Strategy in the information technology space is a lot like game theory – or at least it’s like kid’s game theory. The normal inclination of companies is to acquire other companies in order to grow. This is especially true when the target of an acquisition has a capability that you lack in your own service portfolio.
But during times of economic distress, it’s hard to cost-justify such an acquisition. At the same time, it is very hard to justify a “buy” when you aren’t quite sure how federal regulators will perceive such an acquisition. Enter kids games… If you remember Red Rover, you know that sometimes you call a weak player just to get numbers on your side. And then sometimes you call a strong and pivotal player with the hopes of building your own line. During economic situations like we are facing today, a courageous company may just try and call another company to come play on their team.
Last night, Twitter announced that they will be playing in the OAuth games. For those not intimately familiar with OAuth, it is an open authentication model that promotes application authentiaction and data sharing. OAuth is not the same thing as OpenID (which is for user/personal authentication). At the same time, they DID NOT annouce support for OpenID.
Why is this important? Well, user/personal authentication goes straight to the heart of your customer base. If you maintain your own user database, then you can leverage that base directly. If you rely upon someone else’s user database (e.g., Google or Yahoo’s users), then you can’t directly tap that base – at least, not as easily. So I’m not suprised that Twitter is signaling OAuth. They want to have a broader reach of interoperatiblity. Unlike Facebook, Twitter doesn’t have a “platform” to exploit. So it is in their interests to play on a field where other company’s can agree to work in a friendly (coopetition-based) model.
It also makes sense that they aren’t announcing any plans for OpenID. Twitter just said “no” to becoming an appendage on someone else’s platform. But they aren’t big enough to do the same thing that Facebook wanted to do (i.e., buy others and build themselves). This is especially true since there isn’t a LOT of spare VC funding these days. So Twitter will keep its user base and “play nice” with others – for now.
By announcing OAuth support, Twitter is making itself an even bigger target. But this time, they may be the target of a different corporation – and it smells like an infrastructure player might be in the mix. Specifically, I see either Google or Yahoo! making a play (hostile or otherwise) for Twitter. Personally, I think that Google is trying to bring Twitter into their universe. It would make Google an even more compelling services “platform” if they had a “partner” who could pull the micro-blogging crowd into orbit.
Is Google thinking about it? Who knows? But they are certainly a big player in OAuth. Their entire OpenSocial initiative hinges on the success of OAuth. And recent posts by Google seem to indicate that they want to “play nice” with other companies and other services. If nothing else, maybe they can drive more services to rely upon Google infrastructure (i.e., not their search infrastructure).
At the same time, Yahoo! might surprise us. Their new CEO wants to make a big splash. And there could be no bigger splash than an outright pruchase of Twitter by Yahoo! I hope that this does not happen. But if I were the CEO at Yahoo!, I’d really be tempted.
-Roo
Tag: Twitter
Realtime Reporting Is Evolving…
…towards realtime collaboration. And the transition is exciting.
Yesterday was a busy day at work. It’s the busy time of year in the tax preparation business. And I’m always multitasking: planning for next year’s systems, supporting systems we’ve deployed this year, and consulting on systems that are experiencing trouble at any given moment.
But even on busy days, there is time to multitask on other matters. I knew that the Republican National Committee was holding their election for the new committee chairman. And I really wanted to watch what was happening – in realtime. As someone who uses social media as an avocation, I knew that there were ways of getting realtime feeds of data. I did a little checking and found that three or four of my favorite commentators were live-blogging the event. So I was quite excited.
I remember when I used to go to state conventions and state committee meetings. That was quite a while ago. When I used to attend, there really were smoke-filled rooms. Of course, many had smoke in them because I used to smoke a pipe. But that’s a different story… In the past, only an annointed few individuals were privvy to the rooms where important decisions were made. If you were lucky, an enterprising reporter might post a story in a local paper. And a few folks could get telephone updates from friends who were at the venue. But you never had any realtime view into the process.
That all changed with the advent of the worldwide web. And those changes accelerated with the introduction of blogs. If you knew someone who was attending, you could get an update of events within a few hours. And that was wonderful. But while you could receive data faster, it was an evolution and not a revolution.
But the last four years have seen some important changes. First, wireless phones have introduced the ability to get instant feedback (via SMS or the web). Second, text messages have been augmented with the addition of rich media – including both audio and video. Thid, everyone has these devices. So anyone in attendance at a meeting can communicate. These three shifts in communications have enabled everything I saw yesterday. And live blogging has been a real difference maker.
This week’s RNC meeting was something altogether different. Not only was there good communications (despite WiFi troubles at the hotel), but communications became multi-dimensional. Live blogging has always meant that realtime posts could be sent from conferences and meetings. But microblogging (using Twitter, Friendfeed and other tools) has meant that short and pithy bursts of info could be sent in realtime. More importantly, short messages could be sent form the outside to the inside of the venue. And this simple fact transformed everything.
I was sitting in Kansas City. I was not in the meeting room. But there were a few dozen people who were there and who were twittering the event. And these people provded multiple views (and voices) about what was transpiring. And I heard the voices of various operatives from many of the different candidates. But more importantly, I and other people could send questions or engage in realtime conversations about what was transpiring. This made those “on the outside” seem to be part of the process. This fact alone should increase excitement and participation by those who couldn’t otherwise attend. But I am sure that many people at the venue used the feedback from the remote audience as a means of gauging what the common folk might think of what was going on behind closed doors.
Of course, the only folks who were engaged in the #rncchair discussions on Twitter were twitterati and cognoscenti. But these folks were a fantastic proving ground for the technology. And the growing applicability of this technology was apparent to all. Folks who had broadband connectivity and a larger screen were at a tremendous advantage. They could provide and receive far more information for their use. I am sure that the various candidates’ teams had various levels of technology. And those with a good handle on the technology (i.e., those who posessed smartphones like iPhones and BlackBerries) were at an even great advantage. [Note: It was clear that Saul Anuzis’ team stayed in the race for a long time because he had mastered many of the communications channels available to him.]
As technology becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous, more and more people will gain more and more advantage from these technologies. And as the software and services become even more accessible (i.e., less complex) even more people will be able to take advantage of realtime participation.
In the end, the technology alone did not make a deterministic difference. Michael Steels won the race because he had a good plan and he executed it quite effectively. Many folks will point to a specific reason that they think was critical for Steele’s success. I won’t be so bold. I wasn’t there. But I know that Michael Steele didn’t lose the race due to an insufficient grasp on the communications technologies at his disposal. Indeed, why else do you think Michael Steels was so visible as a Fox News contributor? He knew the imporance of using communications tools to energize his base while broadening his reach. And the communications tools available to us today helped to make that possible.
I’ll leave each of you the assignment to determine why Michael Steele won the chairmanship. In the meantime, I used a variety of tools to stay”in the know” – Twitter, hashtags (specifically, #rncchair and #tcot), Twitter search (at http://search.twitter.com) and Twitterfall (http://www.twitterfall.com). Twitterfall is fantastic. It provided a realtime rolling (or falling) ticker of a particular conversation thread. I was able to see who the talkers were as well as see who I should be following.
And for those interested in metrics… By getting involved in this one event, I saw my overall follower count (on Twitter) grow by over 20%. Of course, I started from a small base, but the real numbers were nonetheless impressive.
Finally, I would like to reinforce an important point: I do like to send “thank you’s” to the folks that followed me as a result of this event. I use SocialToo.com as a means of responding to all new followers. It is a great tool to help “personalize” the process of nurtturing your following. If you didn’t receive a “Thank You’ from me, drop me a note and I’ll send you a personalized email with my warmest thanks..
-Roo