SXSW Day 4 – Evan Williams Keynote
Posted in Blog, Design, Events, Geeky, News, Tech by John
Luckily today I made it in to the Evan Williams keynote – I say lucky, because the queue was long and there was a LOT of people!!
Evan is one of the co-founders of Twitter.
Disclaimer: these notes were made in real time and published as the talk finished so apologies for any typos or brevity.
@anywhere
Evan started by announcing a new app platform for integrating Twitter in to websites called ‘at anywhere’. The platform enables sites to integrate the platform in a number of ways.
These were the main headline benefits that were covered:
• The app can be customised by sites adopting it to match their intended use.
• Allows user to Tweet from the embedded site itself
• Follow a user straight through the site without users needing to jump back to Twitter – improved discovery costs.
• For site owners it enables them to leverage more followers.
• Should enrich the experience allowing users to build a community around their sites more easily.
Evan described the app as aiming to ‘reduce friction’ in terms of integrating the Twitter experience more richly away from Twitter.com
You can read more here
‘Experimentation creates value’.
The process of building a business is all about experimentation. It was recommended that finding where you’re going wrong through experimentation was one of the keys to building a rapidly growing business.
Twitter aim to create the best experience for users and businesses, they wanted to create a market, then figure out who to get a commercial benefit later.
Evan’s main involvement on a day to day basis is experience and strategy. He focuses on how he can build culture internally. How can the company scale? He aims for an internal parallel between the service (openness and transparency) and the company. They’re trying to grow with this methodology through ‘autonomous teams’ who are able to develop and follow a specific service benefit without needing to think of Twitter as a single entity. There is no one monolithic team or code base – that isn’t scaleable.
‘Openness’
‘A window is transparent a door is open. Window allows users to ’see in’, but a door allows people to experiment and play.’ Evan used this sentence to illustrate their attitude to openness.
It was discussed wether openness gives away the ‘golden goose’ and can infact devalue a business. Twitter creates value by maximising the value in the eco-system and not necessarily in the ‘business’. The focus is on ‘How do we increase the value of the network? How do we give more value to users?’ not necessarily on ‘how do we build the value of Twitter’.
Businesses can be built around Twitter.
The third party developers using the Twitter API and building for Twitter create value for users and through proxy, for Twitter. Companies like Co-Tweet and Hoot Suite have improved the interface for a sub-audience within Twitter that Twitter couldn’t have reached with their all encompassing interface.
WIthin the eco-system Twitter has created there are opportunities for third party developers. Twitter need to balance managing the open-ness with managing the eco-system to keep it useful. This means they need to protect the main user base against things like spam projects built using the APi. The ecosystem needs ’shepherding’.
Open value – building a network which reaches the weakest signals.
It was discussed how Twitter are aiming to bring a positive social benefit. An example was provided from a Chilean citizen who had emailed Twitter after the earthquakes thanking them for connecting them in a way that could aid rescue and help reestablish real world connections. Twitter is aiming to reach and connect users who can humanly get value and benefit from the service in countries like Haiti, India, China and Iran.
How does Twitter define a ‘user’
There are many dormant accounts on Twitter. Evan considers anyone who gets value from the eco-system as a user. This isn’t about Tweeting, or even signing up, it’s about wether value can be found in the data pool of those active users who broadcast from the space.
The cookies are out of the Oven.
Evan mentioned that one of the principles of Twitter was to create an information network with meaningful outcomes. This may be something as simple as a tweet service which lets a business and customers know that cookies are ready, or something as powerful as Tweeting within countries where there are firewalls or barriers to information (China etc).
All in all an interesting keynote and a nice insight in to Twitter and its culture.
March 18th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Thanks for this very clear account of the @ev keynote – the firs one I’ve read that explained the new stuff successfully for my poor brain