Some advice to Twitter

Yesterday Twitter reported on earnings and the stock went down in after market trading where the explanation I read was that investors were concerned with user growth, as it was beneath market expectations.

I'm not surprised.

I really like Twitter and LOVE recent advances, like being able to embed tweets into posts which I've used, and the new profile. If you wish to see mine, you can check:

twitter.com/jstevh

And I like to tweet, and checking now for this post I see I have 4237 tweets. But tweeting is providing content, and I think Twitter fails to understand how hard that can be so I'll talk about YouTube with advice for Twitter.

Can you imagine if YouTube behaved like Twitter? Then it wouldn't count views much, only people putting up videos! Do you have videos on YouTube?

I actually do. They're more like test videos and checking for this post, I have 61 views. But at least I can check to see how many views I have! I cannot tell you how many people have viewed my tweets as Twitter doesn't tell me.

Can you imagine if YouTube behaved that way? Then we wouldn't know the most viewed videos on YouTube!!!

If they behaved like Twitter we would know the most shared videos, as sharing is equivalent to re-tweeting.

Quite simply Twitter doesn't appreciate the content value of tweets and still behaves as if they're mostly throw-away communications between two individuals versus being rich content in their own right.

The inability to see the true value of tweets and to give respect to tweet viewers as well as producers is I think the biggest current problem that is restricting the company.

If YouTube behaved like Twitter it would appear to have a growth problem as well, as its user numbers would be pathetic with lots of people signed up versus the number posting videos.

So, my advice to Twitter is to accept users who do not tweet but view tweets as being valuable to the company just like YouTube accepts people who post no videos!

And I believe more people will sign up for Twitter if they don't feel like they are pressured to tweet.

It can be demoralizing I'm sure to look at very few followers or very few tweets and feel like you just don't belong.

I'm not sure how Twitter can make those folks feel welcome even if they're not tweeting into the thousands, but I suggest they think of a way.

And please give analytics information for those people who DO love to tweet, so people can see which tweets are doing great beyond just re-tweets or favorites. Views are passive. Re-tweets and favorites are active behaviors.

Most viewers are not going to engage in an active behavior with tweets beyond looking at one, just like most people don't engage actively with videos on YouTube beyond looking at them, yet YouTube tells us views anyway.

Thanks Twitter for doing a great job, and my advice is just my opinion which I like to throw out there.

Talk is a lot easier than helping hundreds of millions of people communicate around the world! So I will note that my thinking is mine and may not represent the best path. Others may agree or disagree.

It's just so much fun to throw ideas out there.


James Harris

In data identification?

Had an idea yesterday about sites adding a user's identifying identification onto a photo that is sent back to that user, and began to wonder this morning if it's a new idea--which I doubt--and also to consider how it can be done with just about any data.

The reality when you use the web is that your computing device sends a request for data to some server somewhere. That server if it honors that request sends you the requested information back. It conceivably could add information identifying you into that information, if it had it, within the data it sends back to you!

Like with my original photo idea, your user ID if you were known to the site could be imprinted on the photo, either visibly, or near visible, or invisible as a watermark. That would only matter if you shared as it could let people trace back sharing to the source, if it were copyrighted material.

One cool thing is that there are no privacy issues, as it's the user's own identification being sent back to them. If data isn't being encrypted, then that probably isn't a problem as if they requested the data via an unencrypted stream then they already sent that exact same type data. So you're just reflecting back, removing privacy concerns. If they share later then they broke their own privacy, not you.

Of course one might argue that people could simply remove the data before sharing.

Yup, if they knew how!

If everybody did it differently, then it would be difficult for some app to be built that could remove every way it might be done, and for most users, sites could have a reasonable expectation that they could trace back illegal sharing rather accurately, with a narrow group of superusers at the fringe with whom there would be a constant war to figure out ways to imprint they couldn't find.

But that's just what I'm thinking this morning after an idea yesterday which occurred to me while I started thinking about the subject wondering how you might keep up with who is sharing your photos.

I have these kinds of ideas ALL the time. I don't necessarily take them too seriously, but will just toss them up, as kind of a brainstorming exercise.

If not new, ok. If is new, why? It's so simple!

Idea is free.

Hmmm...have decided to call it: in-Data Dynamic Identification. Or IDDI for short.


James Harris

Why not imprint ID on photos?

The issue of photos being shared without attribution is one where I think I can put up a free idea which makes a lot of sense to me: why not when a person views a photo automatically imprint ID information on it?

So like if I go to a website and view a photo, what it displays automatically includes say my user ID on that site or my IP address, which is MY info so no privacy issues!

If I choose to share that photo then I end up giving that information away on my own, so it could be an option for sites where they don't want people to share and tell them.

So it shouldn't be automatic like if you want people to share or don't care who is the source of a photo.

The info could be a watermark, or something that doesn't even have to be visible.

Just an idea I thought I'd throw out there.


James Harris

Google Translate feature on blog

To help readers who do not speak English or who would like to read in a different language other than English the blog has the Google Translate feature which is just above the posts. To use it, simply select your preferred language in the drop-down box.

I like this feature because I have a lot of readers coming from lots of different countries but only speak English fluently.

Would appreciate any comments on how it is working for you! (Or not.)

Oh yeah, for those curious about why that feature should help, checking Google Analytics now, it shows me that people from 23 countries have visited in the last 30 days.


James Harris

Why not a Java sandbox?

One of those things I've finally admitted to myself is some frustrations with how Java is being handled, especially with regard to the negative news on security. And I'm going to go out of my area with a suggestion about a sandbox, but it lets me discuss some issues related to my own open source project Class Viewer so I'll go for it.

Security is of course a big deal and I think finding ways to make it easy for developers is a great approach, where I don't think it's easy right now with Java and mostly I ignore the issue.

So my Class Viewer can't be run as an applet now because I haven't bothered with security certificates, and I've been paranoid that eventually they might block it from calling applications where now it calls the browser and can call a text editor, as well as open files where it looks for its own xml configuration file and Java files.

There is no interest from the app in calling anything else, so I'm like, why can't there be a sandbox where applications like mine can operate without security being an issue because they're isolated from anything dangerous on the device?

And a Java sandbox could have things like pictures, music and video, where access is open, but an app can't go wandering off into other things like system files.

As vague as that may sound it might be as simple as having an application tell the JVM that it is in a sandbox so that it has clearance, and then only being allowed access to files in certain folders, with system file folders always excluded.

Or I guess, as like I said, it's not really in my area. But it seems to me that in a security conscious world, Java should make it easy for any developer to handle security.

Currently I've not done a lot with much of the structure in Java for meta-information around the build either, so my app doesn't tell you things like build information in the meta. I'm debating adding that info but it seems like useless work for the developer that the compiler could do, like with: javac SampleFile.java -build

Then the compiler could add the next build number and make that entire freaking set of info that doesn't interest me most of the time. Oh yeah, and if I DO decide to do more with security, how do I get a certificate for Class Viewer anyway?

And should I think better about a certain company I will not name with the hard task of managing Java?

I really want success with one of the most valuable intellectual items out there as the Java language just keeps amazing me for what it can do. But I now cringe every time I read someone knocking it, where lately it's been about security.

I want that opening for haters against the language closed. And I don't see myself thinking better about a certain company until that's done.


James Harris