I am Running for Twitter Community Evangelist (convince them they need one)!

May 21, 2008 By Rob 5 Comments

Most of the people I know that complain about Twitter when it is down are just frustrated.  Most of them are not even mad.  They just miss Twitter.

Like a High School friend that chooses a different college than you – when Twitter is gone you wish it wasn’t – but you forgive them.  Because they are, after all, friends. 

Twitter has done a great job building a sense of community.  Ev and Biz talk back to people.  When Twitter is up.  Not so much when it isn’t.  I can fix that!

Hell, I am a Twitterholic (12 step post to follow, I am sure!).

I even suggested yesterday that we send Twitter some Pizza. Shannon Whitley ran with it (and I donated) and he made it happen.

I Tweeted the first real-time blind date in Twitter. As far as I know.

I created the first Startup Company developed completely on Twitter.  Staffing, ideas, finances, etc.  As far as I know.

I started Tweeting about the need to relieve the Twitter servers of their workload before most people started Tweeting about a "distributed" Twitter.  I think we need smart clients that have an open source API they can all use to add features such as Peer To Peer, filtering, groups, etc.  But I think Twitter needs to be "the network".

I’ve blogged about all of these things over the last few months.  Right here, on this blog.

I deserve to be the Twitter Evangelist that they don’t know they need. Look at my Social Networking footprint (Google Search kr8tr – or just click it on the menu bar).

Oh – and I understand the API, and I have blogged a tutorial about using Track with GTalk.

So vote for me.  Tell @ev and @biz that I should carry the Twitter Torch!

Filed Under: Community, Fun, Ideas Tagged With: Community Leader, Evangelist, Twitter

ubertwit

April 25, 2008 By Rob 14 Comments

I know the title makes no sense at all, but it is something I’ve been working on for a couple weeks.

Uber means "super", "hyper" or "overkill".  Twit is what you do when you use Twitter.  Some people prefer Tweet, but I see no reason why you would "Tweet" on Twitter and not "Twit" on Twitter.) So I want to build a Super, hyper, overkill Twitter app.  But make it "uber-easy" to use.

Actually, I don’t want to build a Twitter App at all.  I want to build a common framework that allows Twitter Apps to share a common set of extensions that increase the power/flexibility/usability of Twitter.

ubertwit is a Twitter Client that is (mostly) in the design stage right now.  There are a LOT of Twitter clients, so why build a new one?

I’ll let the proposed feature set explain why:

  • Peer 2 Peer via "Super Nodes".  My Twitter friends and followers will all share their data between their clients instead of each of them hitting the Twitter servers for updates.  Each client will poll the Twitter service, but at much less frequent intervals.  This is good for a number of reasons – the Twitter servers don’t get hit by as much traffic, and more important, by using the Jabber protocol me and my friends can still communicate even if the Twitter service is completely dead.  Even if it disappears. Even if it disappears forever.
  • Groups.  Some people don’t like the idea of Groups on Twitter.  Honestly I don’t think Twitter managed groups are a good idea either.  I want user-defined groups.  I want to be able to sort my conversations in certain ways – pretty much allowing me to focus on a group at certain times – yet not affecting my overall "stream".  Ideally I could open "group windows" that follow certain people, or topics, or locations – based on my immediate interest.  When the conversations in these windows "blend" the windows would do something, like blend in a similar frame color, to let me know that my conversations are merging.  And I could either move or copy any of these people or topics (tracks) from one window to another with a simple drag and drop – just like I was moving a file, or a folder.  I envision groups working by people forming groups.  And although groups CAN be marked Private they still follow the current Twitter model.  If I create a a private group and send a message to it, the messages go out as Twitter Direct Messages (if Twitter is alive).  Otherwise they go our as point to point messages on Jabber.
  • The ability to rename (or at least set tags on) my contacts.  I would follow a lot more people if I knew what the context of my relationships meant to me (let me use my own "social graph").  I’m sorry – I can’t always tell who "alph732a" – just like I don’t expect ALL of my Twitter friends to remember who kr8tr is.  A mouse-over that contained some other info would be very helpful.
  • A threaded conversation view that works.
  • The ability to "mute" someone for 30 minutes.  Basically it causes them to not appear in any of your groups/timelines.  As someone said, it is a "Time out".  Steve Gillmor thinks nobody will use this.  I think a lot of people will :)
  • A smart algorithm that suggests new friends based on things I talk about (gestures I make) and who I interact with most (more gestures), and who their friends are that may be talking about what I talk about.
  • Along with the above, give my friends/followers the ability to @F2F (friend to friend) me to someone – as an introduction.
  • Geo-Location service built in.
  • "Favorite Friends" list.
  • Ability to push a Tweet to a group of Twitter people in a given Geo-location (within 5 mile radius, etc).
  • An open API for the Twitter client.
  • A "skin-able" client.
  • An open source project that invites any and all to come and play – with platforms that communicate equally with each other.

This is a partial list.  I have more items that I haven’t yet figured out how to implement. Everything above I think I know how to build.

But I am still in the "just playing" stage with the code.  I would love to hear suggestions for more features, a different approach to building the "ubertwit", whatever.

Share.

Filed Under: Community, Ideas

Virginia Tech students create "smart" brake lights for cars | My iStop

March 30, 2008 By Rob Leave a Comment

smartbrakeli  I had an idea over 20 years ago that was very similar to this – except I had an additional twist – when the car was actively accelerating (ie, gas pedal being pushed and not just coasting) a small segment of the tail light glowed a faint green.

That would give followers the ability to know everything you need to know about the momentum of the vehicle in front of you.

In any case, it is about time we update brake lights.

 

It’s only taken about a million years, but someone has finally decided that improvements are possible in automobile braking lights. Students from Virginia Tech have developed a new system that can show not just whether you’re stopping, but if you’re slowing down, when you’re about to stop, and how quickly you’re pressing the pedal. The concept uses an array of horizontally arranged LED lights — when you begin to slow, lights in the center glow orange, after a certain threshold side lights turn to red, and if you’re slamming on the brake, they’ll all flash red.

Virginia Tech students create "smart" brake lights for cars | My iStop

Filed Under: Ideas

Deadcasts.com

March 22, 2008 By Rob 4 Comments

I have a lot of odd ideas.  Most of them I just pass on to others, and see if they run with them.  A few of them I pursue.  Some of them I know are stupid, but they are so stupid I can’t get away from them.

That’s why I bought the domain name of deadcasts.com today.  Podcasts delivered from the grave – after you are dead, to the people you specify.  Or to the world.  Could be video, could be audio, could be a favorite YouTube video.

And yes, I know there are things *like* this out there.

But a cool domain name is a cool domain name. 

Even if I don’t ever build the exact idea – I’m not afraid of buying a domain name here and there.  I wish I had done more of it in the late 90′s!

Here’s the thing about domain names – if you buy 500 of them at $10 each you spend $5,000.  Sell just one of them for 10K (I have) and suddenly it isn’t stupid anymore. 

But I don’t buy domains to make money off domains.  I buy domains hoping someone interesting calls me wanting to build something off those domains.  And I hope I can work with them on it.

I love building stuff.

Filed Under: Ideas, Personal

Microsoft patent makes Plug-and-Play smarter – istartedsomething

March 22, 2008 By Rob 1 Comment

Let’s see – Microsoft applied for their patent on March 20, 2008.  Mine, for virtually the same thing, was filed November 25, 2004.

Microsoft Patent Application.

My Patent Application.

I think I win.

 

The problem lies with device drivers. The device drivers which ship with each operating system release is only what is available at the time, so it cannot support new hardware which has been released after that time. This means when you plug in the device, the system is not going to find a suitable driver or it’s going to end up becoming a generic device. I’m sure you too will be quite pissed when you just installed a $300 gaming keyboard and mouse, and it defaults as a generic USB keyboard and mouse.

Up to and until now, operating systems and hardware vendors have tackled this problem by the use of internet updating mechanisms which seek out new drivers when you plug in a device. This of course relies on vendors actually actively updating the drivers in this drivers pool which so far they’ve failed, but more importantly, it requires an active internet connection. The paradox of installing a new network adapter which requires a network connection to download a new driver is a good example where this fails.

Microsoft has just patented an idea that solves both of these problems with one stone. Patent application 20080071935, Self-Installing Computer Peripherals for those of you playing at home.

Microsoft patent makes Plug-and-Play smarter – istartedsomething

Filed Under: Ideas Tagged With: device drivers, Microsoft, Patents
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