Betting on the Real-Time Web. John Borthwick speaks softly, but he can't hide his excitement. Co-founder and chief executive of the New York Internet media incubator betaworks, Borthwick is an investor in the microblogging phenomenon Twitter, where people exchange short public messages called tweets. Betaworks is also building or investing in at least 21 other companies mining the "real-time Web. " That's the term coined to describe the exploding number of live social activities online, from tweets to status updates on Facebook to the sharing of news, Web links, and videos on myriad other sites.
"It's a whole new layer of innovation that's opening up on the Web," he says. It's also a whole new field of dreams for entrepreneurs and investors. Amid the downsized remains of Web 2.0, with online advertising and e-commerce in a drought, they're viewing the real-time Web as the Internet's Next Big Thing—maybe even the source of the next Google (GOOG). Are people getting ahead of themselves? Twitter Planning to Implement OpenMicroblogging Standard. By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed) For those that follow me here or on my personal blog, you know I'm a big fan of open standards for microblogging. I even left Twitter for Identi.ca and FriendFeed for a short time partly because of this. The concept of "OpenMicroblogging" is simple - if your microblogging service supports it, I can then subscribe to any user on any other microblogging service that supports it, and then follow those users right on the microblogging service I'm most familiar with.
It is a protocol, similar to TCP/IP, the same protocol websites use to communicate with your browser over the internet. Currently, Microblogging is a very closed model. We all know what happened to AOL and Compuserve. Enter Twitter Twitter is at risk of the same fate AOL and Compuserve met. It appears Twitter may just be learning from AOL's mistakes however.
Real time, real discussion, real reporting: choose two. As you likely know, Tiger Woods was in an accident under apparently mysterious circumstances early Friday morning. Predictably, the reports and reactions thereto pertaining varied somewhat in quality and timeliness, and predictably, this has led to paroxysms of futurist glee in some and sullen condemnation by others. Now that the smoke has cleared, we can examine the event, which is certainly worth a little inspection despite its obvious triviality, with a little perspective. I’m not going to speculate on Woods’ injuries, the cause of the crash, or rumors of fights and affairs. I don’t care, personally. But how the information proliferated makes for interesting dissection. Thus far fact. Since this is a blog ostensibly covering tech and Web 2.0, we should probably talk about Twitter first. Twitter: real-time discussion MG has already lionized Twitter in this affair, and rightly so.
Twitter’s mode of operation is a lot like that of fire. But that’s where Twitter’s role ends. This Is Why The Internet (And Twitter) Wins. Undoubtedly by now you’ve heard about Tiger Woods’ car crash. Early reports had him in serious condition (which remember, is better than critical condition) after he apparently hit a fire hydrant and a tree while leaving his home in his SUV. The latest reports say he has been released from the hospital and is “fine.” But I’m not going to speak to any of that because that’s not what we do (you can find out more here). Instead, as I’m watching this unfold infront of my eyes on the Internet, I’m reminded that this type of story is exactly why the web is destroying newspapers, and should eventually even take down television and the main source of news for most people.
I first heard the news via a BNOnews bulletin sent via push notification to my iPhone. I immediately pulled up Twitter and already some 10-15 people had retweeted it and the news was appearing in my stream. The message read, “BULLETIN — REPORT: FAMED GOLFER TIGER WOODS SERIOUSLY INJURED AFTER CRASH NEAR FLORIDA HOME.”