why their approaches will not work

people are thinking of this as a web problem. twitter is not a web problem. the trouble begins when they try to use web for something it was never really meant to do.

twitter is a one-to-many architecture trying to be a many-to-many distribution model. they are the hub of a really massive wheel that will eventually shear clean from the axle upon which it spins. what we really need is a tried and proven way of doing many-to-many distribution of real-time data.

real-time data

realtime data is not a web idea. the web is where data gets stored and presented; it piles up like old newspapers until we finally get around to bundling them up with string and hauling them out by the curb. the best the web can muster is near-real-time. how fast can you grab a feed, how often do you reload your browser.

realtime data is in a protocol, a network. if you want to store it, figure that out later. how you will present it, figure that out later. separate the distribution of data from its presentation and lifetime. deliver, then present. (then store).

distributed delivery? scaling? network: IRC

the model of the IRC network is as near as perfect for ephemeral data as one can find. and it’s been proven for decades. nearly infinitely scalable to users (add more servers). geodiversified locations for servers. short messages being sent to #channels on particular topics (sound familiar)?

the huge, glaring, and supremely important difference is this: the people responsible for the network absolutely and completely do not care about the lifetime, storage, or presentation of the data. they are only concerned with distribution.

people on individual channels consume the data and if they choose to store it, they do so (irc logs pile up like their homonymous wooden cousins). they read new information in real-time. they extract quotes and publish them to the web. they compile statistics and publish them to the web.

the model for scalable, many-to-many distribution of real-time information is IRC. now we need to think about the format. plain text is fine for console jockeys (myself included) but the web crowd is a bit more sophisticated.

universal, portable, adaptable information format? data: ATOM

we need a data format that is extensible beyond the author, title, and content. we need something that’s nationally agnostic, can be extended to support geo-location. what more needs to be said? it’s sophisticated enough for 140 character messages, that’s for sure. i know my twitter homepage looks like a graphical IRC client with the addition of user icons. mix in a bit of latitude and longitude and now we’re talking.

more about why their approaches will not work

i think the main reason why nobody thought about this yet is that they’re all too young, too new, and too enterprising. i’m probably guilty of that too. i’ve been sitting on this idea for several years now, trying to find a way to build a business around it.

everyone is thinking “what can we invent?” because invention nowadays equals entrepreneurship, venture capital, business success, cars, romance, glory, and all the spoils. (or some subset of the above).

nobody makes (legitimate) money from IRC. if you talk to an IRC operator (the administrators responsible for maintaining servers), you will find that their personal contributions, if calculated in billable hours, would be tremendous (enough to purchase some of the aforementioned entrepreneur’s bounty).

forget free lunch

we’re thinking: how can we get rich, or at the very least, eat lunch, by solving a problem. our “forefathers” in the internet world as it were, hadn’t concerned themselves with such things. they typically had corporate benefactors who paid the bills, but they were free to invent protocols that fixed a problem and met a need, without regard to how to patent, market, and monetize them.

bottom line: in order to “decentralize twitter” you need to separate the network for data from the presentation and storage of data.

Updates:

Scott Hanselman touches on this idea referencing Russell Beattie’s Peep using Jabber as a distribution model. i hadn’t read a lot about Jabber, but it’s interesting. i still think these guys are too web-focused, but keep an eye on where they run with this. they’re starting to see the light.

“one of the problems in the world is there are no more neighborhoods in the city and neighbors and things like that, but the feeling of the WELL is that you’ve got a lot of neighbors, and you don’t go to borrow a cup of sugar, but you get some information. and information is probably the sugar of the late 20th century.”

if Information is the Sugar of the late 20th Century, i think Information might be the Crack of the early 21st Century. originally we sought it to achieve something; to scratch an itch, to get high, or to get work done.

now we can’t quit it, even when it’s no longer productive, or even when it’s destructive.

and yet the contents of the box include nice transparent stickers:

maybe they should have added to the warning: hide the device and its mounting arm, and remove stickers before leaving your vehicle.

also, the adhesive used to attach the thief warning sticker was so strong that i worried about damaging the touch screen while removing it. and covered enough of the screen that it was difficult to get one of the corners peeled up to get it out of there. and did i mention the residue that the adhesive left?

it smacks of a legal department driven, poorly designed and/or tested afterthought.

the most important one is that you become your brand. every person who has a blog, a homepage, or uses a social networking site, should be thinking about that right now. you may not be famous, or infamous, yet. but someday you might be.

take for my first example, DVD Jon. you know, the kid who cracked the blah blah blah on dvds. he didn’t control his brand. whether he chose it or the media chose it, he will forever be “DVD Jon.” (e.g. the recent engadget article that gave me this idea).

it reminds me of the movie “Hackers.” Johnny Lee Miller’s character (been enjoying Eli Stone, btw^[1]) starts to try to explain his situation, his background, and his experience. he stops, and in a defeated tone, simply utters “i was ZeroCool.” and his peers in the room instantly got it.

Jon Lech Johansen has moved on to writing software that does other things to mp3s, iphones, etc. but you know someday, while trying to tell people about the software he’s written and the coding techniques and whatever else, will probably have to break down and say … “i was DVD Jon.”

[1] sorry ABC, when you have auto-playing embedded video+audio ads that i can’t pause or shush, i don’t link to you directly.

to see this view, approach on KS 61 from Hutchinson.

there was one part that was baffling for me – who would submerge themselves for hours or days at a time in this other world, neglecting their real space and real relationships and even their real selves?

i formulated that in a reality of extreme resource constraints and dismal opportunities, a way of life and a way of living had been created which divorces one from the corporeal. other writers more talented than I have waxed about this, so i’ll spare you my pale attempt.

in hindsight, however, my disbelief was at least partially hypocritical. at the same time, i was using IRC for just about every waking hour of the day. i had built a power structure of autonomous robots to “do my bidding” as it were, and staked out property (channels) and defended it. formed alliances and enemies (more of the later, it would turn out) and conduct warfare, as much as “battle” can be made by nary-sentient rule-based scripts.

so, looking back – why didn’t i make this parallel? perhaps first, as a quip, their interfaces sounded far superior to ours. there’s only so much “immersion” one receives from text.

also, there were (few) real-world consequences. this keeps the perspective more of a hobby than a vocation; rather than getting my social contact down the hall of the dorm, or over the cubicle wall, i was getting it in a command window while doing other things.

are we there yet?

in as much as we can build online personalities or reputations, i don’t think we’re quite living in Gibson’s vision of Cyberspace, for, among others, the above listed distinctions.

In addition, there’s one thing he never really addressed (at least, not in my memory): where did Cyberspace come from? it’s portrayed as if it’s available as any other public utility, and there is equal opportunity to participate. we know in the web2.0 world, that free/public resources go quite far, but only so far. any immersive experience to be had online costs you, whether it be MMORPGs, or a more freeform environment like Second Life.

also, platform homologation, from providers and participants in a Capitalist society, is all but a beautiful dream. it’s as if Cyberspace could only be the product of a widespread Command system, where a central organization (government) dictated what platforms and protocols and languages would interface (think “closed, public source” rather than “open source.”). Cyberspace may never be born from our age of Intellectual Property Rights and Licensing.

or could it?

does the example of open, common languages like HTML provide precedent for future code and protocols that provide rich, almost limitless interaction? what are the dimensions of that protocol support in how they apply to the Cyberspace model (geography, movement, perspective, communication, affiliation)?

will it begin from the ground up, or as a revolt against the constraints of IP and Licensing? in short – is it possible to hack* Linden Labs and have Second Life “escape” onto the internet, to become an entity that exists outside of corporate control?

these are questions i may tackle in the future, or perhaps you will!

* please note the author is not intending to solicit or encourage this activity; merely to examine the possible ramifications if such an event occurred