Great conversation. Thought I might be able to provide some background of what we're doing.
Let's forget about twitter for the moment. I'd prefer to leave it to historians to make a judgement on whether twitter is providing value or not. As Tim has mentioned, we're using twitter as a data source so that we could tune our engine and demonstrate the engine's potential via 'real, live, massive' amount of data. We are not married to twitter and within weeks, we could deliver a Twendly for blog, Twendly for Confluence, Twendly for exchange so on and so forth. What's important here is what the underlying engine can do. Data is only a skin deep. Let's also forget about consumer vs. enterprise play for now. Windows has home edition as well as site licenses. Quicken has QucickBook and Quicken as well. I firmly believe that the problem we're solving exists on both side of the firewall. It's just a matter of given our experiences and resources which direction we're best positioned to attack first. Let's focus on what's the problem we're trying to solve: +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ We are helping people to find each other. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ #1. We're not a "information search engine" like Google or Autonomy. We find people instead of content. Of course we'll provide a preview of the content for one search result, but it's only for 'prove to me' purpose. For example, if you search for http://twendly.com/?q=siliconbeach+"lifeguard+paper";, you will find 5 people who are talking about "Lifeguard paper" at almost the same time. If you click into any of them, you could see what they were talking about. People first, timeline, historical info are all secondary. ( Tim's famous "People Centric Software" idea. ) #2. We're not a 'real time people search engine'. We believe in the value of aggregated historical data. A good example here is a search for "Tiger Woods": http://twendly.com/?q="tiger+woods"; Now if you are looking for someone who tweets more golf than gossip, you'll definitely give #5 a try since the rests are obviously interested more in celebrity than sports. #3. We're not a 'content aggregator'. We might need to bring in contents from multiple sources, call it 'break down the asymmetric info wall", or 'bridge the silos' or 'identity fragmentation', that's only our crawler's mission, not ours. :0) Ours is to apply a "people search" on top of all the bits and try to make sense of it. #4. Our current goal is to help people to find "influencers" and "connectors" within a community. ( The Tipping Point, anyone? ) The whole internet could be one community, this google group could be one, a 300-employee company or a 150,000-people corporation all can be treated as a community. As long as there are people, there are needs to find each other, to connect. Having said all these, the engine still needs significant improvements on both accuracy and scalability. We're still trying to find our first beachhead. Please give twendly.com 5 minutes, play around with it and share with us your answer to this question: --------------------------------------------------------- What does Twendly.com enable you to do? --------------------------------------------------------- Cheers, Alex On Jan 5, 12:27 pm, "Hendro Wijaya" <hendro_wij...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Hey Tim, > > This is just my thought and I might be wrong. > > 1. Twitter is half-fad. > I can't see how Twitter will grow through the same trajectory like Facebook. > They won't die, but, won't be as mainstream and active in the consumer > space. > The most sustainable use cases I see people using Twitter are: business > self-interest (tweet their blog post, deals, etc) and once-in-a-blue-moon > real-time news. > Effect on Twendly: sustainable value proposition. Why would I, as consumer, > keep using it? I only use Twitter Search Engine when there is an earthquake > (or some real-time news that I care). > > 2. Tech-acquisition as the only way out. > Continue from 1. Without sustainable value proposition, I think it will be > hard to monetize and leave you with tech-acquisition as the only way out. > For me, that is a very risky bet unless you think you guys can build > something way better than Google, Bing and Twitter in this space (e.g. > Etherpad's case). > > 3. Solve real problem. > I personally made this mistake and it's been a valuable lesson. > Based on my own experience and your video about HiveMind, I think > asymmetric-knowledge is a real problem in enterprise. I think it will worth > more in long run if you guys focus on solving that. > > Again, I might be absolutely clueless and please feel free to enlighten me. > > -Hendro > > -------------------------------------------------- > From: "Tim Bull" <tbull...@googlemail.com> > Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 8:27 AM > To: "Silicon Beach Australia" <silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com> > Subject: [SiliconBeach] Long time SB member, new entrepreneur seeking your > assitance on ideas for our site > > > > > Hi All, > > > Thought I'd re-introduce myself - I've been a long time lurker in this > > community (I was one of the early sign ups when Elias launched it). > > > Recently, I quite my job of 15 years at PwC and co-founded > >http://www.binaryplex.comwith Alex Dong - we are focussed on the > > problem of expertise location. Initially we thought this would > > primarily be an Enterprise play and have collected some interest in > > this space along the way, but we are wondering now if there might be a > > consumer play here instead. > > > We've created a new Twitter search enginehttp://twendly.comwhich is > > indexing Twitter users and using our underlying people search engine > > to demonstrate the concept. > > > I'd really appreciate anyone here who could spare a few minutes to > > have a quick look and a poke around at it and let us know your > > thoughts either through the feedback link on the site, or e-mail me at > > tim.b...@binaryplex.com. > > > To give you a taste, a search for silicon beach > >http://twendly.com/?q=silicon+beach > > reveals these are the people who've tweeted most about it over the > > past 12 months. If you view this on the site you'll see both a > > relevancy rank and a histogram. > > > #1 Mick Liubinskas @liubinskas | Australia Web business builder for > > Pollenizer - global, early stage tech, services company. > > > #2 Pieter Peach @ppeach | Melbourne, Australia Learning to build > > things. Doctor intrigued by the web & decision making. Founder, > > SimpleSponsorship.com. > > > #3 Mike Casey @mikecasey | T: -33.923693,151.19054 Director at > > GradConnection, Tech startup fan, HR tourist, internet analytics > > machine. Yet another R1b1b2a1a2f > > > #4 Ian C @aussie_ian | Sydney I love travel, the web, and music! > > > #5 Daniel Purchas @danpurchas | iPhone: -33.893589,151.146988 > > Director of a Graduate Recruitment Online Marketing Company > > > #6 John Haining @johnhaining | Sydney, Australia Dad, Business > > Owner, Entrepreneur, Dashing Geek :) > > > #7 ryancross @ryancross | Sydney, Australia a geek, duh! > > > #8 Tom Voirol @voirol | Sydney Online strategy, social media and > > user experience consultant. Husband, MBA student, kitty litter box > > cleaner. > > > #9 IPitch Australia @IPitchAU | Sydney, Australia Where Australian > > entrepreneurs and startups come to pitch ideas, find investment and > > get the latest industry news > > > #10 socialmediameme @socialmediameme | Social Media Strategies > > > Would appreciate any feedback you could give us and suggestions on > > which direction we should take this idea - our gut instinct is that > > there IS a play here in the consumer space, but your thoughts and > > feedback would really help. > > > Cheers, > > > Tim > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach > > Australia mailing list. > > > Guidelines on discussion:http://tr.im/ujKF > > > No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself:http://tr.im/ujMm > > > To post to this group, send email to > > silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Guidelines on discussion: http://tr.im/ujKF No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://tr.im/ujMm To post to this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en
