TECH CRUNCH
STEVE GILLMOR
24 NOV 08
If Twitter wants to make money, it needs to do to others what they’ve been trying to do to Twitter. That is, extend its lead in market share by solving the problem of cross-platform micromessaging. With activity streams from Facebook, Microsoft, MySpace, FriendFeed, and a score of smaller players flowing over RSS, XMPP, and HTTP Push, Twitter can consolidate its power by cloning the best of its competitors’ offerings.
Key to this jujitsu is the understanding of what constitutes a micromessage. Though Twitter’s competitors for the most part frame the issue as one of interoperability, in fact Twitter is in the unique position to define the platform on its own terms. If Twitter provides tools that allow users to integrate their messages, social graph, and discovery mechanisms with all other systems, Twitter in effect becomes the Post Office of the new messaging paradigm.