No, this isn’t about MLK. It’s about me and a dream I had last night. The backstory is that I have been trying to solve this complex programming problem for 3 weeks – every single day for about 16 hours per day… totally stumped. Last night I had a dream and I was working through all these object oriented concepts and it finally clicked. I woke up at 6am and fired up my laptop in bed with a clear focus and a snoring pug in dream land. Only thing that would have made him get up is a bedside filet mignon. It was amazing, I remembered everything about my dream and it was just odd. Two hours later problem solved. It’s 10:25 now and I am going home to walk Simon and I will restart my day at noon. I am thrilled not to be thinking about this problem. On to the next…

So my friend and I are doing a project together. It’s a pretty big deal and will consume my summer but it’s going to kick ass.  Here is the app icon. The name of the start-up is Treasure and I picked out a “sketch” font so it looks scraped into the metal. I thought sketch and “treasure” went together… you know…treasure maps are scripted by hand… It took me hours to find the right font and another few hours to pick a color for the leather. Love the flash under the name and all the details.

Most people won’t understand what this means because most have little depth. The goose egg represents nothing  - as in zero. Imagine how amazing zero is. Zero relates to nothing to worry about. Nobody to answer to. Having zero means you have everything ahead of you without responsibility. Pretty cool thought right? Damn straight… but it’s only cool if you have substance and are creative. Unfortunately, you are probably too lame to get what I am saying.

I need a new phone cause mine is beat to shit. It barely works cause I pound on it. I pretty much talk on my phone for a living so its a huge part of my life. I was hoping to wait another month before getting a new phone but the White iPhone came out today and it’s dead sexy! Ah, what to do?

I just came across the coolest stencils ever. I want them.

I need these cause I am going to create an iPhone App for fun.

These stencils will make my life so much easier. Love em!

I need the iPhone Stencil Kit… here and the matching Stencil Paper
I need the iPad Stencil Kit… here and the matching Stencel Paper

Need the pencils as well here.

Amazing! All that for under $100… I think… Never been good with math.

iPhone Stencil kit = 24.95

iPhone Sketch Pad Paper x1 = 12.95

iPad Stencil kit = 24.95

iPad Sketch Pad Paper X1 = 12.95

Pencils = 6

Total: $81.80 +shipping…

So yeah, under $100 for pure fun via Treasu.re

Last week I posted about how Twitter can make billions, but this is another story.  I have always thought Twitter needed to build around the timeline stream. Richer profiles are needed. Brands need a business page to go with their shitty tweets.If you haven’t noticed Twitter isn’t that creative so they will keep a close eye on Facebook and take elements from them.  I am pretty sure you will see “likes” or “chirps” in the near future. When you login today you just see a stream of tweets. I rather spend my time pimping out my profile so it represents who I am or my brand then tweet. A rich profile would give my tweets more understanding.

Like I previously mentioned, brands like Coca Cola have a twitter account for every product line. Why not allow Coca Cola have one main page where they can control or aggregate all their brand twitter accounts? Remember when every TV commercial said… check out myspace.com/coca-cola? If Twitter does this right they will explode. I will never forget the day I was watching TV with a girlfriend and I noticed every commercial plugged their myspace profile. I said, this is the key to Myspace’s success. It’s the vanity url. Without this, they are nothing and if someone creates a better service around vanity urls they will crush myspace. Then a year later Twitter came along and look what happened. Facebook didn’t kill Myspace, Twitter did. Facebook was very late to the vanity url scene. As soon as they released vanity urls, they media hit it up hard.

Obviously news channels always say visit us on Twitter.com/our-brand but if they have a rich profile with links, stories etc… it will make Twitter so much better. Twitter needs rich profiles to become more mainstream. Picture if Twitter had an about.me page for everyone it would be amazing. Ninety million people signed up for Twitter then bounced without a single tweet or a single follow. I am willing to bet if you give these companies the tools to pimp and manage profiles they would feel like Twitter is a part of them.  Lets say only 10 million new users don’t bounce and remain engaged because of these rich profiles…. win!  Twitter is supposed to be a microblog. Well, a blog is about personality so there’s no reason why Twitter shouldn’t allow people to make them more personal so they can show their personality and or brand.

Twitter will be more than a stream by Summer. I guarantee it.  I think all my predictions will come true. If they want to succeed my Twords Ad model is the only way to do it without pissing off users.

More on this… Techmeme - PC Mag - NBC Bay Area – GigaOM

There is an interesting chart making a claim that people sign up to never return to Twitter. This I can believe and I know of many people who signed up and never returned. Twitter has never revealed how many “active users” the service has, all they say is that 175 million accounts have been created (last page update was 9/14/2010).  Most sites only reveal registered users. I have to assume Twitter has realized they need to focus on making the service more mainstream so more people sign up and stick around.  I have always believed Twitter needs to create a more rich profile page for users. Doing so would not only help them build out the service but it would make it so people make it their “own.”  Unlike FB, usersfeel it’s their space. A profile page should be at the center of a users account. Currently, on Twitter, the “stream” is at the center which makes the service less impersonal. I think they are realizing why 90 million people signed up then decided to bounce on the service soon after. This is a HUGE number. Twitter should reclaim these 90 million usernames because it is very difficult to find a good username. I saw if an account is dormant for 6 months it should be cancelled. The active to non-active ratio might be way off, but you cannot deny the number of page views this site gets each month.

Interesting findings…

• There were 119 million accounts following one or more other accounts.
• There were 85 million accounts with one or more followers.

Breaking it down further…

• 56 million follow 8 or more people.
• 38 million follow 16 people.
• 12 million follow 64 people.

More on this via Techmeme.

So Jack wants to make twitter mainstream so your mother can use it without having their head spin. This is no small feat, but I agree 100%. I am a tech savvy hacker and sometimes I feel like my head is going to explode after I click the > to view the awkward thread. Its hard to tell if a user is in a conversation or just giving the user a shout out. Click to far and you get lost. Needless to say if I have a tough time following conversations my mother will look at the screen for 3o minutes then she will head to Facebook where she is comfortable. Twitter hasn’t really changed much in terms of simplifying things during the last five years. I really think the first change that needs to be done is have a #down booklet link that shows the conversation. I think making things easier is a great first step. Then we can get into the business model I have outlined.

What’s going on with these guys? They sort of look like an 80′s rock band that can no longer be in the same room. We have front-man “Ev” chillin in Tahoe for extended periods of time thinking about creating a “new band company,” Drummer “Biz” hanging out with the crew at Huffington Post and lead guitarist ”Jack D” collaborating and working on two big projects at once. Does anyone else see the comparison? Sure there is no sex, drugs and alcohol and the labels VC’s don’t seem to be bitching yet… so, for now, things are just white collar out-of-control… no biggie but something needs to be fixed. Assuming that Twitter’s three promotional products are not doing well. I think the advertising product I envision would make the most sense. Why do I think this? Just read my recent post on how Twitter can make billions. Anyways, their three core revenue generating products are making companies do too much work. It’s like they assume each company has the time to do more work or are able to afford a Social Media Guru to get social. Companies are looking to advertise, not get consumed with additional work and this is exactly what Twitter’s promotional products do.  Companies are used to running ads against content, not creating content to run as promotional content. According to their “Promoted Best Practices” they are asking companies to do what they suck at… being funny, witty, interesting and conversational. Furthermore, companies do NOT want to be fully engaged with customers.  Even Twitter can’t respond to everyone so how can they assume other companies can. If anything, companies are only looking to be partially engaged. How do I know this? Well, eBay users hated Skype and refused to use it on their eBay auction pages. Twitter is not much different than Skype in this sense.  If Twitter wants to go mainstream they should pivot change direction and move away from their Promotional products and check out my revenue plans.

With all the musical chairs, I believe one of two things is going to happen over the next few months. Twitter either needs to raise a huge round of capital and they need at least one founder to step up so the front office looks stable enough to secure a big fresh round or Square is going to be acquired which will allow Jack to focus on Twitter full time. Why else would Twitter’s board feel the need to negotiate to get one of the founders back? I would think they need at least one founder at the helm to fix things and show the world they are in it to win it.  I believe in Twitter as a money making platform but they need to switch things up and think differently to bring things to the next level. I honestly believe they can make billions by creating an advertising platform that I laid out. I guess we will see what happens soon. To keep up with Twitter keep your eye on Techmeme.

This is an usually long post for me so if you prefer to see images of my pug Simon skip this one… If you are here to learn what could be done to solve Twitter’s billion dollar problem… grab a coffee and take a seat, if interested. I have visuals for those who can’t read long articles. I disagree with this.

With all the tech bubble coverage everyone knows that Twitter needs to find a true business model other than their promotional campaigns and selling data access to the big boys of Web Search. I have been watching Twitter for close to 5 years and I think I understand Twitter just as well as anyone. I may not have much of a following and my site has only been on techmeme once before, but I still think my thoughts can add value to tech news blather or maybe not.

Moving along… I think about Twitter a lot, but unlike most webpreneurs, developers and tech bloggers, I think about things that are anything but obvious.  To me, obvious is boring. Unfortunately, if something isn’t obvious it makes people think; and we all know people are too busy to think about things that are not black and white.

Until a few weeks ago, I like many others thought it would be impossible to monetize Twitter at scale if they didn’t add features around “the stream,” but I was wrong. Features would just be useful. Can you imagine if companies could build out a rich profile on Twitter? I think Coca Cola has a Twitter profile for just about every product line so why not give them the option of listing all profiles on their main profile @coca_cola? The main @coca_cola stream could be an aggregated stream that combines all their brands under under one roof. Or maybe Twitter could have a vertical product like a 140 character system status tool. Every website would use this for $6 per month. Then users could add all services they use or services they run to their feature rich profile dashboards. Simple things like this would bring Twitter to another level much like enhacements helped Facebook transform and commercialize itself.  But first let’s focus on creating an ad platform that is will scale, one that is self serving so you don’t have to pitch Madison Avenue.

Unusual Company

Twitter is an unusual company. They have traction, buzz, hundreds of millions of venture money and is admired by many. However, there is something about Twitter that I do not understand. Why does the relationship between the founders remind me of an 80′s rock band minus the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll? Can they no longer work together? I find it strange that one of the founders is off building a new company and the other two founders are hardly seen at the office. Maybe this is the reason why Twitter can’t find their mojo. Perhaps the recent news might help them bring it back – Jack. Can you be involved with two companies full time? If I was one of their many investors, I would want the team I invested in to be eating, sleeping and living product development… or does this not matter anymore because the investors will see a return regardless. Where’s the focus? If the founding team isn’t hungry enough to stay at work until midnight, who is? The dick-bar guy? I’m not knocking him… he’s a good guy to have around. But where’s the passion? Is this what happens when a company is valued in the secondary market for billions before they generate significant revenue?

I know very little about the relationship between the founders, however, I do know they have expressed interest in creating a new advertising model and this excites me. I love solving complex problems like this and I don’t blame them for wanting to create a new type of advertising – and they should! If you want to be a social media juggernaut you cannot rely on other services to help you generate revenue. Twitter has rejected the notion of using contextual ads because it’s not “interesting” to them and since 2010, they have been searching for a revenue model in a test tube. They headed down the revenue brick road with @earlybird offers, but this was just an experiment to learn how they could help businesses on their platform. Then they introduced Promoted Tweets, Trends and Accounts but it doesn’t seem like these three programs will scale since campaigns start at $5,000 per month – ouch. Google’s Adwords work because anyone who has advertising dollars to spend can participate. The plan I am about to describe does the same.

Think outside the box.

In order to follow what I am saying you will need to think a little outside the box.  If you are a boring individual try to think creatively for 10 minutes. To put my thoughts in perspective… I am coming at this by believing Twitter could easily be a “relevant branding” play with a competitive and lucrative business model just like Adwords and Adsense are to Google. I stay awake at night thinking about these types of problems. Needless to say, I am very excited about what is in my head. I have very detailed thoughts on how what I am about to discuss would work but I will just jot down the basics. If Twitter takes my model seriously I’d love to join the flock to work on this platform… I hear they are looking to fill an executive product position, or they can do as Zuckerberg likes to do… take the concepts of others and make them his own. Ziiiiiiiing!

The dilemma

Twitter needs to connect users to companies that are important to them and they also need to connect companies to users. This isn’t easy because it needs to be done organically. Although there is a fine line between being organic and pissing off users, I think I have figured out a way to make it work… Allow “interesting tweets” to be sponsored after they are published and give the person who tweeted a share of the campaign. Web publishers get paid by Google if they run relevant ads against their content, so why can’t Twitter pay those who create interesting tweets that advertisers want to run relevant branding against? Say what?  Just keep reading…  Don’t worry, I have images for those who can’t understand comprehend greatest in-the-making.

Relevant watermark brilliance #Genius

I am going to discuss not one, but two killer revenue possibilities for Twitter. One is for businesses and the other is for media partnerships. Both will generate significant revenue and pretty much kick ass.

Every company looking to “brand” will have a “Twitter Business Account” that holds their favorite corporate credit card. Then they will select competitive Key Tweet Words (words within a tweet). Let’s keep things simple and say the Coca Cola brand has $100 to spend (Yes, I am aware they spent $120,000 during a 24 hour period on Twitter.) for all of their twitter brand accounts: @CocaColaCo @DietCokeUS @CokeZero @Odwalla… they have too many drink products on Twitter to list.

Now that we have established each company will have a “Twitter Business Account.” Every active user with active followers will have an account equipped with a shiny Piggy “Birdy Bank” so they can get paid if their Tweets end up getting sponsored. Let’s face it, Twitter accounts run by companies suck. I guarantee a clever tweet that gets sponsored will get retweeted way more than the any Promoted Tweet that is running right now.  Tweets by companies don’t have anything interesting, witty or funny to say. But regular users do. Wouldn’t you like your company logo to show up on a tweet that gets retweeted 100 times in a relevant way? Brilliant! Keep reading and see my images.

Users will tweet as they normally do just like this brilliant person below . Keep this tweet in mind as you read on…

Once tweeted; Twitter’s system picks up on the users tweet and inserts a relevant brand advertisement selected from the highest keyword/phrase bidder.  Not all tweets will be monetized just the tweets that are worthy. Users will need to fit the bill as well in order to have their tweets sponsored.  There is so much that could be done that I cannot even begin to list all the creative possibilities so I have created a few examples. Please excuse my shitty graphic design. All that’s needed is a killer designer who  can produce high quality small graphics.

The users would get paid for tweets. #Genius

Once the advertisement for Odwalla, Expedia, Monk’s Kettle or iTunes/Amazon MP3 is inserted into the fresh tweet, Twitter would automatically deduct the bid amount for the inserted ad. In this case we will say it will cost Coca Cola $5 bucks. The amount for the ad insertion will be much like Adwords – based competitive the keyword bidding. Twitter takes that $5 and then pays the user who posted that tweet $1 and Twitter keeps $4. Now here’s where things get very interesting.

When a sponsored tweet gets retweeted. #Genius

If the sponsored tweet get’s retweeted and reaches a crazy number of eyeballs then the advertiser pays more based on CPM ($x amount for every 1000 eye balls) and they could work in CPE (Cost Per Engagement) So the initial $5 insertion fee could quickly become a $5000 campaign and the person who is lucky enough to have the sponsored tweet retweeted will get paid more ontop of that initial payment of $1 discussed above.  If the tweet is retweeted to 100,000 users at $2 CPM we are talking about a $2,000 targeted campaign. If the user makes $50 off one tweet I think they will be more than happy and won’t mind if some tweets are monetized. Nobody seems to complain when Google shows 11 ads against 10 organic search results on a single page. This might also encourage users to create interesting, funny or unique tweets.  Preventing abuse would be a task but all money making systems need protective algorithms in place.  The amount spent and paid out would be weighed by a bunch of factors like impact or influence. They will need to make sure tweets are not money driven but I do not think this will be a big concern since the tweet will always come before the sponsorship. The goal is to not change user behavior, give sponsors a way to reach eye balls and give Twitter a sustainable and interesting advertising model.  #Genius

Brilliant Partnerships. Media companies… free ride no more.  #Genius

Before you say this is a crazy idea that will never work go read the company mission before judging  at Obvious.com.

“Our goal is to create interesting things that matter to the world—and a great place for creative, smart people to work.”

Do you think I am creative or just insane crazy?