Hey @You! We are Talking About @You Over Here!

Over the last few years, I have enjoyed watching new sites spring up built around conversations and social engagement. These new social networks, be they about friends (Facebook), business colleagues (LinkedIn or Brazen Careerist), shared interests (MyLikes), shared items (Google Buzz and FriendFeed) or even shared purchases (Blippy), are primarily architected around posted items, and various groupings of gestures (likes) and comments. Practically all of the best sites are now following this model to varying degrees. But some are doing a better job than others of alerting you to your being mentioned or pulling new voices into the conversation. I believe that we are on the cusp of even better improvements to connect people across the Web, no matter where they are.

Take, for example, a basic share on Facebook. Today, when a shared item is added to Facebook, you can add a person's name to the item through their own twist on the familiar Twitter address of an "@reply". You can also tag photos or notes with people's IDs and they will be alerted, either by e-mail, or in their message box.

Facebook Lets You Tag People As You Post Updates

That's a great addition. But if I am making a comment on this entry, I can't refer to anybody in the same way (an @reply), and nor can anybody else. This is the same issue on FriendFeed, where I can copy a connected friend on a native entry, but can't do any kind of @reply to add them after the fact, nor can anybody else.

Facebook and FriendFeed Don't Let You Tag in Conversations

Two sites that do this very well are Google Buzz and Blippy.

Google Buzz has it set up so you can notify somebody they are being talked about by adding the @ symbol ahead of their e-mail address. For example, you can tag me by writing @louisgray@gmail.com in the middle of any thread, and it will resolve to something that looks like @Louis Gray. The catch here is that you need to know the individual's e-mail address, have previously messaged them before through GMail, or you have to open up the person's Google Profile and use their username ahead of Gmail.com to get it right. It absolutely works, but is clunky, with too many steps.

Google Leverages WebFinger in Buzz for Mentions

Blippy's is the very best I've seen so far. Forget about e-mail addresses. If you want to reference another Blippy user, just enter @ and their ID, and a link is added to their profile. For me, as usual, that's just an @louisgray away. I will get notified you mention me, and no doubt, jump into the conversation, or at least see what you were saying. I used that just today to pull Jason Shellen of Thing Labs into a conversation on Brizzly, and in minutes, he was there.

Blippy Lets You @ Users In the Thread

By using this kind of @reply functionality, it takes out some of the guesswork and overdone ego-searching and vanity-searching from network to network. Just as Twitter has integrated mentions as part of their service, this mention functionality is becoming part of how we communicate - and I think we're about to see this taken up a notch thanks to two movements - one being WebFinger and the second being Twitter's @anywhere platform, even if it's not the goal right away for the latter service.

WebFinger is essentially supposed to leverage your e-mail address to aid in providing one true identity that is yours, across the Web. Google Buzz leverages WebFinger to tie back your mentions to your GMail account. If more services were to leverage WebFinger, I could tag your "true identity" in a comment, a blog post, a tweet, a photo, or practically anything else, and there would be no ambiguity in terms of whether I meant you or another person with your name (just like the easy confusion between Louis Gray, tech geek blogger and Louis Gray, Osage Indian senator). The open standard, being promoted by Google engineers, and some others, leverages public profile data to be made complete.

Meanwhile, Twitter's @Anywhere platform is looking to put a thin skin of Twitter on top of some major partner sites, at least at first, letting you follow people from 3rd party sites or let you perform Twitter-related actions outside of Twitter.com. I can see a future where this functionality could in theory be embedded as part of major Web browsers, or via plugins, or on enough sites whereby my mentioning of @ and then your Twitter ID would tie back to your Twitter account. Once that gets turned on, you can forget about just counting @replies and @mentions on Twitter.com, and you would instead get, for example, 2 @mentions from ESPN.com, 3 @mentions from The Huffington Post and 1 @mention on TechCrunch. At this point, Twitter's @anywhere could become the @mention and @reply engine for entire Web.

Any good social media maven knows the best ways to search for their own mentions and see if people are talking about them or linking to their content across the Web. I get real-time notifications if I get mentioned on BackType, and I use IceRocket to see links from around the Web or mentions on Twitter. Google News and Blog alerts still work, even if they seem stale. And yes, Technorati is still alive. But if more sites leveraged the kind of @mention and @reply functionality in a great way, as Blippy and Buzz are starting, and Twitter and WebFinger are promising, we could have an even better, more connected, more participatory Web without demanding constant searching. I'm ready.

Are you ready to see this work, @chrismessina @dewitt @ev @biz @scobleizer @parislemon @kevinrose @paultoo @btaylor @finkd @elatable @daveman692 and @pud?

Apple Sets March 27th Deadline for Apps in iPad App Store

If the runaway success of the iTunes App store has been any indication, Apple is getting ready for an onslaught of new and refined applications from its growing hoard of developers as they jockey for position on what's possibly another big hit - the iPad. Today, Apple sent a note to developers saying they could be included as part of the "iPad App Store", as it is being called, on its grand opening, so long as they submit their app by March 27th, or this upcoming Saturday. The initial apps will be reviewed by Cupertino's App Review Team, who will judge their readiness for the day of unveiling.

Preliminary estimates have said Apple has already sold hundreds of thousands of iPads to eagerly awaiting customers, the vast majority of whom have never seen, let alone touched an iPad, but recognize its significant potential for casual computing and content consumption. Developers, keen not to miss out on what could be Steve Jobs' latest hit, following the iPhone, iPod, iTunes, iMac, and many others in his ten-plus years in his second go at leading the company, are likely salivating at the expanded real estate available on an iPad, when compared to the iPhone, and wouldn't mind becoming one of the many coders who have found financial success through the iTunes store.

Apple's note, sent to iPhone Developer Program members, advises developers to build and test their iPad app using the latest iPhone SDK: 3.2, beta 5, and says only those that use the latest version will be accepted. The app then needs to be submitted through iTunes Connect by 5 p.m. Pacific time on Saturday, March 27th, following which the App Review Team, no doubt under some amount of stress, will e-mail details about your app readiness, and provide feedback on what is needed for final review before the iPad ships.

If developers miss this March 27th date, they will not be considered for the grand opening of the iPad App Store, Apple warns. So if you know an iPhone developer who is looking to hit the iPad on day one, leave them alone for the next week. They've got some work to do.

Twitter Tightens Security With Encryption Expert Hire

On Tuesday, Twitter added computer security veteran Bob Lord to the company's expanding employee roster as the manager of network and infrastructure security, bringing with him 20 years of experience focused on electronic security systems at large companies, most recently including Red Hat, AOL and Netscape. Highlights in Lord's background include his building security and encryption features into the Netscape browser, iPlanet servers (an alliance with Sun and Netscape) and the AOL Communicator product, which also included Mail, Address Book, Instant Messenger and Calendar. Since leaving AOL, Bob has worked with a team of cryptography experts to add security features to many projects including FireFox, Mozilla Thunderbird and Red Hat Linux.

Bob's LinkedIn profile shows praise from colleagues who gave him credit for ensuring successful releases of complex application suites at AOL, as well as his being recognized as a "visionary" with energy and intensity, while at RedHat. Bob is also a patent-holder for his development of temporary digital certificate proxies that can be used for a specific amount of time.

The Obligatory "First Tweet" from the Mothership.

As Twitter's Web site and activity become more critical in the way the planet is communicating, so to will its need increase for security to protect that which is private to remain private, and enable accounts to be secured. It's also not unexpected that the company's core offerings will get increasingly complex - maybe not to the level of AOL Communicator, but expanding nonetheless.

We should be seeing what Bob will be bringing to the Twitter team over the next few years, or just keep tabs on his updates at @boblord.

The SXSW Keynote With Ev Williams You Had Hoped to See

This afternoon, as most of you know, Ev Williams, CEO of Twitter sat down for a much-anticipated and heavily-attended keynote interview at the South By Southwest conference in Austin. After thousands of Twittering geeks and quasi-geeks alike had settled in to the packed exhibition hall and overflow rooms to hear the latest updates delivered straight from Twitter's leader, their excitement soon turned to boredom and finally, severe annoyance, as the interview's pace, tone and content fell well below expectations. After an hour's time, the halls in Austin were more than half empty, and an opportunity to showcase one of technology's biggest successes in the last few decades was for the most part lost.

For a huge number of attendees at SXSW, Twitter epitomizes a new form of communication. Their friends are on it. It's where they chronicle their lives and connect with like-minded people and businesses. That the keynote was the draw of the week would be a dramatic understatement. As I sat upstairs in the Austin Convention Center, letting my laptop get some electricity in anticipation of live-blogging the keynote, the escalators jammed with hopeful starry-eyed nerds awaiting a visit from their blue-tinged oracle.

I have met Ev twice myself, including quickly Sunday night at the Google Reader/Blogger party, exchanging a few pleasantries and shaking hands, but by no means consider us close. That said, I expect I will see him again, while for many of those attending today's event, this could be their first and maybe only time to hear Ev's words directly. He doesn't do major speaking opportunities often, and SXSW is one of the biggest geek meccas of the year. Even if it was not an opportunity to announce something amazing, both Ev and the interviewer would have a huge platform to talk to the audience and be interesting. And they failed. Ev may not be the charismatic leader in the image of Steve Jobs, but he really had no chance, being served a syrupy mosaic of cotton-ball soft questions that dealt with feeling, culture and "awesomeness."

As I summarized the keynote in a running transcript on Google Buzz, I hoped my own fatigue wasn't seeping through the text, but the pedantic non-inquisitive approach had me fidgety, featuring insightful questions such as:

"It was you or Biz that said if it was awesome people would use it, and when you talk about creating something, it is about awesomeness? What is awesomeness for you guys?"

At other points, I wrote... (Questioner keeps agreeing with Ev and saying that's "cool" rather than asking questions) and (Questioner recaps his own previous blog posts).... When I looked up at the conclusion of the keynote, the once-packed overflow room I was in was tired, quiet, and very empty. The row I was sitting in, once packed elbow to elbow, sported five empty chairs to my left, and a pair of folks to my right with a few empty chairs in between. The talk had clearly missed the objective, and people were sorely disappointed, compared to what they had obviously hoped would be something special.

Here's what should have happened.

For me, the keynote speech fell far short, not because the questioner was friendly, but because there was very little substance. One can question a speaker in an interesting way without being contentious. What failed to happen was any detailed questioning into competitive markets, technology, challenges or relations with developers. Instead, we got questions about management principles, overly long descriptions of Wal-Mart, ambition, whether partnerships should be "win-win", or if Twitter could be a force for good.

I respect Ev and think he had hoped for a lot more. I would have challenged him and asked:

1. Has Twitter finally escaped the scalability problems that plagued the service in 2008? If not, what's left to solve, and what kind of technical challenges remain?
   
   
2. There was talk that Facebook once was interested in purchasing Twitter, and you chose to remain independent. How do you see Twitter's role in a world alongside Facebook? Where do you compete and where could you potentially partner? How did their acquisition of FriendFeed change things?
   
   
3. When you saw the launch of Google Buzz, did you feel like the old company you once worked for was looking to stab you in the back?
   
   
4. You talked about being an open company hoping to foster strong developer relations. How can developers on the Twitter platform be sure advances in your own services won't compete with them and put them out of business?
   
   
5. While you have opened up the firehose to select partners for revenue, can anybody who wants to pay gain access to the firehose feed? If not, how do you set the criteria for doing business?
   
   
6. There are many different Twitter clients out there. What are aspects of third-party clients which you like the most? What attributes of these clients can we expect to see in Twitter.com?
   
   
7. The Twitter search engine still is extremely broken and only returns a few days worth of tweets. Will this ever be solved, and how big of a priority is it for your team? What is left to do and how soon can we see the true search engine come online?
   
   
8. The company has recently reversed its approach to a Suggested User List, but as you know, many people on Twitter have followings in six or seven figures that benefited from the old model, and have incredible reach or influence because of that approach. How can the playing field be leveled?
   
   
9. It is assumed that your relationship with Betaworks has also led to your use of Bit.ly as the primary URL shortener on the service. How soon until you purchase Bit.ly outright? Should we also assume closer relationships with other Betaworks companies, such as TweetDeck?
   
   
10. So far, it appears you are avoiding revenue models that include advertising in the stream, similar to Google AdSense, but we have also been promised advertising we will love. Can you explain how this advertising will work, and if I can block it?

To sit down with the CEO of one of the most interesting companies in all of technology and not talk about technology or competition or specific tools in any meaningful way was a dramatic letdown. That the interviewer did not recognize the fatigue of the audience as they scurried out of the cavernous halls was shocking, and now, Ev, who seems to be more on the shy side than the screaming and yelling type, like Steve Ballmer, may think twice about another opportunity, which is unfortunate. I recognize a public interview on such a stage can be a real challenge. We all learned about Sarah Lacy's struggles in that space back in 2007. But those of us who use Twitter and really care about these products deserved more. The SXSW community deserved more. They voted with their feet and they voted with their retweets. While one can remain civil and not throw barbs at the speakers, there was no question this could have gone a lot better than it did, and Twitter will have to promote its new @ Anywhere platform in a better way, for today, it was seriously overshadowed by a train wreck we found ourselves stuck watching.

Gmail Failures, Crazy Ideas and Wave's Leapfrog

On the Web, there is a lot of confusion over where Google Wave fits alongside the recently-introduced Google Buzz, or even if Wave is supposed to be a companion or competitor to Gmail - which could potentially cannibalize the company's extremely visible (and profitable) e-mail business. Today at the SXSW conference, the team leading Gmail said the company has to take risks, learn from mistakes, and yes, even sometimes build products that are in conflict and may replace one another - in the name of keeping competition from doing it themselves.

As it was described this afternoon, Google Wave, which debuted in early beta last year, is a "leapfrog project", which goes beyond today's environment, but is set to impact a future Web. The team working on Wave, as discussed with the product launched, is looking to do more than just build a collaborative service, but to possibly even replace e-mail itself, something the GMail team recognized might seem at conflict to their core mission.

"When people ask if we are cannibalizing our own services, we would rather cannibalize our own services than have other people do it," said Todd Jackson, product manager for Gmail and Google Buzz.

Putting significant resources into disparate product lines that may come to future conflict might seem crazy, or even a bit paranoid, but it sounds like that is par for the course for the team, which said it likes to take big risks, which might not ever see the time of day, or die when they do. In fact, we learned today that Google Buzz's original incarnation began several years ago.

"Most of the things we try fail," said Jonathan Perlow, software engineer on the Gmail front end, responsible for GMail Chat and Mail Goggles. "We have lots of things that are false starts. We recently launched Google Buzz, and it had some false starts before it launched. We started something like Buzz around when we launched chat four years ago. Good ideas live on, and you figure it out."

Figuring things out for the Gmail team can be very quick. The team boasted of a close-knit engineering environment where ideas can be discussed and coded quickly, and where meetings are the exception rather than regular practice.

But while most failures for Gmail have occurred in testing and not made it outside of the walls of Mountain View, the initial failures for Buzz happened thanks to the team making some core mistakes and not having a testbed of real-world users, relying too heavily on their open corporate mentality.

"Gmail thought that e-mail and chat networks were also the social networks, and we missed the boat there," said Jackson. "(Autofollow) worked really well within Google in a trusted environment. Googlers rarely used block."

While Gmail's focus has changed over the last six years with the additions of Chat, Buzz, user interface updates and other features, the product initially aimed with three main goals: enable users to never delete e-mail, have a spam filter that really works, and build a Web interface with the level of quality of a desktop application - concepts that nobody knew how to do, but wanted to accomplish anyway.

"One of the lessons I learned is that when we start with ideas that are crazy at the time, but we thought we could do, they would be pretty great for users, said Perlow. "They had no idea how to build these things, but had to figure it out."