I just watched the TED talk by Evan Williams about how Twitter is giving rise to interesting and unexpected applications (link). It really speaks to the benefit of having a flexible interface that other people can use to build innovative applications upon. It’s early days yet, and I can’t help but wonder if Twitter will survive as a separate entity. Who does it really appeal to? Despite reports of becoming more mainstream, Twitter only has a few million users, a small fraction of online users. After tinkering around with it a little, I think the underlying technology is quite easily replicable by other firms. The IP doesn’t seem easy to protect, and network lock-in doesn’t seem as strong as for other applications like email and facebook. I suspect that as a user, I could easily switch to another provider with a single ‘tweet’ to all my followers to find me at the new provider. And, where will their revenue come from? My prediction is that if it proves succesful, we’ll see tweeter-like status updates built into everything ranging from your google desktop to your mobile phone. Even now, Joshua thinks his facebook status update is more useful.
Core Economics 
Williams said that he doesn’t have a product plan for Twitter. He is simply following a hunch. He might not be able to stop it from being duplicated by other providers. He might not see a way to monetise it. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were in the same position when they fired up the prototype Backrub search engine in a Stanford dorm room and I suspect 99% of people who build brilliant prototypes in Stanford dorm rooms never make money out of them.
Even so, you try 100, one works. Williams might never have another one after Blogger, but he will keep putting them out there.
Somebody, somewhere, may see a way of using Twitter that nobody has thought of before and that generates income.
As a basis for a bushfire alert and warning system it might appeal to some Victorians.
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Well, I for one am being paid to write tweets. About 15 so far. It’s nanofiction, SF, fantasy and horror.
Optimistic, and they pay more.
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