Williams and Stone: The Twitter Revolution - WSJ.com

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"Twitter is the side project that took," says company co-founder Biz Stone, 35. "Now it's our chance to do something transformative."

[The Weekend Interview] Ismael Roldan

Biz Stone (left) and Evan Williams.

When I arrive at Twitter's headquarters on a recent morning, Jerry Brown is waiting in the lobby -- just another day at the world's hottest high-tech company. "It's pretty bizarre," says co-founder Evan Williams, 37. "At least once per day we look at each other and say, 'What the hell?' It's like we're living out the script of the ultimate start-up company story."

But other than the familiar face of California's attorney general standing near the steel front door, you would hardly know that this little company of about 30 employees is the epicenter of the Web, used by an estimated 20 million Americans on a daily -- even minute-by-minute -- basis. Just how fast Twitter is growing is a company secret, but its traffic appears to be more than doubling every month.

The company itself seems calm and casual. The employees drift in, grab some free food and eventually make their way to their desks. It's located in an anonymous warehouse just a couple blocks from South Park, the once-frenzied environs of the dot-com companies of the first Internet boom. In his sports shirt and slacks, sipping a bottle of apple juice, Mr. Williams exhibits indifference to the trappings of success. So does Mr. Stone, who last year won an Oxford Union debate wearing a borrowed bow tie and a pair of black sneakers.

The company is hiring like crazy -- it expects to double its size in the next month or two -- and is also adding a senior management, notably new vice-president of global operations Santosh Jayaram, hired away from Google. "We've never had a company that grew past 15 to 20 people," says Mr. Stone, "We're kind of excited about that."

Even faster than Google, Amazon and eBay in their days, the three-year-old Twitter has become deeply embedded in the culture. President Barack Obama twittered the words, "We just made history," on the night of his election. It was a twittered image that first captured the forced landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. Scores of people trapped in the Mumbai terrorist attack twittered desperately for help. And in a much discussed event, a San Francisco technology writer twittered his surprise to discover his home was being broken into.

Strictly speaking, Twitter is a social networking application that enables users to post short text messages -- called "tweets" -- of no more than 140 characters on their personal feed. These real-time diary entries can then be read by other users, called "followers," who have subscribed to that page.

But Twitter is much more than a novel way to share updates of one's daily life with friends. It's now evolved into a powerful new marketing and communications tool. Regional emergency preparedness organizations are looking at Twitter as a way to reach millions of people during a disaster. NASA is using it to regularly update interested parties about the status of space shuttle flights. And one journalist solicited help from fellow Twitterers to get himself out of an Egyptian jail. (It worked.)

The real Twitter revolution may prove to be much more everyday. When I stop for a latte at Peet's Coffee on the way to the interview, the manager tells me that he plans to start sending out tweets to let regular customers know when a table is open. He isn't alone. A Manhattan bakery twitters when warm cookies come out of the oven. "It's those small stories that really inspire us," says Mr. Stone. "Those are the things that transform people's lives."

Mr. Stone vividly remembers the first time he appreciated the power of Twitter. He and his now-wife had just bought a house in Berkeley and, having spent the day scraping up carpet and painting walls, he was tired and sweaty. "That's when I got a twitter from Ev saying, 'Up in Sonoma drinking pinot noir after a massage.' I just started laughing. That's when I realized that this technology could be entertaining too," as opposed to a basic communications tool, he says.

"It took us a while to figure out that it really was a big deal," says Mr. Williams. It was at the annual South by Southwest tech conference/music festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2008, that the social power of Twitter came home to the co-founders. "I found myself watching groups of people twittering each other to coordinate their actions -- which bar to go to, which speech to attend -- and it was like seeing a flock of birds in motion," says Mr. Stone.

As with many Web entrepreneurs, Messrs. Williams and Stone took unconventional paths to success.

Mr. Williams was born on a soybean, corn and cattle farm near Clarks, Neb., (pop. 361), where he attended the single public school there. In a class of just 14, he took part in everything from sports to band ("In a school that small, everyone does it all," he says.) But he was an indifferent student and felt like a black sheep at home, too. His father and brother loved to farm and hunt, while Evan, a vegetarian, preferred to read and ponder schemes for building enterprises.

Eventually he made it to the University of Nebraska, but he never declared a major, took as few classes as possible, and eventually dropped out. In the years that followed, Mr. Williams drifted around the country -- Key West, Dallas, Austin -- working various technology jobs and trying to pursue start-ups. But every time he got started on one idea, some new idea would pop into his head, luring him away and preventing him from ever following through on a project. "It was turning into a constant pattern," Mr. Williams recalls.

By 1996, Mr. Williams found himself back on the family farm, with little money and few prospects. "I was in the dumps," he recalls. He had long worshipped California's Silicon Valley from afar, and now, with nothing to lose, he decided to move there. "Unfortunately, my aim was a little off," he says, since he landed in the farming town of Sebastopol in Marin County, working for the old-guard media/conference firm O'Reilly Inc.

In the end, that proved fortuitous. What began as a marketing job ended up as an independent contractor job writing computer code, and in short order, Mr. Williams parlayed that into freelance work with legendary Valley companies like Intel and Hewlett-Packard. "For the first time, I learned what it was like to work in an office and have a normal career. To be in real meetings. I also learned that I didn't want to do that."

Did Mr. Williams ever feel that there was something wrong with his inability to hold a traditional job? "No," he says. "I always figured there was something wrong with everybody else."

In 1999, Mr. Williams teamed up with another contractor, Meg Hourihan, and founded Pyra Labs to make management software. A much admired product which allowed managers to handle complex projects online, Pyra earned him a reputation as a brilliant entrepreneur who didn't know how to make money. "The truth is," Mr. Williams protests, "we had revenues from the first day . . . there just wasn't enough of them." It should have ended in yet another business failure -- but in computer parlance, Mr. Williams decided to 'turn a bug into a feature.' This meant taking one of his distracting brainstorms and turning it into a company.

The new company, called Blogger.com -- Mr. Williams invented the term -- which was developed from a note-taking application on Pyra, was the original blog prototype. It proved to be one of the few successes of the era. Better yet, Mr. Williams even managed to nail down some real venture investment just as the bubble burst.

Mr. Williams finally had a real company and real money. Now he needed a team.

Enter Christopher Isaac "Biz" Stone. Raised in Wellesley, Mass., Mr. Stone had an early love for graphic arts and theater. But at the University of Massachusetts, he too had proven to be a distracted student, and when a job at publisher Little, Brown evolved from moving boxes to designing book covers, Mr. Stone dropped out of college. In the years that followed, he, like Mr. Williams, discovered a natural gift for Web design and programming. In fact, the two young men had admired each other's work from opposite coasts.

So when Evan invited Biz to join Blogger, Biz moved West. He arrived just in time to get the news that Google decided to acquire Blogger. Messrs. Williams and Mr. Stone, neither of whom technically qualified for the CV-obsessed company, were suddenly Google employees.

The gig lasted 20 months and both men say they thoroughly enjoyed it. Mr. Williams even met his future wife at the firm. But the entrepreneurship gene couldn't be denied forever. And in 2005, both men decided to strike out on their own. "It was about the toughest decision I ever made," recalls Mr. Stone, "and if I'd known how high Google stock would go, I'm not sure I would have made it."

Once out of Google, Mr. Williams teamed with another entrepreneur, Noah Glass, to found Odeo, a podcasting company. It was a brilliant plan -- until Apple decided to offer its own podcasting application in iTunes. Says Biz, who had also joined the firm, "I remember asking Evan, 'Do you really want to be the King of Podcasting?' And he said, 'No.' And that was it." Looking back, Mr. Williams says, "I didn't follow my gut. I intellectualized myself into Odeo."

Mr. Williams had taken venture capital money to build Odeo and to change its business model, and he had to buy out those investors with a big chunk of his Blogger cash. Once again abandoning the main idea for a sidelight, he transformed Odeo into Twitter by stripping down and selling off the podcasting component and keeping the social-networking tool -- the last a concept proposed by Jack Dorsey, now Twitter chairman.

Under the guise of a fun communications tool, Twitter is building one of the world's most valuable real-time information caches. And as Twitter's profile continues to explode -- Oprah just sent her first tweet on yesterday's show -- many wonder whether the company will ever find a revenue model. Others speculate about who will buy the young company (Google seems to be the leading candidate). "We know there are a lot of people looking at Twitter right now," says Mr. Stone.

For now, Messrs. Williams and Stone are keeping their plans secret. With patient investors who just put in $35 million in third-round funding, the company is in no hurry. Mr. Stone will only say that "we are enamored with the idea of going all the way." Adds Mr. Williams: "We want to have as large an impact as possible."

Mr. Williams says that the amount of money it would take to buy Twitter right now is more than any company could justify to its shareholders, but suggests three other possible scenarios. First, that Twitter could go public -- probably without him, as he has little interest in running a public company. Second, Twitter could remain private and somehow buy out its investors. Or third, they discover some other option no one has thought of yet.

Of course, there's still one more possibility: Yet another one of Mr. Williams's "obsessive distractions," as he calls them. Lately, he's been pondering a way to revolutionize email.

Mr. Malone's new book on protean corporations, "The Future Arrived Yesterday" will be published next month by Crown Business.

Emerce - Business nieuws: Grote belangstelling Twitter multinationals

Grote belangstelling Twitter multinationals


  Verscheidene multinationals tonen belangstelling om berichtendienst Twitter op grote schaal in te zetten voor klantcontact.

Ford, JetBlue, Microsoft en Pepsi behoren tot de eerste grote gebruikers van CoTweet. Het startende bedrijf staat medewerkers van deze ondernemingen toe om Twitter-contacten met klanten te beheren, monitoren en op te volgen.

Tijdens The Next Web-conferentie in Amsterdam zei directeur Jesse Engle dat er nu al, in de nog  besloten testfase, 560 berichten per uur worden verstuurd. De webdienst heeft 1.000 gebruikers. Vierduizend ondernemingen hebben zich aangemeld om de dienst te gebruiken zodra deze officieel van start gaat.  

InCT - Nieuws - Telecompaper gaat in zee met Liones

Telecompaper gaat in zee met Liones
Telecompaper, uitgeverij en onderzoeksbureau voor de internationale telecomsector, heeft Liones, internetbureau voor uitgevers, gekozen als internetpartner. Liones neemt per direct het beheer van alle bestaande applicaties over. Ook voor de doorontwikkeling van bestaande en lancering van nieuwe websites en applicaties wordt Liones verantwoordelijk.

Ruime ervaring met online uitgeven
In Liones heeft Telecompaper een ervaren partner gevonden waarmee men zich nog
verder kan versterken op het gebied van online uitgeven. Telecompaper heeft bewust voor Liones gekozen vanwege de kennis en ervaring van Liones in de uitgeverijsector. Naast de adviserende rol op het gebied van online uitgeven ligt het technische aspect van de opdracht van Telecompaper bij Liones in goede handen.

Ed Achterberg (CEO Telecompaper): "Liones heeft onze situatie vanaf dag één goed ingeschat en weten te vertalen naar een helder voorstel. Ik veronderstel dat de ervaring van Liones met het uitgeven op internet ook Telecompaper ten goede zal komen".
Jan Benedictus (directeur Liones): "Met onze jarenlange expertise op uitgeefgebied zijn we in staat om websites te realiseren die zichtbare verbeteringen leveren in termen van omzet, kostenbesparing en klanttevredenheid. Dat geldt ook voor Telecompaper alhoewel we goed beseffen dat we van Telecompaper ook weer veel kunnen leren. Het mes snijdt in dit partnerschap aan twee kanten."

Ik was vandaag om een heel andere reden bij Liones. De pay-off 'Internet burau voor uitgevers' wordt met dit partnerschap bevestigd. Persoonlijk vraag ik me iedere dag weer af waarom uitgevers zoveel moeite hebben met cross mediaal en online. Het is hoogtijd dat uitgevers beseffen dat papier en inkt niet meer zin dan dragers en de codering van informatie. De wereld is digitaal en dat is echt veel makkelijker om drager en informatie te combineren. Een door de zure apple heen bijten en dan gewoon weer doen waar de uitgever goed in is, zinvolle (?) informatie verpakken en verspreiden op een manier die de ontvanger bevalt, dus gewoon uitgeven.

Climatweet — Local weather updates to your Twitter account

Climatweet Overview

With Climatweet you can get weather updates sent to your Twitter account daily. All weather updates sent in @reply format are sent from forecastweet, we recommend that you do NOT follow this account. When you sign up at Climatweet, we Direct Message you a site password. This password is used to update your weather settings. If you ever forget your password, you can reply @climatweet password and have it messaged to you again. View all tips and tricks.

Twitter Backs London-Based Marketing Company Twitterpartners; A Business Model At Last?

Twitter Backs London-Based Marketing Company Twitterpartners; A Business Model At Last?

By Patrick Smith - Wed 08 Apr 2009 02:24 AM PST

imageIt has phenomenal growth and faddish mainstream buzz but maybe now—finally—someone may start to make money from Twitter. Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED), the Parlophone-signed band Gorillaz, Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) and Paramount are among the eight brands signed up for the launch of Twitterpartners, a consortium set up to manage companies’ reputations and profiles on the micro-blogging site. NMA reports that Twitter is backing the company and is taking an equity stake in the business. Twitterpartners is a privately-held, London-based business founded in March this year, according to a Companies House search.

The man behind the scheme is Music Nation chairman and former VNU/Nielsen Entertainment Group president Peter Read, who as chairman has brought on a stellar cast of advisors: Lastminute.com founders Martha Lane Fox and Brent Hoberman are on board as are Lovefilm co-founder Saul Klein and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) EVP Toby Coppel.

The service, which launched this week, has 12 ad agency partners already including Unamis and Salesforce and says it is “building a suite of apps, tools and services to help brands, media companies, and celebrities harness the power of the Twitter ecosystem.” Countless brands, companies and celebs already use Twitter to flagrantly publicise themselves—but this a formal ad partnership business designed to boost profiles and run properly researched campaigns the 140-character way, using traditional marketing strategies. Read says, via NMA: “Ad placements can’t be bought on Twitter at the moment. But our relationship helps to broker brands onto the platform as we have detailed exposure to what works.” More after the jump…

Read adds that Twitter remains a technology company with about 30 staff and while its excited about approaches from record labels and the like, “it doesn’t have the people to handle this interest, so it’s happy to send them our way.”. Further ahead, Twitterpartners will move into launching commercial Twitter products in partnership with its brands. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) recently allowed advertisers to stream Tweets on its AdSense network, so there may still be a direct ad revenue route for Twitter yet—but it seems much more likely is that the instant information sharing aspect of the service is used to promote brands through partnerships like this.