Dave's thoughts on TwitterGram
Dave looks at TwitterGram, a small (200K) MP3 file, and ideas for how it might grow. (TwitterGram lasted intil March 2008, according to the Web Archive.)
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Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated.
Okay everybody, so this is a
morning coffee notes podcast
I’ve been playing around with
Twitter grams lately and
Twitter grams are kind of
bite-sized podcast 200k or less
and they
hatch hitch a ride along with
the Twitter message and
Sort of the same philosophy
that applies to 140 character
little mini
Micro blog post is kind of what
people think of Twitter as
Well a Twitter gram is kind of
like a
Same thing for podcasts as
opposed to a blog post
And I’ve been just having a
great time doing it. They’re
sort of challenging little
things to
Fit one idea maybe one and a
half ideas into a little 200k
thing. It’s cool. But today I
Need to express something a
little bit longer and so I’m
going falling back to
podcasting which is tried and
true
way of expressing more
complicated ideas and
Sort of a rambly way
So there are two things that I
need
To add features to Twitter gram
that I don’t have the expertise
myself to do and
so I want to describe those two
things and
the hope that
Somebody either a company
probably in one case it pretty
much has to be a company
And the other case it could
just be a programmer
who wants to
Participate in Twitter grams
sort of like
You know, I mean, I don’t know
if Twitter grams are going to
turn out to be as big as
podcasting or blogging or
RSS or but maybe they will be
and
in which case
If you’ve got an existing
business
This could get you a bunch of
publicity for that business
maybe maybe can’t get no
guarantees
and
Get some you know, if you’ve
got a good product it might
shine some light on that
product and
so
You decide for yourself if it
makes sense to do it
So the first idea is I
Want to be able to use my cell
phone?
to create a Twitter gram so
What I would need to do is have
a sort of web app
Where I go in to configure the
telephone system and what I do
is I create an account there
Presumably with a username and
a password and I give it my
Twitter account name and
password as well so that it can
Then in turn pass that
information on to the Twitter
gram web service
So it’s there’s several levels
going on here
But if for the user once it’s
configured it should simply be
a matter of calling a phone
number
And maybe entering a ID of some
kind a pin or something like
that
And then just speaking a
message and then automatically
that would then get posted as a
Twitter gram to
the global Twitter gram account
, which is twit. dubgram and
The and their personal Twitter
gram account so that if people
that are subscribing to
their Twitter account would
then be able to get a very
simple
short
message from them
200k or less, you know the
normal Twitter gram thing and
You wouldn’t have to use a
computer at all to create it.
You just use a cell phone So that makes it simpler and that that’s the whole goal of courses to make this simpler and to make it accessible in more places So that’s that’s and there are hardly enough Odio, which was the company that That started Twitter They were kind of doing stuff like this So I don’t know if they’re in a position to do it or some company that competes with them might be able to do it as well But this would be very welcome on my part and I would be I mean basically if you go to docs. twittergram. com That’s where you’ll see the information about the web service And that’s the back end and you just make a service that connects up to that if you need some help with that post a comment on the comment section on script ing news you’ll see that link in the right margin and either I’ll help you figure it out or Somebody else in the community will help you figure it out, but it shouldn’t be too hard to do Okay, so that’s idea number one now for idea number two is a flash Applet that runs that will that I would incorporate into the Twitter gram. com web page And it would cut out the step where you have to find an application to record your Twitter gram You would still have the option of doing that. Okay of taking an mp3 file off your local hard drive But I think for many people that’s more work than they want to do and that a little flash app That’s running inside of the web browser where you know you click You know a button to start recording and then you click a button to stop recording and that programs that loads the page up with an mp3 file and then when you click submit that gets transmitted up to the web app at Twitter gram. com And then it just goes through the normal whatever the back end is doing I mean, I know all about what it’s doing, but from a user standpoint it just does it and Now you’ve cut out a whole cut it all the complexity now It’s just basically a matter of entering your username and password once and then Hitting the record button and then once you’re happy that what you’ve recorded is what you want to go up And then you click submit and boom you got your Twitter gram going up there So that’s also I think fairly well That’s the idea that the first idea something I think you pretty much have to be a company to be able to do because I well I don’t really understand the business relationships that you have to set up in order to be able to do the you know to put a recorder on a telephone and Then have a Recognize a pin. I mean, I don ’t imagine it’s all that hard, but I have no idea how to do it . It’s not what I do this latter part is You need to know how to program flash. I don’t even know there might even be stock Applets, you know, it may even be a feature of flash. I don’t maybe very simple to do I don’t know maybe very complicated to do. I know people have done it though I know you will see it on various the audio had that And I think pod show has it And probably a whole bunch of other sites have it as well If you want to put up a web app Feel free to do that and I’ll show you how to call my web service that would be fine, too You know take the clone the functionality of Twitter gram calm and just connect up to the web service in the background That’d be fine, too. I would like to put the flash app inside my page But you know if you want to put up your own web app, that’s great, too You know more the merrier the idea here is to get a bootstrap going of an activity and And inevitably, you know Lots of people should be doing all aspects of this The thing that that’s created a value here is the the pipes that the stuff goes through the RSS feed on the other end and that people can subscribe to and the API that’s defined Docs that Twitter gram calm and from there there should be lots of clients and Maybe even different ways of flowing the data out. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know where this goes But but I know that there’s next those two next steps are obvious The third thing there is a third thing Is if this really takes off then what I want to do is I want to join up with another company Well, I’m not a company. They remind another company. I want to join up with a company.
Maybe there’s a Silicon Valley company That has you know some excess Development capacity and server capacity and is looking for something hot to grow into If this really takes off then this will of course if takes off the moment This will be that and it’ll be something that I won’t want to be the programmer on and you know I mean, I’m really good at doing these bootstraps But once something takes off it ’s really got to go into a professional development organization and it’s got to be managed It’s got to have capital behind it So if you’re thinking about that and if you’re in a position where you’ve already got a company that’s funded or You’re about to get funding or you’ve you’ve got a development team and you’d like to work with me There’s a lot of different combinations. I also do angel investing myself. So there’s there’s money around The thing is is that you know if you believe in the idea already and you really think it ’s going to grow then let me know and you have something that can fit in with this let me know and If you or just watch it and if it starts growing and you know fits in with what your business wants to do Let me know So those are that’s the third thing So I’m looking for to summarize . I’m looking for a phone interface I’m looking for a flash interface and I’m looking for business partners And so I guess that’s about it.
I don’t know how long about ten minutes. Not bad and 2. 3 meg abytes Well, that’s obviously a lot more than 200k. So Anyway, that’s the first podcast in quite a long time.
You see what Twitter grams do for you They get you doing podcasts again, at least in my case they do so Anyway, that’s your morning coffee notes podcast for the 27 th of June 2007 And it’s Dave Winer and I’ll see y’all on twittergram. com.
Okay. Bye [BLANK_AUDIO]
You just use a cell phone So that makes it simpler and that that’s the whole goal of courses to make this simpler and to make it accessible in more places So that’s that’s and there are hardly enough Odio, which was the company that That started Twitter They were kind of doing stuff like this So I don’t know if they’re in a position to do it or some company that competes with them might be able to do it as well But this would be very welcome on my part and I would be I mean basically if you go to docs. twittergram. com That’s where you’ll see the information about the web service And that’s the back end and you just make a service that connects up to that if you need some help with that post a comment on the comment section on script ing news you’ll see that link in the right margin and either I’ll help you figure it out or Somebody else in the community will help you figure it out, but it shouldn’t be too hard to do Okay, so that’s idea number one now for idea number two is a flash Applet that runs that will that I would incorporate into the Twitter gram. com web page And it would cut out the step where you have to find an application to record your Twitter gram You would still have the option of doing that. Okay of taking an mp3 file off your local hard drive But I think for many people that’s more work than they want to do and that a little flash app That’s running inside of the web browser where you know you click You know a button to start recording and then you click a button to stop recording and that programs that loads the page up with an mp3 file and then when you click submit that gets transmitted up to the web app at Twitter gram. com And then it just goes through the normal whatever the back end is doing I mean, I know all about what it’s doing, but from a user standpoint it just does it and Now you’ve cut out a whole cut it all the complexity now It’s just basically a matter of entering your username and password once and then Hitting the record button and then once you’re happy that what you’ve recorded is what you want to go up And then you click submit and boom you got your Twitter gram going up there So that’s also I think fairly well That’s the idea that the first idea something I think you pretty much have to be a company to be able to do because I well I don’t really understand the business relationships that you have to set up in order to be able to do the you know to put a recorder on a telephone and Then have a Recognize a pin. I mean, I don ’t imagine it’s all that hard, but I have no idea how to do it . It’s not what I do this latter part is You need to know how to program flash. I don’t even know there might even be stock Applets, you know, it may even be a feature of flash. I don’t maybe very simple to do I don’t know maybe very complicated to do. I know people have done it though I know you will see it on various the audio had that And I think pod show has it And probably a whole bunch of other sites have it as well If you want to put up a web app Feel free to do that and I’ll show you how to call my web service that would be fine, too You know take the clone the functionality of Twitter gram calm and just connect up to the web service in the background That’d be fine, too. I would like to put the flash app inside my page But you know if you want to put up your own web app, that’s great, too You know more the merrier the idea here is to get a bootstrap going of an activity and And inevitably, you know Lots of people should be doing all aspects of this The thing that that’s created a value here is the the pipes that the stuff goes through the RSS feed on the other end and that people can subscribe to and the API that’s defined Docs that Twitter gram calm and from there there should be lots of clients and Maybe even different ways of flowing the data out. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know where this goes But but I know that there’s next those two next steps are obvious The third thing there is a third thing Is if this really takes off then what I want to do is I want to join up with another company Well, I’m not a company. They remind another company. I want to join up with a company.
Maybe there’s a Silicon Valley company That has you know some excess Development capacity and server capacity and is looking for something hot to grow into If this really takes off then this will of course if takes off the moment This will be that and it’ll be something that I won’t want to be the programmer on and you know I mean, I’m really good at doing these bootstraps But once something takes off it ’s really got to go into a professional development organization and it’s got to be managed It’s got to have capital behind it So if you’re thinking about that and if you’re in a position where you’ve already got a company that’s funded or You’re about to get funding or you’ve you’ve got a development team and you’d like to work with me There’s a lot of different combinations. I also do angel investing myself. So there’s there’s money around The thing is is that you know if you believe in the idea already and you really think it ’s going to grow then let me know and you have something that can fit in with this let me know and If you or just watch it and if it starts growing and you know fits in with what your business wants to do Let me know So those are that’s the third thing So I’m looking for to summarize . I’m looking for a phone interface I’m looking for a flash interface and I’m looking for business partners And so I guess that’s about it.
I don’t know how long about ten minutes. Not bad and 2. 3 meg abytes Well, that’s obviously a lot more than 200k. So Anyway, that’s the first podcast in quite a long time.
You see what Twitter grams do for you They get you doing podcasts again, at least in my case they do so Anyway, that’s your morning coffee notes podcast for the 27 th of June 2007 And it’s Dave Winer and I’ll see y’all on twittergram. com.
Okay. Bye [BLANK_AUDIO]