Twitter Needs Two Channels

December 3, 2008 · Comments

bullhorn guy In thinking a bit more about cafe-shaped conversations, I’m wary of how Twitter (and by twitter, I mean one-to-many communications platforms, because let’s agree that Twitter is generation 1 of something not yet fully realized), wary of how Twitter can become quite a lot of noise and not enough signal. The thing is this: Twitter is two things- the commons and a platform. I think we need a two-channel Twitter.

Disclaimer First

Dear Ev and Jack and Biz – I am not in the Twitter needs lots of features camp. I am not. We saw what that did to the others. You made the right move, even when every pundit was clamoring for more. So, please, it’s okay to disregard this advice along with the rest. Maybe I’m just using you as a placeholder for *.next-wave-of-what-Twitter-has-shown-us-should-exist.

Two Channels: Commons and the Platform

The commons is all the @ messages, all the “I love Newman’s Own Organic Coffee at McDonalds” tweets. It’s the place where the real relationship building happens. The platform is where one says those things that might be of value, or of informational impact, of serious-ish and worthwhile note.

This permits people to opt into one of three types of feeds: commons only, platform only, or everything. It’s similar to the “only show me @ messages for people I’m subscribed to” option.

Some people love the commons. There’s a whole lot of people who want to have the full-featured conversation inside Twitter. I do. I love it all. I like the variety.

But others don’t want to use Twitter this way. They want it to be a very powerful platform for conveying data. That’s fine, too. Nothing wrong with that. I think there are lots of different ways people are looking to use the service.

Why This is Harder Than Just Satisfying Me

  • There’s no mechanism in SMS for this. So a tweet from SMS would get dumped into whatever the default was (presuming the commons).

  • It means a rewrite to the API.
  • It means more rows in the database.
  • It means a lot of app changes, and some usage changes.

Why It Just Might Be Worth It

Because the same functionality, some kind of “gate” factor, would allow for on-the-fly groups, would allow for “team-only” messaging, and would allow for some features I haven’t even really considered in this post.

One More Thing

How I would do the Commons and the Platforms segregation would be as follows:

  • Tweet without a prefix: commons.
  • P [body of tweet] – Platform
  • C [body of tweet] – Commons

Similar to the DM function, D, and the @ function, @chrisbrogan. Just give a P and a C function call.

**Update: Per Howard Greenstein’s comment, I had another idea. What about “E” for emergency information. Used like:

E They just bombed Mumbai!!! (which should pop to the “alert” status) or whatever. Things like Amber alerts and the like would be in this category.

Throw stones. Agree. Disagree.

Photo credit, Gabu Chan

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  • T = P * C 2

    Brilliant!
  • Good talking points, bringing this up on TheSocialGeeks podcast that we are recording right now! Thanks for a great topic!
  • Meryl333
    I don't know what the blazes you are talking about. Seems like a complicating solution rather than a simplifying one.
  • @Meryl333 - here's a rundown.

    Example 1:

    @Meryl333 - happy to help. (goes to commons.)

    Example 2:

    C Missing my cat while I'm away on vacation. (goes to commons).

    Example 3:

    P Please Retweet: Mumbai bombing. Share information by using #mumbaibombings as a hash tag. (goes to Platform)

    ------------

    On the USING/VIEWING side, you can opt in to see everything, opt in to see only Commons, or opt in to see only Platform.

    Make any more sense?

    Basically, some people don't want to see every little tweet about eggs and butter and whatever.
  • I could totally see Twitter working this way & could be hugely valuable, especially as we're trying to parse the information overload. On my wishlist I would just add to this idea that the prefix's and the TwitterIDs shouldn't count in the 140 count.
  • Ed
    Very thoughtful post. Hm. Need to digest these options.
    Even having consider something similar to some of them,
    your presentation is rather developed.
    And you have far more in depth knowledge of IT systems
    and UX than I do.

    I know some features are on the workbench, (eg; groups, etc)

    Hm off to ponder...
  • I have been trying to determine how to manage Twitter, thinking at times multiple accounts would assist with the filtering, this would certainly be a step toward doing it. Then the thought of login headaches make me shrug, "Meh, maybe it's not so bad."

    Will be interesting to see what evolves.
  • Agreed in principle. Users and other apps are trying to achieve this type of functionality through hashtags for group conversations, through groups on Tweetdeck, etc., but Chris Brogan takes it the full distance.

    I've been thinking that Twitter is a kind of public utility: there is no single way to use a telephone service, and there is no single way to use Twitter. This added functionality will promote more diverse uses. Heck, it could even create a highly advantageous revenue stream!
  • People go where the action is. To use the cocktail party or bar analogy that is often used for twitter, imagine if, periodically, somebody got up on a table and said, "OK, all the people who just want to spout off information, please go to the back room."
  • I like the concept as it would allow for a more segmented approach to things, but it seems like it 'could' limit the relationships building a bit ...

    I'd think about it like this ... if i really know you then i'd subscribe to all you tweets, but if i don't really know you i may be more likely to only subscribe to your 'platform' tweets because i'm not interested in your personal stuff.

    If this happens, then i loose the opportunity to learn more about someone and once something is set people tend to leave it as is. we'd miss out on a lot of stuff this way.

    Call it forced relationship building :) ... but there is a bit of 'fact' in there.

    At the end of the day 'customers' always want more features and more flexability, but as we have all seen ... this is not always the best.


    --
    http://twitter.com/franswaa
  • Dave Winer pointed out the other day that more features might be possible with twitter (seeming) to deprecate the sms features... might be an opp

    I *kinda* like your idea of commons vs. platform, but isnt a lot of that based on behavior? "One man's platform is another's spam?". Its ALL asynchronous... so if @seanbohan posts something important (to him or others) or inconsequential (to him or others) and we miss it, is it such a big deal?
    I usually make the joke that if someone really needs to get in touch with me, twitter or facebook isnt the way to do it. If I have a big more important idea (beyond 140 char) I would blog it or post to youtube, slideshare, break out the sandwich board, etc. :)

    Its feels like you are looking for a way to proactively set filtering FOR your audience (which is real interesting), but this adds new challenges: newbies to twitter who dont know the code or havent learned it yet, people not tagging properly tagging or people ALWAYS tagging their posts as platform, cause you know, they are soooo important :)

    A. I dont have as many followers as you do, so the kinds of features you mention above would probably be a HUGE improvement to yours (and other high-follower twitterers) tweet consumption.
    B. Is this something that can be accomplished with a hack like hashtags - something that twitter doesnt need to implement, but the users can
    C. Am I missing something because I am WAAAAY ovetired?
  • Maybe it's the I've been up 20 hours thing, but Chris, I think what you think should go to the platform and what @JoeSixPack thinks goes to the commons are different things.
    I want the "OMG they just bombed Mumbai" to go everywhere.
    I think there is a great kernel of "how do we separate Twitter information to:
    a. make it more useful
    b. help make better conversations
    c. help make it a better information resource."
    However, how do we help different people get what they want out of this - it seems the choice should be in the hands of the senders and the listeners.

    How can I get the Mumbai message both in the stream and via API to my phone, and you get them separated like you want? *

    I don't have the answer yet, but trust the folks below will figure it out. Thanks for starting the discussion.
  • Plurk does some of this:

    -Message only your friends.
    -Create a clique around a certain subject.
    -More functionality in friending/unfriending. Can actually stay friends, but not get someone's updates.
    -Friends and Fans.
    -Sort your stream by All / Mine / Private / Responded.
    -Post video & photos directly viewable in the stream.

    Yet SM heavy hitters didn't adopt it, or did then jumped. Is it because Twitter was in the space so early? I'm honestly curious.
  • Sean:

    A. It's the other way around. I want to make my tweets more valuable to those who don't give a crap that I like Newman's Own Organic coffee from McDonalds. (I just keep laughing because I tweeted that the other day, and started a 200-reply thread).

    B. Maybe, but that'd be messier and more characters.

    C. Go to bed, handsome.
  • Marie
    Nope, don't like your idea. Maybe it's just because of the reasons why I use Twitter, but I sometimes get a little spark of something from the @s and the back and forths and what you would consider noise.

    Just the other day I "overheard" a convo that mentioned my home town. Turned out, 2 people I follow are from there. I wouldn't have known that.

    Sometimes I find interesting people to follow from the @s. Sometimes I see things that, if I were filtering, I would not have seen.

    The beauty of Twitter is that everything is right there in 140 characters or less. And, as with many things, it's the curse too.

    But I'm learning how to speed read and skim through the posts and it's not so bad.

    I do, however, use Tweetdeck sometimes, so I don't miss posts from particular friends and direct replies.
  • Good ideas, Chris. I'm one of the people who doesn't want to hear the chatter about people's days. I get that through other systems (e.g., Facebook). Rather, I use Twitter as a way to learn more about social media, esp. in gov't. I currently manage it by only following other people who tend to talk about that topic.

    I also think it's interesting to see that many people do follow RSS-driven tweets. If I did, I'd be interested in finding some way to put those in one place and human tweets in another. Of course, that exists outside Twitter in a reader, but I mean with a couple of tabs on the same screen.
  • Well, I think twitter's "everything" is a wasteland, or the first five seconds of a try-n-buy, or something like that. Too populous for anyone actually to subscribe to. Heck, even as a game, I can't really follow it: there seem to be thousands of totally lost tweets between each refresh. So to the extent you're trying to raise the SNR above *that*, I'm all with ya.

    Of course, the first step up the SNR slope is the private channel defined by who you follow. This doesn't satisfy you. I agree it needs ... something or other.

    But I don't buy your particular split, for one simple reason: if I don't know you from the social "commons," why do I care a fig for what you earnestly transmit in the "platform"? Your platform would just be a new thing to ignore, like the commercials we TiVO away, the pop-ups we block, and the billboards we ignore. Understand, I don't mean the actual content in the "platform" would necessarily be uninteresting. Yours, for example, I trust actually would be interesting.

    But I have that trust because I know you from the "commons."
  • This is definitely possible, but would require a lot work from twitter on their software. I think its worth the change. It would make it easy for people like you, scobele etc who follow the masses (following all your followers) to segregate the platform and the common messages and to filter out the Noise.
  • The thought is interesting, the adoption would probably be poor. A lot for millions of users to remember. Groups functionality will go a long way toward addressing these concerns. There are the heavy thinker tweeters and the fun sociable types. Groups let you sort 'em.
  • @pchaney has been on this vein today, too. I'm pretty new, but starting to get the hang of Twitter. I hear what you are saying. And channels would be cool. A lot of potential there.

    But I hear two different things in your post.

    1. Opt in/outs and tweet options with C or P in addition to @. It could work nicely. There are times I am in the "mood" for the chatter, others when I am looking for something, or the noise is distracting. Such a solution would be useful to match the current level of interest But in doing so, I might miss something important - be it information, a link, or some off the wall comment that would give me a much needed chuckle.

    2. The team/group idea. That is really interesting from a collaborative perspective - the whole concept of taking the discussion to a quieter room, or "offline." But. If you want to do that, there are platforms that already support it. And, couldn't you stay in Twitter with the # option?

    My feeling is that you can {sorta} do that by using different accounts and planning your follows or using other apps like TweetDeck. I am not at the two accounts point, but I use 3 frames in TweetDeck filter what's being broadcast my way based my interest and time to watch.

    Right now, I am following people, and I am enjoying both the chatter and the info. I find value in getting to know people from both perspectives. If the action becomes too cluttered, I can re-evaluate my follows.

    Considering the simplicity, there is a great deal of flexibility in how you can use Twitter.

    ~Lisa aka @timelesscrone
  • Rob
    This is an excellent suggestion. I think the main hassle with twitter for a while has been the complexity of filtering tweets and info and sometimes useful info gets missed.

    This makes a lot of sense to me. You have an amazing social networking mind Chris. Such a simple solution, yet it wasn't obvious to me until you suggested it.
  • Sasha
    Hi Chris...
    When I first started Tweeting there was much more Marketing and Geek Tweets going on then there is today. The first day I entered "The Tweetdom" I felt so overwhelmed with all of the sales and marketing boasts and the like. I saw it as walking down a boulevard filled with blinking neon signs and busy billboards hawking their wares. It was boring!

    If you have just have "Geekdome" and "Markteerland" I will wager to say your going to lose some of Twitter power. What one Marketer is going to purchase constantly through the others? .

    It is my feeling that the Marketers earn their clients trust by using the "COMMON" tweets. it is the girl next door Tweets that keep all of your feet on the ground. If you make the change the evangelists will be reaching to the choir

    I maybe wrong but this idea seems a bit cliquish..Even calling the general Tweet "Common". Twitter stands on a precipice. The decisions Ev, Biz and Jack make in the next few months will be surely critical.

    Be Blessed,
    Sasha
  • I don't see which one - Platform or Commons would be 'what i had for breakfast' messages and what would be 'top 10 tips for twitter' type messages. Platform has a generic 'everyone on the [train] platform hears this' sound just like commons suggests a common ground.

    Can you clarify which is which?
  • So you want to proactively filter FOR your community/audience/captives/pirate crew. Got it :)

    And I also LOVE Howard's idea to for E

    and crashing :)
  • Completely agree, Chris. This isn't a bells-and-whistles kind of feature; this would allow Twitter to be both things more fully rather than forcing users to self-consciously balance the two.

    Many people on twitter don't even realize you can opt out of seeing some of the @replies, so for them, it must be mostly noise, especially if they aren't using TweetDeck or something similar.
  • Chris - been playing a lot with the idea of twitter as a protocol... If we get away from the fact that we have to go to twitter everytime we need an update, it can be. then the user chooses their software and the feature wars begin.
    with this toying I bult an app that I could give instructions to, so frequently you'll see me tweet something like
    [listen] fat boy slim: any suggestions for the best album?

    while this goes out to the others, it is also parsed by my app as a listen command with "fatboy slim" as the subject and "any suggestions for the best album" as the notes for the entry. once in my app clicking on any of the subjects under the listen category will open an itunes search for the subject.

    I have more here:
    http://betapoint.tv/index.php?option=com_conten...

    feel free to edit - not trying to self promote. Just wanted you to know that many of us are considering the thought of twitter as a protocol, not just a shoutbox.

    as for emergencies, watch for false alarms... perhaps the alarm is only sounded for the commons. enough alarms in the commons matching in terms of keywords would push the alarm to the platform and bubble up from there.

    -Nathan
  • My head spun around in circles trying to figure out the difference between Commons & Platform... and then I realized that if I was having issues understanding it, this means that it's wayyyy too complicated for the average twitter user to remember on a regular basis. Why? Heck, we have problems remembering on the go how to D someone correctly, how to 'unfollow' someone (off - not unfollow - has caused many a moment of embarrassment) and when we with all the time in the world, the whole "see all @s" thing confused tons of people.

    Honestly? I think most people have been addressing this issue through the use of multiple accounts or hashtags.

    I'm still of the opinion that the reason Twitter has stayed so appealing is the simplicity...
  • @Gab -

    Commons - what I ate for dinner.
    Platform - things of importance or value (insofar as a top 10 list rates, it'd be here).

    Platform like a stage. Commons like the place where the masses gather.
  • Normally I am 100% behind Brogan Brainstorms, but this time I have to disagree. I think I may end up writing a bit of a blog post in answer to why, but suffice to say that this would require someone else (two someone else's, Twitter and the user uploading thoughts and data) deciding what's important to me, while the way it is now, *I* decide what is important to me. This would double the workload of listening on Twitter, and remove the very organic nature that has mad it so successful to date. We've had the options delivered to us in various Twitter clones, as well, and yet none of us flock to them, because in the end they just don't work. The power of Twitter is its a la carte nature, it's massive data stream and collective conscious, it's natural ebb and flow. Take that away and you get Kwippy, or Pownce (RIP), or Plurk... all of which tried in various ways to give us channels, platforms, threads and more, less than successfully.
  • Direstrait94
    Good concept, Chris. I tend to agree with the folks who support user provided solutions like tweetdeck. Why not adopt the hashtags? Your suggestions of C would be the same number of characters as #C which can be the search string for all of your "common" tweets. WIth the number of followers you have, the convention would be quickly adopted. Then there is the question of how one decides what is "common" and what is considered of "value" or "serious-ish"? Who would be the category police?

    Twitter doesn't really seem to be broken. So why fix it? Work WITH it.
  • My snarky tweet needs explanation...

    I feel like the beauty of twitter is the simplicity and the constrained environment. As one other commenter above remarked too, there is a certain serendipity involved with the randomness of commentary that goes on...it is all a part of the fabric of one's identity. To break things into channels seems to me to force a lot of judgment to happen. You know, from community management, when you start telling people what they should and should not be doing--they rebel. Then people fight. Then people move on to somewhere where people are not bitching and complaining about what's appropriate or not. Some people make themselves into moderators. But without rules, the moderators are seen as arbitrary and capricious.

    I don't follow as many people as you do, so I'm not as overwhelmed by the junk. I've never even tried to follow the live public feed. I have very low expectations. I feel like trying to channel discussions into the "right" place will interfere with the free flow of ideas and chill discussion and expression.

    Now people can filter all they want...and they can create groups...and sophisticated client tools. All that activity happens as a way of more effectively listening to the collective conversation. But it seems that channeling is the first step towards attempting to control the conversation--which flies against everything you and other social media thought leaders talk about. Make ways to listen more effectively. Don't try to control the way people talk.
  • @Leslie - it wouldn't take more work on the consumption side. You choose one option or the other and call it good. It wouldn't take more work on the creation side. You either choose to use the syntax or you don't.

    Like all things beautiful in Twitter, it's opt-in.
  • @Dave - it's not so I can filter you. It's so I can filter me and keep you happy with what I do.
  • Smack on the money, Chris. Here's hopin' . . .
  • The E for emergency idea would be very helpful and I would think similar to the @ sign which users started with, prior to twitter adopting, would work now for that matter
  • Good thoughts, Chris. Sort of like .gov .org .edu, but with actual utility.
  • Ro
    Issue 1: Your premise is that the "signal" is in the platform, and that the "noise" is in the commons. Am I understanding you right there? Because I'm not sure I can get with that premise.

    Issue 2: Even if the above premise were valid, it's still to difficult separate "commons" from "platform", on a philosophical *or* a practical level. And it makes me think more than I would have to otherwise.

    Issue 3: Categorization tends to be a bad investment of time, in general. I find the Friendfeed corollary to your suggestion to be a timetrap, as are "labels" in Gmail.

    That said, keep trying to convince me otherwise. My mind is always subject to change.

    Thanks for the great discussion, Chris.
  • Interesting proposition. Would help--sort of a weed-and-feed function to encourage one's favorite flavor of participation and ignore what one regards as noise. Similar to deleting emails by what's in the subject line.

    I like this idea.
  • Intriguing concepts, Chris and everyone else.

    Presuming all @ messages are Commons, not Platforms, then here's a question:

    I tweet you a message as a Platform.
    You only follow my Platform tweets.
    Jill replies to my Platform tweet, thereby becoming a Commons tweet.
    I reply to her as a Commons tweet.
    Frank chimes in his opinion as the Commons.
    Jill then blogs about it, adding it to the Commons.
    Where's the trail between the two, and where's my value to YOU, Chris, if you don't follow my Commons?

    I'd rather see a separate channel for all the retweets.
  • Interesting. I wonder what percentages would end up going with everything anyway. I've heard some pretty big rants about the "worthless" posts (not my choice of words), referring to what you would refer to as commons. I think it's a valuable idea.
  • @ari - Interesting, but already a problem. There's no threading on Twitter now. My solution doesn't make that worse or better. It just adds to the confusion.

    That said, you're not wrong.
  • Chris, the biggest issue I see with this is that the sender gets to decide what is of importance or value, when that actually varies from recipient to recipient. As you noted, some of your "commons" tweets can spark voluminous discussion. Would you have thought that an offhand remark could be of importance or value? This ambiguity makes the distinctions too complex to be appealing.
  • Couldn't we accomplish 98% of this by getting Twitter to change the suggestion of what to tweet from "what are you doing now" to "what interests you now" or some other more substantive guidance?
  • Dear Chris ...

    Commons V Platform seems almost ENTIRELY beside the point to me.

    Life is always a mix of work and play - business and personal, commons and platform if you like. It always has been and always will be. We work together, sell each other things and socialize. To separate it seems a very dehumanizing idea.

    'Social' marketers (I am one) realise the immense value of common interaction. The daily 'blather' is actually full of information & connection and is also an infinitely more powerful research tool / source of mood / feeling than a product focus group. This is not cynical or fake either, but the growing of authentic relationships that are beneficial to all involved.

    Additionally, if one is selling something, it is vital to be transparent with customers these days. Getting to know folks at a personal level on the (commons) side is all part of the process of selling ... provided it is AUTHENTIC.
    In the past CYNICAL Insurance salesmen would fake a relationship. I don't mean that, I simply mean getting together for a whole life mix of business and commerce.

    PROOF of this can be seen in Gary Vaynerchuk's extraordinary performance on Donny Deutsch's 'THE BIG IDEA' TV show. Gary V demonstrates how he senses out the market mood, and how he stays way ahead of the play by being involved in a social / playful way with his customers who become friends.

    Here's the clip: THE BIG IDEA TV show. @Garyvee epsiode (6 minutes)
    http://tv.winelibrary.com/gary-vaynerchuk-on-th...

    Further proof is clearly revealed when you see Gary on his actual show ranting about football while recommending wines! Football trash talk is pure commons. His wine reccos pure information. Cheek by jowl and inseparable.

    http://www.WineLibrary.TV

    By contrast, if all we think it is all about cost accounting, numbers and remote de-humanized 'customers' as cyphers hwo need 'information' then we lose.

    The commons and the platform really are one and the same to me.

    My best as always
    Jonathan Gunson

    ____
  • Unfortunately, I'm going to have to side with the 'don't agree' camp on this one.

    Though I do think that the way people use Twitter is starting to fragment, I also think that doing a system-wide change like this would be too hard to implement and remember. Like others, I often have trouble even remembering how to DM someone correctly w/o a button that does it for me, so remembering to categorize each tweet according to how important I think it's going to be would be far too advanced for most users in my opinion.

    Instead, I think the community will eventually just find a way, weather it's multiple accounts, hashtags, or some other form of tagging, to do it on an as needed basis. Choose your own tagging (though make an effort to make the tags known Twitter-wide in some way or another) also takes care of the issue that what's important to someone might be spam/garbage to someone else. P and C could work as a way of tagging posts according to importance, but just make it a hashtag, such as "#P @ChrisBrogan has created the Twitter Platform" or "#C @ChrisBrogan is eating a burger at the Twitter cafe" and let users self-sort.

    Then, users could search by these tags to pull out Platform and Common messages from those users that decide to segregate their posts, and programs could even start to build that functionality in, but it wouldn't be a mandatory system.

    - http://twitter.com/CoryOBrien
  • dude, do you ever stop thinking?
  • @chas - no.
  • Chris, I get what you’re trying to address, both on the sending and receiving end. Not sure that this is the way, though I do like the E idea in concept. I get the feeling these are exactly the issues being thought about internally by Ev and Biz: how to make changes are add value and utility the Twitter Way™ without breaking the essence of how Twitter works and without burdening users with crap like different modes and syntax that needs to be learned.

    Quick thought: what if there were a way for the receiver of a tweet to tag it (add some meta data) in a seamless way that changes how that user's tweets were handled for period of time. We already tag when we favorite something; other tag options could do other things.
  • Ahh, but Chris, if you consider third-party apps like Twitturly and others, threading is very much alive.
  • I'll join the "don't agree" camp. If I'm understanding the concept correctly, It will lead to abuse o twitter. We'll start seeing messages in two or three channels because people will want to reach the largest audience they can.

    C Check out my latest blog post about Mumbai ...
    P Check out my latest blog post about Mumbai ...

    And because it's about Mumbai ...

    E Check out my latest blog post about Mumbai ...
  • Hail to the Thief


    Open Source Developers and users, Break the chains of web 2.0 share cropping. Understand that Twitter is a closed source application.

    Twitter the friendly little bird wants to become a closed source monopoly. Twitter wants to lock you and your content into their closed silo and they want to generate millions in revenue off of your content, and for this they will give nothing back to you or your community .

    With an Open Source solution you at least have a copy of the application that you have given value. With Open Source you have a choice. If you want to do things differently you are “Free” to take the software and do so. This kind of Freedom also keeps any ideas of vendor/data/content lock in out of the picture.

    At adelph.us we believe in members freedom to control their accounts, and their content. We also believe that any revenue model should always put the members in the equation first. We believe in the Open Source community and ideals. We know we are not the smartest guys in the room and trust the our community of members and developers.

    Break the chains of the old web 2.0 model. Do not give your content or your software development work to closed source old world companies they only seek to profit from you
  • I absolutely love this concept. Especially the "E" tag. Chris, sometimes it truly astonishes me w/ how good I think most of your ideas are. Yes it would absolutely require a lot of reworking in the API...but think of all the good you could do with 2-3 more tagging options. I love simplicity and twitter has it in spades, so I think restricting it to only 2-4 tags is the right choice for them (maybe include an opt-out option as well). Loving this idea.
  • Woke up disagreeing with myself (and you, Chris!). Twitter does NOT need two channels. Twitter needs a way to sort people into groups. I like the more personal information blended with the platform information; that is the essence of social networking's value. Being able to see tweets in categories (mine: social media leaders, pr/marketing, economics/investors, small business, politics, writers, local DC folks, general interest) would allow me to follow the thread of conversation better while preserving the sweetness of the varied communications. As this evolves, whether on the twitter platform or not, groups will develop their own norms about the balance between personal and content-rich posts.
  • I think the best bets are twitter clones like http://twingr.com, and more significantly, http://yonkly.com
  • Totally agree with you Chris. There are days I have plenty of time and can read everything. Other days (most of them :)), when just not enough time and want to just hit the pertinent headlines.

    I am currently using D a lot to make sure I keep my Tweeting more focused. Plus I am using Tweetdeck with groups and that helps. But you wind up missing out on valuable conversations that way. Your way would be simple and elegant!
  • PS - Really love the E idea for emergencies too. As long as people don't abuse it (think 911 and definitely only use it for serious emergencies), it would be invaluable!
  • JP Wasack
    Kaye, I have to disagree with you (sorry). Regardless of what coding is being used, if you do not want to miss out on valuable conversations, you'll end up with the sum total of the messages being sent anyway. So, filtering with TweetDeck is just as effective AS LONG AS the Twitterdom agrees on a coding format. All Chris seems to be asking for is to have EV and company change the app to make it more convenient to filter. That is all a channel is, BTW. #E, #C #911 #whatever is the method which works now. When anyone wanted to track MotrinMoms or Mumbai they just filtered on the hashtag.

    It's all good!
  • BarbaraKB
    Honestly, Chris, this is only a problem for the "I follow all" people. And, unfortunately, they are *growing* in leaps and bounds @ Twitter. (BTW, I have labeled them spam followers: build up that Twitter list of other "follow all" tweeters. Ugh.] Opening another account or using currently available third party solutions answers many of your needs. Glad to see many comments above already pointed this out esp. @geekmommy. Twitter as simple human feed for conversation and interaction (however the user defines) is its beauty. Once that gets tampered with, we lose the absolute *beauty* of this app.
  • Hey Chris,

    I've never been fully on board with all who love Twitter so much but I do see its utility. I just have a question regarding your "CPE" nomenclature, and, for that matter, the other tags that already are in use.

    The question is, how do tags translate for their Japanese user base (which I understand is also quite large)? Does the Japanese writing system provide single letter characters, or is that an issue?

    It seems that with all of this layering of new conventions over what was originally a very simple system (Answer this question: What are you doing?), we will impose difficulties in scaling and in localizing this to other people around the world. I'm not against being "America First", you know, but it prolly isn't the best model for an internet company when their market is the world.
  • I'm still firmly in the disagree camp - I don't want to have to choose both HOW I listen AND how I talk AND who I listen to. A la carte is what makes this work. The full flow of all the noise is what gives Twitter its beauty and effectiveness. This would most assuredly kill that, at least for me. I am definitely percolating a blog post on this as soon as I can grab a few minutes to put thoughts to paper. I agree with the commenters who love how you never stop thinking, and I am actually intrigued that this is possibly the first idea you've had that I have not liked, and in fact, am completely getting worked up about from the other viewpoint. :) I do love a good debate...
  • I think you are right about some kind of way to organize things more. I am also finding that as I follow more people (and a lot of them have valuable things to say), that it becomes a lot of noise to try and keep track of. I can suck your time away and end up ultimately wasting it. Maybe a tab within Twitter with top Tweeters that you put more weight in to see only their Tweets (ie favorties)?
  • I've long wanted two tabs: one with all tweets of those I follow, the other tab with just the news organizations...a filter almost. Not sure about the commons/platform thing, as I believe the way you describe it, it would depend on the person posting the tweet to have the judgment to select one or the other. I'd gonna make a wild guess that a lot of things that I'd think belong in the 'commons' area would end up in platform.
  • I agree with you that there should be some type of "E" function that highlights a situation. For example, after the Virginia Tech attacks, I know every other school wanted to set up some type of system where students in real time would find out specific emergency information and what to do. Twitter could be perfect for this type of situation, and some type of E would help. The only problem I can forsee is "the boy who cried wolf" scenario. Hopefully people would be respectful enough not to overuse it, but it could be and cause more annoyance than good for others.

    Craig
    www.budgetpulse.com
  • Ed
    @51 Um, they didn't steal anything.
    They built it with their own money and hours.
    They even let hyperbolic critics play for free.
  • There is a delicate balance here between improving functionality/reducing noise AND wanting twitter to be all things to all people. Text messaging is a better platform for emergencies like VA tech. But within the simplicity of twitter there is a lot that could be done. For example, what if each home page had a space on it for emergency announcements from Twitter, e.g., Mumbai bombed, follow #mumbai. Or just a scroll of trending topics? The filter, I believe, should be located DOWNSTREAM and not as part of the API as you advocate. That way it is driven by demand and is changeable as twitter evolves, not "hardwired" into its core.
  • I didn't read all these comments, but I love Dave Atkins' comment and agree. What you're defining as the commons and platform can't exist in silos. Each is strong because of each other not in spite of it. They play off each other.
  • Maybe a better structure would be a UI control that flips between "commons of my follows," "platform of my follows" and "both". Exact details would be a fun place for client developers to play.
  • At first pass this seems to make sense. But, what happens when my platform content isn't considered such by somebody else who follows me? Not all of my followers care that I'm offering free shipping this week, but for those that do, it definitely would be platform content.

    As someone who's still trying to figure this all out, I'm working hard on developing valuable content - having to then categorize is just one more step. Your example is clear and I get what you're trying to accomplish. I just don't think in all instances it's all so black & white.
  • You are talking some seriously fuzzy boarder. The thing is what happens when I want ch#3 or ch#9999? While saying there are two distinct types of tweet and we can name them if you can not say Type A follows pattern A and type B follows pattern B you can not teach a system to recognise them.That makes them subjective (like tags or as you advocate) categories/folders (very "web 1.0").

    Many moons ago when blogging was young and new bloggers saw that there were different types of blog. Should they be separated defined or should they remain in the collective? What you have done is recognised two uses of twitter now can a clever person create a personal Bayesian filter (exactly what we use to teach spam filters) to separate them on your twitter platform of choice?

    That's what really needs to happen.

    You could filter as you desire and I could filter for interesting / not interesting.

    Whoever writes this twitter app' is going to get attention.
  • And I need to add - some of what would be considered "common" in your scenario is to me and I think my customers, platform material. Yes, it may be silliness, but it's my customers getting to know me on a personal level - to see that I'm a real person and build the relationship. I just lost a follower and it's probably because I'm tweeting about yarns and trading yarn for one of my followers yummy sounding dinners, etc., which to someone outside my world seems inane, but to me and my business, it's making me real, it's having fun, it's building relationships and conversations and all that stuff and it's working.
  • Oh I get it now. I like the platform metaphor :). Just hadn't gotten it at first cuz I thought it was platform in the software sense.
  • I have wimped out of reading all comments, so apologies if already stated, but why have two areas? Eventually distinctions would be blurred as people used the most popular to get noticed, whether relevant or not.

    I suggest looking at the clients which should allow you to filter out replies from messages on a per user basis (not on a universal basis as at the moment). You can follow those replies from only those you want to follow, but still see what you call 'platform' tweets from everyone.

    [this does imply @messages are of lower value than broadcast ones, but in general that is true]

    If you see a message that is interesting, you tag it in your client and it starts showing that users replies, and those sent to them (for a period of time).

    This would not involve any changes to twitter itself, only the way you read it.

    Does that make sense and address your issue?
  • compassioninpolitics
    Absolutely Mr. Brogan,

    Very much agreed. It would be nice if the commons were divided someway so that trolls would have less of an impact and conversations could be more focused. Some degree of commonality helps breed discussion and trust. (I guess this is like the friendfeed rooms, but more used because people live on twitter these days.

    Cheers,
    Nathan
  • I think it's a bit complicated, but could also prove to be a valuable distinction. Mike Langford (@mikelangford) has created tweetworks to allow people to meet in groups to discuss stuff in more depth with people who want to focus on messages on a particular topic. I'm not sure this is exactly what Chris is looking for, but it's a start.

    There are going to be bumps because everyone uses tools differently. Even the common hammer is held differently by many people - except maybe the pro carpenters. So until everyone on Twitter is a pro (and that ain't happening anytime soon) it will still lack some functionality.
  • chronically
    i'd imagine they're working on this. in only a few lines of code I setup a filter that runs in the background and displays only tweets from the people I'm following that contain links. I figure that the people I follow are linking to something of value rather than lengthy blog entries about their day.

    It takes a little bit of understanding of the api, but it's real simple to do with a little programming knowledge and is even a little fun.
  • Wouldn't most of us still want to see both the Commons and the Platform posts for the people we follow? Assuming we follow people that have something interesting to say and don't just tweet what they had for dinner. I follow you, for example. I like most of the things you have to say whether they're important or trivial. So, how would you system make it any different for me? Other than making me look in two places for your tweets.
  • I'm more about business. I need to build my twitter that is my next goal. I want a personal twitter.
  • Chris, nice post! As a sales expert, I use Twitter to learn more about sales, marketing, profitability, entrepreneurship, social media, technology, etc. ...... I am looking for information that will improve my business! Likewise, when I discover great content and information, I share it with my Twitter Followers. I skip over the "personal stuff" .... just sharing! :) Thank you!

    @KenE3C
  • I made a comment to one of my followers this morning about Twittergroups. I said the site looked cheesy and personally, I didn't see the point. I like twitter for it's diversity -- I don't want to be grouped with a bunch of other people who think, or think they think, like me. I want to share and converse with people who are not like me. That's how I learn and that's exciting to me.

    Too many api's spoils the bunch -- in that respect, I agree with you. Twitter is a phenomenon unto itself. Piling on different applications and spins just complicates the essence of what is great about the original product. Sequels and remakes, like Die Hard 2, are never as good as the real thing. Twitter is twitter. Tomorrow, it will be something like twitter, but better. But that's for you social media geniuses to figure out. I'll just be along for the ride. :)
  • When I read the title and began to read this article I agreed with you Chris, but the more I look at how I get value on Twitter I have to support the one channel option. The blending of the commons and the informative data is the secret sauce for Twitter.

    We have access to real time national and international conversations, benefit from crowd sourcing and connect deeper to experts like you by reading tweets about people's kids, joys, frustrations and at times irrelevant musings. Every time we read a tweet that makes us smile or laugh we're further endeared to our Twitter friends and deriving more value from the medium.

    Besides, having two channels would add yet another channel to monitor in our information overwhelm / time deprived lives. It would be one more thing we'd be wishing could be aggregated.

    @sopan
  • To quote Winston Churchill -- "“The simplest things are often the truest.”

    The human brain is an amazing tool in that we can take in an inordinate amount of information at a brief glance and determine what is pertinent to our lives and what is not. We already have two, four, six channels -- as many as a relatively intelligent person can manage -- simply by thinking, then choosing. I don't want an application making those decisions for me. I might be missing something that later proves to be a diamond, a gem, in a stream of muck.
  • It's an interesting idea, but I feel that it removes the "social" aspect of social media. If I only want to know what noteworthy things you have to say, I read your blog. Twitter is all about those connections you make around the non-noteworthy things. Enjoying the same type of coffee, sharing a birthday, having similar experiences with family members - these are how personal relationships are built. It's one of the reasons I don't aspire to following as many people as you do. I can't imagine trying to follow the massive brain dump you have access to! It's like being able to hear what everyone is thinking and trying to sort out what you want/need to know.

    As others have mentioned, there's the additional problem of defining what is a "common" and what is a "platform" tweet. I can't imagine it would be all that useful a breakdown in the end, especially with thousands of streams coming in.

    The only change I'd make to Twitter is the ability to thread tweets. I am forever searching backward to find out what inspired an interesting response!
  • susan kuhn frost
    Christy, the only work-around I have seen to follow a conversation is this: select a word string in the tweet that intrigues you and then search for it at http://search.twitter.com, the search menu at the bottom of the screen. One of the options in the results will be "show coversation." That will take you back through the tweets between those two people.
  • @susan kuhn frost (et al): there are a couple sites that will reconstruct a thread for you. one is tweader.com. copy the permalink for the tweet, or just the number at its end (the "status ID"), and paste at http://tweader.com
  • I was just talking to a friend about this the other day. I hope they do bring out this feature.
  • Emmaline
    Good day! The babes are here! This is my best site to visit. I make sure I am alone in case I get too hot. Post your favorite link here.
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