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Twitter Events via Custom Twitter Nodes

February 26, 2008 by Jim Parker in Internet Business, media, twitter

Fred Wilson writes about a great idea for Twitter in Event Firehoses in Twitter.

I think that is a great idea. This is something I have been thinking about for quite a while. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to subscribe to an event in such a way.

For the sake of discussion, I like to throw a couple of problems and a possible alternative solution:

First, in order for a person’s tweet to show up in the event, they would have to use one of the tracking keywords. That means correct spelling is required and existence of that keyword is a obviously critical. “John Stewart” and “Jon Stewert” wouldn’t be picked up. My idea of what keyword is associated to the Oscars event might be different than yours. Or, I might be a horrible speller.

But also, that means tweets couldn’t become part of the context of the event unless a keyword was present. “Wow he just slipped on stage” (as Colin Farrell and John Travolta did) wouldn’t show in the feed as there are no keywords that identify the context – yet obviously, this tweet should appear in the “Oscar Event Feed”.

So what is an alternative?

What if Twitter had the concept of events built in? For example, the organizers of the Oscars could register “Oscars” event at a Twitter event config site. Then, from my phone, IM, Twitter client, or via the web, I could get a list of current/upcoming events. If I had done that Sunday night, I would have seen “Oscars” as a list of events of the night. Then, I could type eventon Oscars on my phone. From this point on, all tweets I send would go to the “Oscars” event group. Also, I would receive all tweets from other people who were attending (have joined) the “Oscars” event via Twitter.

So rather than depending on keywords, I simply join an event. I get all tweets within the event context. When the event is over (i.e. the twitter event expires) then I stop getting tweets in that context.

Custom Twitter Nodes is the Answer-

In my opinion, it is this sort of functionality that will (should) take Twitter to the next level. What if Twitter were to add the concept of Custom Twitter Nodes where people could setup and configure Nodes to meet the needs of their event, or group, or whatever? The possibilities are endless were Twitter to start offering “Custom Twitter Nodes”. Events would be one type of node with a set of rules. Perhaps there would be a Private Twitter Node type that people could setup and join without content being publicly available. How about an Custom Twitter node at the club? Or a conference? What about a Custom Twitter Node type for the grocery store? Hmmmm. Somebody might pay for that.

Yes, much of this functionality can be hacked by third parties. And many of these third parties are doing great and cool stuff. However, this type of service - Twitter Events via Custom Twitter Nodes - would be much better if it were provided by Twitter itself.

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• Jim Parker
  I enjoy watching all of the changes in the world that are caused by us trying to figure out technology.
• Jim Parker