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		<dateCreated>Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:49:27 GMT</dateCreated>
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		<ownerName>Dave Winer (Larry King)</ownerName>
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		<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:03:06 GMT" text="Must-have features for Twitter-killing">
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:05:22 GMT" text="&lt;img src=&quot;http://images.scripting.com/archiveScriptingCom/2010/02/08/mardigras.gif&quot; width=&quot;175&quot; height=&quot;187&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; align=&quot;right&quot; hspace=&quot;15&quot; vspace=&quot;5&quot; alt=&quot;A picture named mardigras.gif&quot;&gt;In October 2009, after 2.5 years of using Twitter every day, I wrote a &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/10/16/seeingpasttwitterslimits.html&quot;&gt;piece&lt;/a&gt; that explained the limits of Twitter that we'll have to look past Twitter to see solved, because Twitter doesn't seem to be trying to solve them. "></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:06:30 GMT" text="Tomorrow, we &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/technology/companies/09social.html?ref=business&quot;&gt;hear&lt;/a&gt;, Google will announce a product that aims to take on Twitter. If so, here's a list of features to look for. Any of these features would give Google a serious edge over Twitter. Maybe they thought of some things I don't have on my list. It's always nice to put your stake in the ground. I &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scripting.com/stories/2010/01/26/readingTeaLeavesInAdvanceO.html&quot;&gt;did&lt;/a&gt; it with the iPad with some &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scripting.com/stories/2010/01/28/applesJumboOreo.html&quot;&gt;hilarious&lt;/a&gt; results. "></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:07:46 GMT" text="So here's the list of must-have features:"></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:07:53 GMT" text="1. Reliability. Twitter still has trouble dealing with high-flow events like last night's SuperBowl. Lots of Fail Whales. So if Google is able to offer reliability, no matter how much of an advantage Twitter's installed base is, it won't matter. When Twitter goes down everyone will reassemble on Glitter. "></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:14:37 GMT" text="2. Enclosures. Can you imagine if you couldn't enclose a picture or an MP3 with an email message? Why do we jump through so many hoops just to tweet a picture? "></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:15:59 GMT" text="3. Open architecture metadata. Let developers throw any data onto a status message, giving it a name and a type, and let everyone else sort it out. It would result in an explosion of creativity."></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:16:50 GMT" text="4. Relationships with hardware vendors. I still want a one-click &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/12/27/comingsoonatwittercamera.html&quot;&gt;Twitter camera&lt;/a&gt;. If I can't have it from Twitter, I'll take it from Google."></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:18:00 GMT" text="5. No 140-character limit. I debated this one with myself. At first I compromised and said okay let's have a 250-character limit, or a 500-character limit. But I really don't want a limit. If I want to write short status messages, no problemmo. We've already made the cultural transition. We know how to do it. But sometimes a thought just can't be expressed in 140 characters. No one is wise enough to know what the limit is, so let's just not have one."></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:19:33 GMT" text="6. No URL-shorteners. I've &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/08/10/enoughWithShortenedUrls.html&quot;&gt;explained&lt;/a&gt; this so many times. They're stupid and ugly and they hurt the web. I like it when developers take the time to craft their URLs so they make sense to users. That's all the shortening we really need and all we should have."></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:17:35 GMT" text="Those are some of my wish-list items. It seems likely Google will offer #1 and #2. Very unlikely they'll do #3 (they don't trust developers any more than Apple does). Probably not #4, though it would be easy to get some people from Kodak and Sony to come on stage with them. #5 would take a teeny bit of guts. It's a perfect way to throw some serious confusion at Twitter. I'd recommend going all the way, but if they can't, go to 500-characters. Get some editors and authors on stage to say how nice it would be. Because they're making a commitment to their own URL-shortener it seems unlikely they would outlaw them on their status network, but one can hope."></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:03:18 GMT" text="&lt;img src=&quot;http://images.scripting.com/archiveScriptingCom/2010/01/28/oreo-cakesters.jpg&quot; width=&quot;150&quot; height=&quot;106&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; align=&quot;right&quot; hspace=&quot;15&quot; vspace=&quot;5&quot; alt=&quot;A picture named oreo-cakesters.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;a name=&quot;killing&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;I usually don't subscribe to the idea that new products aimed at the user base of an established product are &quot;killers&quot; -- but it's been a long time since we've seen a product as ripe for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businessinsider.com/google-is-set-to-launch-twitter-clone-for-gmail-2010-2&quot;&gt;killing&lt;/a&gt; as Twitter. (Lotus 1-2-3 was probably the last great example.)"></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:04:05 GMT" text="The hubris of Twitter is the assumption that the product is unassailable because of the features they leave out. Sooner or later one of their competitors is going to test that theory, and I'm pretty sure it'll prove incorrect. And where they &lt;i&gt;include&lt;/i&gt; horrendous features that a competitor might leave out (I'm thinking of URL-shortening) they don't seem to feel any pressure to take it out. Yet almost every user would enjoy a Twitter with real full URLs that didn't take up any of the 140-character space. Hard to imagine anyone objecting."></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:36:19 GMT" text="OTOH, Google is a big clunky Microsoft-like company with strategy taxes, and they don't trust the web or developers, or each other, and their internal politics drive most of the decisions they make. To compete with Twitter is an easy sell inside Google, but to actually have the will to be cut-throat about it, that's another thing. It'll probably have to pay homage to Google Wave (remember that?) and therefore will have some elements that are completely incomprehensible. Twitter likely won't get killed, because Google's product will likely fall far-short of what's needed to get us all to think they can be trusted. "></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:38:24 GMT" text="The usual disclaimers apply. This is all tea-leave-reading, I have no actual information, and I'm usually way wrong with these prognostications, but it's still good to share the thought process. &quot;;-&gt;&quot;"></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:49:33 GMT" text="Update #1: A commenter named Scott &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scripting.com/stories/2010/02/08/musthaveFeaturesForTwitter.html#comment-33144499&quot;&gt;says&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;If people were posting dissertations, I'd be much less likely to read.&quot; &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.scripting.com/stories/2010/02/08/musthaveFeaturesForTwitter.html#comment-33162944&quot;&gt;Tom Caswell says&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;How about a 'more' button you could set in the preferences? I would set mine at 140 characters for old times sake.&quot; Even better, it could default to 140 for old times sake."></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:54:50 GMT" text="Update #2: &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/CeaseTheDay/status/8830801965&quot;&gt;Cesar Razuri&lt;/a&gt;: &quot;also, make hashtags some sort of meta data in our tweets that doesn't add to character length&quot; Good idea."></outline>
			<outline created="Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:11:07 GMT" text="Update #3: &lt;a href=&quot;http://scobleizer.com/2010/02/09/the-social-failings-of-google/&quot;&gt;Scoble weighs in&lt;/a&gt;. Even though Google's past efforts at social media have failed, he thinks this time they have a good chance of succeeding. "></outline>
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