income, or not profitable at all. But in the case of sale (being acquired by a larger company), they will get boat load of equity ready to cash out.

The 2nd type of entrepreneur is practical type, or B-lister, similar to the ex you broke up with, not romantic enough. Many of them have their own online ad agencies, some sort of ad networks, marketplaces, and are making CASH left and right, some even get acquired – notice they are in general not good candidates for acquisition due to lack of technology, low entry barrier. The success often comes with the relentless pursuit of founder. And it goes quickly with them as well. I saw many of them before.

Thinking of twitter app founders, I can’t help separating them into these two types. Although the scale may not be as big, trazzler and twazzup are more like the dreamers, while many players in the twitter ad network world, be it “contextual”, or “pay per tweet”, or “twitter account name parking”, are actually making cash, even though their future is questionable and they are not as glamorous.

What kind of entrepreneur are you?

People, Help me out on this: is it true that any companies with more than 1 “z” in its name are somewhat successful? I can think of Zazzle, Twazzup.com (best twitter search engine, btw) etc., now we have a relative new comer called Trazzler.com, a travel site with a personal and “twittery” approach. There are many things special about Trazzler.com, mostly hand crafted by users (not just user generated), Trazzler thinks “online travel should inspire” – inspiring us to desire a place to escape to, to disappear into. As to its founder, veteran of the online travel industry Adam Rugel, the first thing I noticed is his twitter username @adam! 30 million twitter users, 155,474 Adams later (search “Adam” on tweepz.com), Adam Rugel can have @adam, like Adam and Eve from garden of Eden, not Adam Carolla, not Adam Saddler, Not twibe’s founder Adam loving. There says a deep link with twitter itself. It turned out there is. Being an accomplished industry veteran, Adam replied to my interview request surprisingly quick, let’s read it through.

1. How did you come up with the idea for trazzler?
I used to work at Odeo with Jack, Biz and Evan. Odeo is the company that preceded Twitter. During a conversation over pistachio nuts in the original Twitter kitchen, Biz suggested a crazy idea involving “virtual teleportation.” It didn’t take Adam long to realize Biz was on to something: Online travel should inspire. Trazzler places you emotionally into specific moments and locales all over the planet and helps you explore the limitless travel opportunities our world has to offer. It started a as Facebook App. (Previously, I worked at AOL Travel in the 90s. I also started a site called 71Miles.com.

2. How is your professional/personal background serving up this venture (your background, your vision for trazzler)?
I have worked in online travel for some time. I’ve also done a lot of traveling with Lonely Planet books and I came to realize that I didn’t really use the whole book… instead, I dog-eared a few pages. Trazzler “trips” are bite-sized… bits of information that we hope more accurately represent the amount of information want about a place.

3. How long did it take you to launch the site. Are you bootstrapping or full blown start up with funding?
We are bootstrapping. Our little teams eats a lot of beans. We also got a $250,000 grant from the fbFund (details: http://blog.trazzler.com/2008_07_23_archive.html).

4. What is the core technology And product strategy behind trazzler? What do you use twitter for?
Trazzler is a website that helps you answer the question, “Where should I go?” by recommending hand-picked trips unique to your location and Travel Personality. We’re developing some sophisticated science on the other side of your screen that will personalize the browsing experience with a lite touch.

We also have a site called Trazzler Buzz — a series of “Best Of” lists created from the volumes of information being transmitted to Twitter every second about 10,000 spots in 50 cities, plus festivals and outdoor destinations all over the world. We rank the list according to a formula that measures volume and recent activity on Twitter. Ultimately, we use Twitter for distribution… we have 32 subaccounts that are targeted geographically (http://www.trazzler.com/twitter). We use Twitter OAuth to help connect people with the right Twitter sub-account to follow.

5. What part/feature sets of trazllar are most heavily used and why?
Folks seem to like to browse trips our site. We average 10 page views per visit which is way above average for travel sites.

6. If there is one thing, what is it that you think will be the key to trazzler’s success?
The uniqueness of the content. We believe three rules that we follow will separate us from other travel sites:
1. Start from the premise that the quality of the content matters.
2. Rely on a combination of free and paid writing.
3. Surface the best writing
We also commit to pay out 15% of our budget to writers, the same as the New York Times.

7. What is the business model?
We will work with hotels, outfitters, OTAs, airlines, and travel agents in a variety of ways.

8. How’s growth prospect for trazzler and what kind of future plans are in the work? Technology, Partnership, product offering, marketing.etc
Our traffic doubled in April then again in May. We’re extremely excited about that. The most exciting product improvement is coming in about two weeks… our algorithm will improve dramatically.

9. Anything else you want to share with the world?
Most of the sophisticated online travel sites are run by MBA types who think about the world of online travel in terms of arbitrage. We want Trazzler to be sophisticated too, but we approach it from a different place and we hope that shows.

Not a big online video watcher, I immediately liked TwitVid.io, who wants to be the twitPic of video sharing on twitter. It’s very easy to use, you upload a video or snap up from webcam, tweet it, done. The online media from big to small immediately went nuts about this new born baby. Few realized how fast it went from an idea to prototype; To feel the energy of the people behind the project, get an idea who are the celebrities using twitVid.io, read on for my interview with TwitVid.io cofounder Chrys Bader, a fellow San Franciscan.

1. How did you come up with the idea for twitVid.io? What is the current vid-sharing landscape on twitter and how would you think twitVid.io is well/better positioned to address than others?

The idea was pretty obvious. I was sitting around with some of my peers and someone asked us why someone hasn’t done TwitVid.io yet. To which I replied, we could do it in 4 days. My friend then challenged us to do it, so we did just that. We started TwitVid.io from scratch on May 11 and launched it on May 15.

I believe we’re ahead of the game because we were first to market and we have had the strongest traction and adoption. Once we launched, competitors followed suit and it’s made it all more interesting and fun.

2. How is your professional/personal background serving up this venture (your background, your vision for twitVid.io)?
TwitVid.io is an extension of our existing video sharing platform called Fliggo (www.fliggo.com). We’ve been working on Fliggo since November 2007 and have garnered a substantial amount of experience in developing video sites. I personally have been a web developer for 10 years and have always been addicted to created websites. Our vision for TwitVid.io is to remain the #1 way to share videos on Twitter and to eventually become one of the largest video sharing sites as Twitter continues to grow rampantly.

3. What is the core technology behind twitVid.io? How long did it take you to launch the site. Are you bootstrapping or full blown start up with funding? Given video sharing could be resource-draining thing, How will you scale twitVid.io before accumulating too much expanses?
TwitVid.io is powered by the Fliggo platform. As I mentioned before, it took us 4 days to launch the site. We are a Y-Combinator funded company and are currently raising a round. TwitVid.io will be moving completely over to AWS in the next month and will relieve our scaling needs.

4. Based on your experiences, who are the people using twitVid.io and what do they say about twitVid.io?
A plethora of people are using TwitVid.io. Anything from a person just saying hello, to first-time video bloggers, to long-time video bloggers, to celebrities and brands. We’ve seen people like MC Hammer, Kevin Rose, iJustine, and Tim Ferriss using our site as well as brands and organizations like Playboy, AAA, Six Flags, the NBA, as well as various other companies. Also popular YouTubers like CharlesTrippy and FAIL TOYS are prominent users of TwitVid.io.

5. If there is one thing, what is it that you think will be the key to twitVid.io’s success?
The key to our success has been and will be our ability to attract and maintain influential users as well as providing an engaging, high quality experience for all of our users. We care deeply about the user experience on TwitVid.io, and the amount of time and passion we put into it is reflected by our strong userbase and evangelist users.

6. What is the business model?
Currently we only run advertising on the site. But we have some exciting plans for monetization that I can’t go in to just yet. We are currently working on a handful of very promising relationships.

7. How’s growth prospect for twitVid.io and what kind of future plans are in the work? Technology, Partnership, product offering, marketing.etc
I keep answering your questions before you ask them We have some exciting partnerships in the works, nothing that I can divulge just yet, but we’re eager to announce them. Our goal is to have a video posted every minute by the end of July, and we’re getting closer every day! Keep an eye out for exciting partnerships and integrations coming in the near future.

8. Anything else you want to share with the world?
I like turtles! Anyway, I just want to share my appreciation to all of our early users who have helped us test and supported our efforts. Our site would be nothing without the users, so much love to everyone who is TwitViding!

Tech world did not slow down a bit while US automobile industry is dying. Among biggest headliners for the past week were Palm Pre’s weekend launch (with 50k units sold) and Bing.com’s formal launch, replacing live.com, victoriously. The heated debate, though, was focused on if Bing.com has replaced Yahoo as #2 search engine, already. In the twitter world, TechCrunch again stirred up a big debate about the “sheep effect”, making the whole online media from NYTimes to influential bloggers throw doubts at twitter’s future. Twitter’s Evan and Biz are perfectly aware of the situation and working to fix the problem. On Tonight’s show with Conan, Conan made fun of twitter world, hence got himself a new name “CoCo”. While name related complaint/lawsuit was a time bomb that was bound to happen (I am talking about St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa suing twitter for infringement), Twitter gave the world a sneak peak of Verified Accounts Beta. Good for them!

So what is happening to the twitter apps’ world? Are you kidding me? Too much has happened. As I have pointed out, twitter apps are moving toward vertical category and we have plenty of new comers in the field to make your twitter world more fascinating than it already is.

Reportage

It’s “The radical Twitter Radio Tuner for your iPhone.” First of all, it’s a darn cool iPhone App, secondly, it will cost you. Reportage views a Twitter user as a broadcaster and each user’s tweets as a specific broadcast.
Similar to a real radio tuner, Reportage allows you to selectively tune into each broadcaster and visualize the conversation.

ComTweets.com

Do you really really want to find out what your coworkers are tweeting about? Is your company big enough that you have to dig your coworkers out of twitter world? Is twitter absolutely beneficial to your business and more? If the answers are yes, ComTweets.com is for you. Notable companies like Microsoft, Google, BestBuy, IBM (wow, so many big names) are on ComTweets.com, “It helps you find your coworkers who are twittering, discover the latest buzzes in your company, and show your personalized brand images to your customers.”

Tweba.com

Tweba wants to be craigslist of twitter. “Tweba is the Free way to buy and sell your stuff on Twitter.
Tweba allows you to auction your stuff, sell your stuff for a fixed price or link to your stuff already listed on other sites all for free. To get started either add a Listing directly on Tweba or enter a Tweet on Twitter with #ihave or #wanttosell and your tweet will be added to Tweba. When Listing ends, Buyer pays by Google Checkout, Paypal or an Out of Tweebay Transaction.

twittypop.com

Twittpop asks you one question: who is the hottest boy or girl on twitter? In its essence though, it’s a fun way of discovering new people on Twitter, increasing your followers, sending out a crush notification, or checking your own popularity. If you find someone you like, you can vote for him or her. When you vote for them, they’ll bubble to the top, which means they’ll get discovered by other tweeps.

I am big on twitter
140labs.com just released its first experiment: Iambigontwitter.com, an exact model in the twitter world like hotOrnot.com in the plain web world. Considering it’s coming out of 140labs which has bunch of high profile, successful web entrepreneurs behind it, I would definitely give it a few spins to see how it plays out, against all other “voting”, “popularity”, “dating” sites on twitter.

Twuet.com

Twuet is a search engine for twitter that lets you add a search box widget to your site. I have not got chance to see how the search results render on this blog, but looking at the search results itself it’s decent.

Tweetknot.com

I have a feeling that tweetKnot is doing similar things to twibes. Yes, you can create a community called “knots” and other people can share tweets related to that community (or subject). The traffic and attention this site is getting is phenomenal. It seems more obvious to me that vertical community within twitter is the direction to be. My take is to avoid being generic site, unless your usability is superb.

DateTwit.com

I noticed this dating site for twitter a week ago, after noticing flirt140.com is pretty much walking dead, merely 3 weeks after launching. However DateTwit.com is very different. It’s easy to understand, although requires a bit more work on your side to set up your detailed profile, sending out smiles, messages, twits etc. And the traffic it’s getting lately was just insane for a twitter dating site.

Amost.At

Almost.at is a site that allows users to follow events in real time across Twitter, Flickr, and a variety of other online services. It also allows users to specify which Twitter members are actually at an event, rather than just talking about it. TechCrunch has a rather detailed coverage on it.

MLB.com integrating application into interactive experience: By Lisa Winston / MLB.com

Twitter: It’s the next best thing to being there.

The social networking application that has taken “immediacy” to new heights will be used to its maximum advantage leading up to — and during — Major League Baseball’s 2009 First-Year Player Draft.

MLB.com has launched the first online “social community” integration of the Draft by integrating Twitter into its expanding live interactive media experience, the Draft Caster, and its searchable Draft database, the Draft Tracker.

MLB.com will offer live coverage and analysis of the entire First-Year Player Draft, beginning Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET. The MLB Network will broadcast the first round on Tuesday evening from its Studio 42 in Secaucus, N.J., and those 32 selections also will be simulcast live on MLB.com.

Beginning with the 33rd pick, up-to-the-minute on-air coverage from the remaining rounds will shift exclusively to MLB.com/Live, where host Vinny Micucci will be joined by MLB.com Draft expert Jonathan Mayo and Major League Scouting Bureau director Frank Marcos.

Once the first night is done, the Draft will continue with rounds 4-30, via conference call from MLB Headquarters in New York, at noon ET on Wednesday. Rounds 31-50 will be on Thursday, starting at 11:30 a.m.

As the Draft gets under way on Tuesday — and even before then, in fact — fans will not only be able to follow along every minute of the way online, but they’ll be able to interact directly with Draft-eligible players and MLB.com Draft experts, among others.

The Draft Caster itself will allow fans to watch the entire first day of the Draft, with direct access to a searchable database of all eligible players, which will include biographical information, stats, scouting reports and, in many cases, video.

It will also, however, feature the addition of Twitter, and the participation of “tweeters” such as MLB.com Draft expert @JonathanMayoB3, who will also be serving as on-air talent for all three days of the Draft; and reporter @LisaWinstonMLB, who will be writing the up-to-the-minute coverage for MLB.com.

In addition, MLB.com has created a Twitter account devoted to the Draft, where you can stay updated on every piece of info as it becomes available (@MLBDraft).

Even more revolutionary, though, will be the online Twitter presence of some of the top prospects in the Draft, who will keep fans updated on their own personal experiences. Among the potential first-round picks already registered and “tweeting:”

@Michael_Trout: Mike Trout, a five-tool high school outfield slugging sensation from Millville, N.J., whose stock has steadily risen this spring.

@DrewStoren: Stanford University closer Drew Storen, a Draft-eligible sophomore right-hander viewed as the most Major League-ready reliever in the bunch.

@JacobMarisnick: Jake Marisnick, a toolsy outfield prospect from southern California who is considered one of the best athletes in the Draft.

@Eric_Arnett: A big strong quick-rising right-hander out of Indiana who is making Hoosier waves as a mid-round first rounder.

When asked to participate in the innovative event, Marisnick agreed immediately.

“I thought it would be pretty cool, a neat experience to get out there and let people know what I was going through,” said Marisnick, who has been one of the most active participants since the launch, despite being a newcomer to Twitter. “It’s pretty simple, you just let everyone know what you’re doing, what you’re thinking about. It’s a good way to keep in touch with others.”

Perhaps the biggest “challenge” to Twitter is the need to restrict your “tweets” (comments) to a 140-character maximum, though there is no limit to the number of “tweets” you can post.

“You have to think about how to word what you want to say, to keep it short and to the point,” said Marisnick, whose schedule is pretty busy these days with his high school graduation on Monday followed by the Draft on Tuesday.

“It will be cool on Draft day to be able to Twitter and let people know how I’m feeling,” Marisnick said.

Anyone with an internet connection and e-mail address can sign up for Twitter (www.twitter.com) at no cost and join the fun immediately.

And if you want to make sure your own “tweets” are displayed on the MLB.com Draft Caster and Tracker over the course of the three-day Draft, all you have to do is include the reference code “#mlbdraft” within your message.

MLB.com’s coverage will also include on-demand Draft recap video programs for all 30 clubs, live video look-ins to Draft ‘war rooms’ of select Major League clubs, interviews with Hall of Famers, club dignitaries and Draftees; scouting video of more than 700 of the Draft-eligible prospects, photo galleries from the Draft and Draft history dating back to its 1965 inception.

Conan took over tonight show, and it gets better and better with twitter;)