Facebook’s Vanity URLs’ impact: web-based mail will be the big loser

Image via CrunchBase

Like hundreds of thousands of others apparently, I grabbed a vanity URL On Facebook Friday night.  (I’m www.facebook.com/jay.jamison.) As it was all the rage in the geekosphere, I was aware it was happening.  As the Penguins had just won Game 7 and their 3rd Stanley Cup, I was at home, happy, and ready to jump onto Facebook and grab my URL.

The experience was no fuss and quick.  I was surprised in that sense, as I’d expected to have long queues as Facebooks servers melted with everyone trying to get their URL.  Didn’t happen–the whole thing took about 30 seconds.

So after grabbing my URL, I then finally gave some thought as to what was so important or not about these “Vanity URLs.”  Some, like Om Malik, speculate that it may take a bite out of Twitter’s growth.  I disagree with Om on this–I think the nature of the conversations and interaction in Twitter is fundamentally different than Facebook.  Having Vanity URLs might make groups of friends on FBK have more Twitter-y like conversations, I suppose.  But as a user of both services, I still see them as fundamentally different.  Facebook’s a place where I share with friends updates, thoughts, photos, etc. on a range of topics.  Twitter is in a sense more universal–it’s like a user-generated teletype news feed with people I know and those I don’t.  Vanity URLs don’t really change that for FBK, @replies won’t do all that much either, as my circle of friends already kind of do this in a klugey way in conversations on FBK.

So I don’t see this as a shot across Twitter’s bow, really.  Instead, I think this is more about making it easy for Facebook to grab and secure the next genertion of users.  What I mean here is that I expect that web-based email is going to feel the brunt of this move.  If you’re 13 say, and starting to use computers more deeply, why are you really going to need web mail now?  You aren’t.  You just grab your little Vanity URL, and you tell the world you’re www.facebook.com/your.name.  I’d think the groups more directly impacted in the short term are not Twitter, but gmail, hotmail, aol im, etc.

Filed under: Twitter, business, social media, technology , Facebook, Social Networking, Twitter, Vanity URL

Quick Thoughts on Oprah Effect on Twitter

This quote from Hitwise Intelligence – Heather Hopkins – US: Oprah Effect on Twitter caught my eye:

There’s been much debate among loyal Twitter users about whether this spells the end for Twitter’s coolness, as soccer moms sign up in droves.

Total, absolutely, 100%, USDA Prime Grade BUNK.  Wanna know how I know? 

Do this thought experiment…  try it at home. 

Step 1: Replace “Twitter” in above quote with the word “telephone,” “email,” “the Internet,” “Facebook.” 

Step 2: Now put your mind’s eye into the following year for each communication technology.

Email: 1994

Internet: 2000

Facebook: 2007

I may have the years off by a year or two, but the net/net is that anyone who thinks that these technologies would lose something when they became “too mainstream,” fail to understand the power of networks. 

All of these technologies became vastly more cool after they became mainstream.   They became more cool precisely because the broader usage spurred broader innovation and investment.  Sure, you as an early adopter and a technical elitist now have to contend with your mom asking you questions about Tweeting, but in return you get a broader, more robust ecosystem. 

Still don’t buy it: invert the argument.  Raise your hand if you’d like to go back to dial-up internet and AltaVista as the leader in Search! 

Filed under: Twitter, consumer, internet, technology , internet, technology, Twitter

Seesmic Desktop release: a strong product step that exposes the right question on Twitter’s business model

Background: I downloaded Seesmic Desktop tonight.  I like it a lot, but that’s not the subject of this post.  This post is about the importance of Twitter’s business model to nurture a vibrant ecosystem.

2009 is shaping up to be the year Twitter’s white-hotness explodes into the mainstream.  To me, nothing made this more clear than the New York Times’ real-time mapping of tweets during the Super Bowl. 

Leading up to and following the Super Bowl, the media coverage and hype on Twitter has been, in a word, superlative.  Literally, stuff of Silicon Valley legend.  Facebook and Google are rumored acquirers.  Inaugurations and political conversations are changed.  Terrorist attacks are reported first through twitter.  Sully’s downed plane was twittered.  Etc.

And all this is fantastic.  Twitter’s a very useful service, and there’s not a shred of doubt in my mind that it will continue to have an ever increasing impact, its management team will find a substantial, sustaining business model for itself, and its founders, investors, and employees will make a well-deserved, honestly gained fortune. 

In the technosphere, not everyone is so sanguine.  It is a common question to ponder how Twitter might make money.  I was pondering this myself tonight as I tried out Seesmic Desktop.  I realized the question of Twitter making revenue is a silly question; entirely the wrong question.   Playing with Seesmic more, though I realized that there is a better question on the topic of Twitter and business model. 

The right question is this: how will Twitter enable a broad and sustainably profitable partner ecosystem? 

Twitter is clearly the PLATFORM, rubbing in Barry Bonds’ “Clear,” and eating the Michael Phelps 20,000 calorie diet (no bong hits thank you!)  to bulk up into the 800# gorilla it will be.   It’ll make revenue in the same way that Bonds, Phelps, Microsoft, and Google do—they have natural monopolies, in the form of hand-eye coordination to hit 800 HRs, win 8 Olympic medals or own 98% share of PC OSs or 75% of web search.  Twitter’s got the traffic, the network effect is strong and increasing. 

Everyone else though — the Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop or Bit.ly guys are the “Applications,” and they don’t ride with the Platform guys (yet).    The Application guys, at least for now, appear to be catching the crumbs from Twitter’s table.  This is a challenge for Twitter, potentially a tough one for them longer term.  To use the most powerful recent example of platform healthiness—the Iphone–the great thing about the Iphone platform is that it’s crystal clear that app vendors can make money on it.  App writer builds app; app writer gets royalty.  Very clean.  very simple.

With Twitter, less so.  While I think its silly to ask whether Twitter will make money, I do think its a fair and important question to ask whether the Twitter App guys will and how they’ll do it sustainably.  And answering this question is important, not just to the App guys, but in fact to Twitter as well. 

Here’s why.  First, it is going to be hard work for app vendors to get and sustain a lead, as Seesmic and Tweetdeck among others will likely show us in the next several months.  The arms race will continue, etc., but it’ll be difficult to see who will ‘win’ the market share.   Beyond that then, there’s the question of how would either monetize?  Will they have an ad platform from Twitter they can tap, similar to Facebook?  Not clear yet.  Are customers going to want to send virtual beers or pokes thru Twitter in the same way they do in Facebook?  Not sure.  So my view is that the application guys have a tough slog in front of them.  They could end up winning some market share war, without any revenue legs to stand on. 

And this is something Twitter needs to help the Seesmics and others get clear around.  How all this tweeting will turn into sustainable revenue for them.  Twitter can’t entirely punt this to the app guy, nor can Twitter solve it entirely for them.  In my experiences with platforms, and I spent a decade on them, this ain’t easy. 

It’ll be exciting to watch Twitter continue to grow and the innovation in the ecosystem around it.  I’ll be keen to see how Twitter’s business model comes forth, and I’ll pay attention to how that model helps app vendors make money. 

Filed under: Twitter, business, internet, social media , seesmic, Twitter