Diversified Rhino Guarding

“If you’re building on someone else’s platform, whenever they are down, you are down. There is no way around that.” – Brian Breslin on why TwitBin development is stalled.

A year ago, I wrote about my hesitation of building on someone else’s platform. Since then, I launched Cullect. Which is nothing if not built atop OPP [1].

When I first started development on Cullect – it only supported OpenID. Only. Less popular and less understood than many other services. Today, Cullect extends 3 different platforms (4 if you count OpenID). Feels right. Feels successful. Tomorrow, I see that number increasing.

Will some services fall away? Maybe. I’m not married to any of them.

So, Cullect doesn’t care if you stop using your Twitter account and move to Tumblr. As I wrote then, I’m not interested in building on a single platform. There’s plenty of rhinos to guard.

Elsewhere:

“On top of that, there aren’t all that many rewards for building things on top of Twitter. Sure, there are tons of active Twitter users. But with all the outages and the arbitrary changes in the API limits, I just haven’t been feeling the love. Tweeterboard’s gone from a fun diversion to a distraction.” – Gene Smith

1. Other People’s Platforms 😉

The State of Dense Comparisons

One of my biggest pet peeves is comparisons of the U.S to other countries – especially European countries – to show how the U.S. is “behind” in some nationwide attribute like healthcare, broadband speeds/adoption, public transit.

My first issue with these comparisons is one of scale. The United States is closer to the European Union in structure than any individual European country and multiple times larger in geographic area than either. We should be comparing individual states against individual states by GDP.

  • Minnesota ~= Norway
  • California ~= France
  • New York ~= Brazil
  • Illinois ~= Mexico

My second issue is one of population density. Lots of people in a small space increases the demand and makes it logistically easier to deliver public transit and high-speed internet access to more people faster. If nearest neighbors are 40 acres and a mule away, connecting them is far more expensive than if they live on top each other.

Ranking countries by their population density puts the US 180th (31 people/km2).

“Behind”

  • Netherlands: #25 – 395 people/km2
  • Belgium: #31 – 341 people/km2
  • Japan: #32 – 339 people/km2
  • United Kingdom: #51 – 246 people/km2
  • Germany: #53 – 232 people/km2
  • France: #95 – 110 people/km2

Imagine seeing 10x the number people around you everyday. Our towns, cities, and attitudes would have to dramatically change to support that. Just as they have to support their current densities (e.g. Minneapolis got a light rail train).

The US is closer by comparison to Madagascar (32 people/km2) and Estonia (29 people/km2).

I don’t remember the last time I’ve heard the US compared to those developing countries. Though from what I’ve heard about Estonia’s electronic government, there’s some interesting stuff going on there.

Again, individual state level comparisons are more appropriate here as well.

  • Minnesota ~= Somalia[1]
  • California ~= Greece
  • New York ~= Kuwait
  • Illinois ~= Spain

For the densities greater than 100 people / km2 we need to move to New England:

  • South Korea ~= New Jersey
  • Netherlands ~= Rhode Island
  • Belgium or Japan ~= Massachusetts
  • United Kingdom ~= Connecticut
  • Germany ~= Maryland
  • France ~= Ohio or Florida[2]

Looking at these numbers it’s clear why Thomas P. M. Barnett says the U.S. has more in common with emerging markets like Brazil and Russia than Western Europe and Japan.

We’re definitely behind Brazil in open source software adoption.

1. Interesting considering the recent influx of immigrants from that country into Minnesota
2. Yes, I know Ohio and Florida aren’t in New England. I found the comparison of France with Ohio & Florida entertaining so I wanted to keep it in.

For Sale: Lief’s Green House in Nordeast Mpls

Looks like Leif Utne bought a 1-way ticket on the high-speed underground tunnel between Minneapolis and the Pacific Northwest.

“Pass it on to anyone you know who might be interested in a beautifully-remodeled, energy-efficient home close to bus lines on a safe, quiet street in an artsy neighborhood. It has a brand-new kitchen and furnace (95% efficient), and in 2002 we did a complete attic remodel, including bamboo flooring, new windows and skylights, super-efficient Icynene insulation, and a 50-year metal roof. The remodeled attic master suite (from architects Otogawa-Anschel) has won numerous design awards and was featured in two Parade of Homes tours, as well as the StarTribune home section, HomeTime TV, and an architecture book about attic remodels” – Leif Utne


2518 Cleveland St. NE Minneapolis, MN, $250k, 3bd/2ba.
Full details at Edina Reailty

iPhone: Must Have Show Stoppers

Last week, I wrote: “For every really cool thing the iPhone has, there’s a really lame thing. 3G even more so.”

Abi Jones asked me to draw up the list.

This is the first pass at the list. I’m expecting corrections and additions, especially post-July 11.

Cool Lame
From Apple From AT&T
Lower device cost Can’t purchase online. Higher monthly rates.
Custom, iPhone-specific Apps Delivered via iTunes
Syncs data with other computers Except for iCal To Dos and iPhone Notes
Internet connection when outside of wifi No tethering internet connection to a laptop or VOIP calling

Dave Just Got a New Phone

There was a time when, if you wanted telephone service, there was one model that AT&T leased to you.

Today, there’s no requirement that you and I must use the same phone when we talk to each other. Just as there’s no requirement that we must use the same email or IM client.

This weekend, Dave Slusher announced he left Twitter.

But not really.

I’m still receiving his messages at Twitter.com, just as I’m receiving Evil Genius Chronicles at Cullect.com.

That’s the beauty of the platform-agnostic publishing Twitter showed us. How and where I publish a signal is as inconsequential as where your receive it.
The important thing is that the signal is received and appropriately responded to.

Now That It’s Either Obama or McCain….

The 2 parties have a 6-month opportunity to show the American public how serious they are about solving this country’s problems.

“…Spend 1/4 of the money [raised by the campaign] telling everyone how you’re using 1/2 of the money to help people. This proves that your Presidency will be about solving problems, because you’re not waiting to get elected to solve problems.”- Dave Winer

I have a hard time imagining people are waffling between the Obama or McCain. I have an even harder time imagining anything either of these campaigns do will pull people from the other camp (negative advertising, etc). Hell, I doubt there’s anything the RNC or DNC could do that would cause Bob Barr supporters to defect.

If there was. Anything. That could cause someone to switch affiliations between now and Nov. It would be using campaign dollars to solve problems today. Instead of betting that they won’t actually need to.

Fore

Tim Brunelle passed me the baton

    4 jobs I’ve had (and would be even less good at today):

  1. graphic design
  2. laser printer repair
  3. baling hay
  4. hand-milking sick cows
    4 places I’ve been (and anxiously await returning):

  1. Brussels
  2. Hamburg
  3. All those waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge
  4. That hill I used to spend winter afternoons hiking up and snowboarding down.
    4 bands or artists I am listening to:

  1. Lucero
  2. Centro-matic
  3. Two Cow Garage
  4. Gentle Reader
    4 of my favorite foods (that I either don’t or can’t eat anymore):

  1. Anything from Krispie Kreme
  2. Cake frosting on graham crackers
  3. Unpasteurized cheeses
  4. Sandwiches from the Acoustic Cafe in Menomonie, WI

I Bet It’s Self-Fulfilling

Back in May, Barry Ritholtz bet James Pethokoukis that we are in a recession.

From my view and the numbers I’ve seen, the downturn is concentrated in the housing sector. A good thing. Unfortunately, housing is a huge percentage of our overall GDP and it completely collapsed.

Reminds me of early 2001, when the tech sector collapsed and slowed down the economy. Other sectors (even specific areas within the tech sector) were still growing.

We’re fortunate that our economy is so diversified that when one area collapses, other sectors can soften the blow.

Taking me back to the bet between Ritholtz and Pethokoukis. I find the bet quite amusing for two reasons;

  1. How specific the bounds are in defining “winning”. Because anything less specific is the equivalent to “I know it when I see it.”
  2. That the amount of money spent by the “loser”. It could easily approach, if not surpass, the ‘economic stimulus’ tax rebates. An amount designed to get us out of any recession we might be in.

First Green Light for High-Speed MSP – MKE – ORD AMTRAK

Big thanks to Tom Elko over at the Minnesota Independent for bringing me the best transit news I’ve heard all year.

“The House of Representatives easily approved the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act….legislation authorizes $14 billion in appropriations to modernize and expand passenger rail…includes $850 million in grant money to fund high-speed rail initiatives.”

The promise of cutting 2.5hrs off a trip to Chicago, while not driving myself and not being stuck in the Illinois Tollway Parking Lot is pretty attractive.

Twitter: Build a Revenue Stream on Dunbar’s Number

The problem with many of the suggestions on how Twitter should charge1,2,3 is they put the emphasis on the wrong problem. The problem isn’t on the publication side (number of ‘tweets’ written by any individual), it’s on the distribution side (delivering the ‘tweets’ to their ‘followers’).

A simple equation to understand this ‘spew’ problem.

Message x Number of Followers = Total Number of Messages Sent

As of this writing I have 521 followers, so everytime I hit ‘update’ I’m sending 521 messages. and I’m no Scoble (>26,000 followers as of this writing). 26,000+ messages with each update.

The same math applies to email4 – why it’s a bad idea to send large attachments to a large number of people – but, due to the distributed nature of email, it’s less of an issue.

Unlike email, the message senders aren’t the ones specifying recipients. The recipients are initiating the relationship.

Scoble isn’t to blame. If anyone is, it’s each of the 26,000+ people that have explicitly clicked ‘follow’ on Scoble’s profile.

I’m a big fan of charging at the point of value, and the point of value here is real-time updates from Scoble.

Amie Street determines the price of a song by it’s popularity. Get in early – it’s free, be the last to hear it and pay $0.98.

It’d be interesting to implement the same model on Twitter.

Since Twitter is about personal connections, I’ll propose tiering the price on multiples of Dunbar’s Number. $1/150 followers, starting at #151.

Here’s how that breaks down:

  1. Greg Swan; 838 followers, $5.59 to be the next follower
  2. Chris Brogan; 9,104 followers, $60.70 to be the next follower
  3. Dave Winer; 10,282 followers, $68.55 to be the next follower
  4. Scoble; 26,842 followers, $178.95 to be the next follower

Me? I’m a bargain at $3.48. 😉

Three things I find very interesting about this idea:

  1. it turns following into a market – which at these volumes is what it is – more on that here.
  2. it might result in getting more of these kind of Twitter accounts and fewer of these
  3. Like all cool things about Twitter, they don’t need to build this for it to exist.

Elsewhere:

“Well I’ve got [a solid business model for Twitter], and it’s quite simple. Allow accounts to charge to be followed. A one time fee, or a subscription. Twitter takes a cut, say 30% like the Apple app store. ” – Jim Gilliam

1. “In Twitter’s Scoble Problem”, a Business Model by Om Malik
2. Possible Twitter Business Model: Charge Leets, Not Tweets!
– Bex Huff
3. “A business model for Twitter: Pay up” – Dan Farber
4. This is probably why Twitter won’t be supporting payloads anytime soon.