Information Network: Twitter Decentralizing Public Timeline ?
Will Twitter's new @anywhere platform take the microblogging service to the next level ? Of course, given the rapid pace at which Web 2.0. services are being churned out it is becoming difficult to predict. But this feature sounds simple enough to compel me to think that this may indeed be Twitter's killer strategy. For the benefit of those unaware, a while back Twitter CEO Evan William announced at SXSW that they will be introducing @anywhere framework which would allow you to integrate Twitter with you site, so that visitors to your site don't have to navigate to Twitter.com !
Now, wasn't Google Wave supposed to provide a functionality to allow emedding of a wave on your site ? While Twitter would allow you to post texts and links in less than 141 characters, you can add any content- text,images,videos, maps and almost everything else. That that hasn't happened yet, but Twitter's new functionality is ready to roll out to a eager userbase. Ironically, it was Google that popularized the concept of perpetual beta. An approach (borrowed from OSI ? ) that advocated releasing builds frequently instead of waiting for the lifecycle to be over and all issues resolved. While Google still does that, what it offers in beta releases (as in Wave) are sneak peeks of a mamoth application that it plans to release at a future date. To someboody like me, the application comes across as one with a little of a lot of functionalities but none of them are really ready.
Twitter in contrast takes simplistic concepts and implements them fully, one at a time. Despite phenomenal success, folks at the Twitter HQ did not lose focus, their concern remained 140 characters and how to optimize the information sharing on their network. In keeping with the simplicity that Twitter offers, integrating it on your site would require nothing more than dropping a JavaScript snippet. This framework along with its libraries of APIs, Twitter is fast emerging as the "information network" that @ev mentioned.
Read more :
Twitter Blog: @anywhere
http://mashable.com/2010/03/15/twitter-at-anywhere/" target="_blank">Mashable : Twitter's New @anywhere Platform


















