Comments on: Evan Williams Twitter keynote at SXSW: The Art of Good Business

By: Iconic88

Iconic88 — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:14:23 +0000

Contextually, it's a brilliant marketing tactic Simon. Create the initial inertia on the front-end via the SUL to attract the influencers and their audience then fail forward 'kaizen' style on the backend in reply to best-practice and innovative crowdsourced feedback for an improved user-experience.

Twitter really is positioning itself quite nicely as the real time communication utility quite like the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power

By: Simon Mainwaring

Simon Mainwaring — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 09:03:57 +0000

I agree there's a disconnect here. There was a huge push back to the SUL and I agree it doesn't serve their overarching mission. Personally I believe it was an early adoption strategy through which they reward influencers with exposure so they in turn drive twitter adoption through their communities. Expedient and a short term and effective tactic. That's my best guess. That said, I believe Biz and Evan are completely committed to the enablement of individuals and social change that twitter can bring about. Thx, Mahei.

By: iconic88

iconic88 — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:47:44 +0000

Thanks for the updates here Simon.

"Our goal is to increase the signal to noise ratio and to get the right information to people who care."
"The most profound promise of the internet is the democratization of information and it can change the world."

If you look at these in combination Simon, do you think Twitter's establishment of the suggested users list (SUL) was a short-term marketing play which isn't in the spirit of these tenets?

For one, wouldn't a truly democractic system be one without the SUL [from the beginning] to enable the crowds to decide who's tweets deserves a retweet? In this case, a retweet would be a vote in this democratic environment.

Secondly, for them to choose who goes on the SUL defeats the whole purpose of their goal to increase the signal to noise ratio as this can be interpreted as being skewed towards their view of the world by a subjective selection process.

For example, it's interesting that Mashable is on SUL yet it's competitors aren't. CNN is probably on there, is Fox? Actors/actresses they admire vs the ones they don't. Musicians they love vs the ones they don't.

As you know preaching and making the rubber hit the road are entirely two different things like the difference between talking about driving a car to actually driving one.

What do you think Simon?

Best, Mahei

By: Jodi Henderson

Jodi Henderson — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 02:06:00 +0000

I really wanted to enjoy this talk, but couldn’t. At a conference that runs for five days, going to sessions all day every day, I like it when presenters inject some humor or other personality to differentiate themselves from everyone else and also to help keep us engaged. This one didn’t have that.

With that said, I’m glad you posted such a great summary so we can all have the info moving forward. Thanks Simon!