| On eBay, Twitter Followers Are Worth Less Than A Penny Each Posted: 31 Jan 2010 09:17 AM PST 
It used to be that Twitter followers were worth something, or at least people thought they were worth something, which is the same thing. It was only about a year ago when Jason Calacanis was offering $250,000 to buy a spot on Twitter’s Suggested User List, which would have guaranteed him perhaps a million followers before Twitter ended up revamping the SUL to be less monolithic. He never got on the list, but if his offer would have come to roughly $0.25 per follower. Today, you can “buy” followers on eBay for less than a penny each. Some of the Buy-It-Now listings include 5,000 followers for $20 (which comes to 0.4 penny/follower), $5,500 for $40 (0.7 penny/follower), $1,100 for $10 (0.9 penny/follower). You are not actually buying followers outright (Twitter doesn’t allow people to transfer their followers), but rather services which “guarantee” getting your account up to the promised number of followers through “proven and safe methods.” Some even only count reciprocal followers (followers who follow back). How do they do this? Well, there are automated bots, of course. But another method we’ve heard about anecdotally uses cheap labor in China to create Twitter Follower farms (similar to the gold farms that grew around online games like World of Warcraft). Online laborers in China essentially create thousands of Twitter accounts which can then follow other accounts. Yes, people are actually paying for this worthless service. The sellers on eBay may very well use different methods. But the fact that these types of followers are worthless shows in the plummeting rate for Twitter followers from a quarter each a year ago to less than a penny now. So are Twitter followers simply worthless as many people have suspected all along? I think you have to distinguish between real followers and fake followers (maybe Twitter could start a Verified Follower service), and how engaged those followers are. Do they retweet a lot and engage in conversation, or never tune in at all? Follower counts don’t tell you that. Just as all Website visitors are not worth the same, neither are all Twitter followers. But you can’t buy real followers. They come to you. 
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| NSFW: Guest Post! Five reasons the iPad will blah blah blah Kindle Posted: 31 Jan 2010 09:00 AM PST  Columnist’s Note: In a little under 24 hours, I have to submit the final manuscript of my next book. My original deadline – January 1st – sailed passed weeks ago, as did the one-week extension I awarded myself on the basis that no-one does any work in the first week of the year. This last deadline, though, is immovable: lawyers and editors and typesetters and proof-readers are standing by; the thing has to be printed at some point. I haven’t slept for days, my blood is an 80:20 Caffeine:Provigil blend and I can’t feel my fingers. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t have time to write this week’s column.
And yet, I still have a contract with TechCrunch – one that’s no less binding or legally enforceable than the one I have with my publisher. By hook or by crook, 1000 words have to appear in this space. I briefly considered outsourcing this week’s column to India – or maybe employing some Indians on H1Bs here; I gather that’s the future. But then I remembered that employing people costs money. Next I considered asking one of my journalist friends to take over for the week; but there’s always the danger that they’ll be better at the job than I am and I’ll find myself unemployed. Again. I needed a solution which a) fills space, b) is free and c) is unlikely to put me out of a job. And that’s when it hit me – I should commission a Guest Post. But I’m not going to give away my space on TechCrunch to just anyone: I need to make sure that they conform to the high standards demanded of a typical tech blog guest author. To that end, I’ve put together this useful list of hints for writing the perfect Guest Post… - Tip One: Choose a topical issue
This is vital. Without a topical issue to hang from, all Guest Posts would to forced to use honest titles like “My marketing director told me to write this because it’s the only way our bullshit product will get on TechCrunch” or “I only wrote this to warrant an entry on CrunchBase”. The obvious topical issue this week is the launch of the iPad. Like new spin-offs of CSI, the world will never tire of new opinions on the iPad, even if yours brings absolutely nothing fresh or new to the genre. If you’re feeling bold though, why not try to link your customised iPhone cover startup to the recent death of JD Salinger? (hint: bunchofphoneys.com is still available) - Tip Two: Ask yourself “do I actually know anything about this subject?”
If yes, go back to the drawing board. It is critical that you choose a subject that has absolutely no relation to your areas of expertise. For example: I am a former book publisher who now splits his time between writing books and blogging about technology. I also read maybe 75-100 books a year. Therefore, if I were to write a Guest Post comparing – say – the iPhone and the Kindle – readers would assume that I was allowing my prior knowledge to cloud my judgment on which device is better for enjoying books. They would smell bias. Much better that I opine on, say, the pet food industry or why Belgians make terrible lovers. I mean, they do, right? My wife/mother/kids told me. - Tip Three: Work your issue into a snappy title
Let’s say you’ve decided to write about the iPad – because, let’s face it, you have. Next comes the important task of picking a title. Remember, a good title serves two important functions: 1) to attract comment trolls, and 2) to amuse Gabe Rivera from Techmeme. One tried and tested format is the “Why X will be the Y killer” construction, or the even more popular “Five tips for…” meme. The latter is especially recommended for authors who are working against a tight deadline: readers will tolerate any shit as long as it’s in a numbered list (the so-called ‘Mashable Rule’). Note: there is no need for the title to actually relate to the body of your Guest Post: the two are quite separate entities. - Tip Four: Write any old crap
The trick here is to avoid looking or sounding like a real writer or a journalist. If your prose is too polished or your argument too well thought out, readers will assume you’re one of TC’s paid writers and will ignore your carefully written promotional bio. The trick is to make readers get one paragraph in and think “who the fuck is this idiot?” and then scroll down to find out. How can you telegraph your amateur status? I, personally, myself believe that the use of tautology is a good way to go. As is unnecessary repetition. Another approach is to completely ignore the most obvious flaw in your argument. For example, if you’re comparing the iPad unfavourably to the Kindle, it’s important to appear oblivious to the existence of e-ink. Instead point to the iPad’s superior video-handling abilities, or the fact that its name has a more balanced vowel-to-consonant ratio than the Kindle. - Tip Five: End on a high-five, with a blatantly self-promotional bio
After all, you didn’t spend hours waiting for your PR company to finish ghost-writing your Guest Post, only to throw away your big chance to stroke your ego and make a few dollars at the end. Am I right? Ok, then get to it! If you think you’re up to the challenge of writing a guest post, please summarise your pitch on the inside cover of a copy of Paul Carr’s multi-Steve-wynning book – Bringing Nothing To The Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore – and send to him via TechCrunch where, until this post goes live, he writes a weekly column. 
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| Why My Mom’s Next Computer Is Going To Be An iPad Posted: 31 Jan 2010 08:09 AM PST 
Editor's note: This is a guest post penned by Ethan Nicholas, developer of the million-dollar iPhone game iShoot and the newly released Kim Rhode's Outdoor Shooting. Before the iPad was even announced, Nicholas was already conceiving his next game with the tablet device in mind. The Internet is a funny place. After Apple announced its new iPad, I cringed at the hate being directed its way on sites such as Slashdot and Digg. Even the guys at Penny Arcade, whom I normally agree with, said “that iPad presentation had to be the worst thing I’ve even seen on on the Apple stage” and that Apple had failed to make a case for the device. If you believe them, the iPad is going to be a massive flop. Well, the unwashed masses on the Internet also predicted that the iPod would be a failure. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. The iPad is a computer for people who don’t like computers. People who don’t like the idea of upgrading their 3D drivers, or adjusting their screen resolution, or installing new memory. Who don’t understand why their computer gets slower and slower the longer they own it, who have 25 icons in their system tray and have to wait ten minutes for their system to boot up every day. For what most of these people need a computer for, the iPad is perfect. It doesn’t do as many things as a “real” computer does, but the things it does do it does in a way even non-tech-savvy people can figure out, and there are far fewer ways to screw it up. So if you have managed to convince yourself that the iPad is a useless, locked-up DRM-laden failure of a ‘computer’ before even touching one, I have two words for you: My mom. My mother is a lovely lady in her sixties who is… well, “not computer savvy” is probably a good way to put it. I regularly have to figure out why her computer is running incredibly slowly, or why it won’t print, or any of the million other random things that happen when people who don’t live and breathe computers sit down at one daily. The iPad is perfect for her. It does exactly what she needs. It will let her watch movies and listen to music and read books on long flights. It will make using a computer fun instead of an annoying chore. But it also won’t allow her to install umpteen news and weather gadgets that start up on boot and slow her computer to a crawl. It won’t suddenly forget how to talk to a network, or get so confused by all of the software installs and uninstalls that you finally have to break down and reinstall the system from scratch. In other words, my mother’s next computer is going to be an iPad, and I dream of the day when I can finally throw off the oppressive chains of being the one guy in the family who knows how to actually keep a computer working. And you know what? There are millions upon millions of people just like her out there. They outnumber us. And they finally have a chance to become productive, self-sufficient computer users instead of constantly asking family members to fix their computers or, even worse, keeping the Geek Squad in business. No, the iPad isn’t for everyone. But I’m going to go on record as saying that, for non-computer-geeks everywhere, the iPad is going to redefine computing. (Image courtesy of Flickr/Scott Chang) 
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| In The Limelight: An American Entrepreneur In China Talks About Startup Culture Posted: 31 Jan 2010 03:24 AM PST  Calvin Chin is an American entrepreneur who lives in Shanghai. He founded Qifang, a P2P lending site for Chinese student loans. You can read more about Qifang here. He attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this last week, where China was the center of attention. We asked him to write this guest post and share his unique perspective as an American building a startup in the heart of China.
Here at Davos it seems China keeps coming up in two ways – neither of them positive. One, with the worst of the crisis behind us, people are turning from last year’s hopes of China as economic savior to China as free-rider keeping its currency cheap, bullying its minorities and shirking its responsibilities in Copenhagen. Two, in the tech community, seems everyone is talking about Google, Chinese government hackers and censorship. My view, and I think it’s one that many in China would probably share, is that while free access to information and the rest of the world is inherently a good thing, so is political stability. The Chinese government has earned a lot of slack for raising hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and if things did go out of control a heck of a lot of people would get hurt. So even if they want China to be plugged in to the rest of the world to encourage innovation and Chinese tech entrepreneurship (which I think they do), they’d put that priority after getting most Chinese people better lives. It’s kind of the same deal that Chinese startups all make, to try to do build cool stuff but while working within the system. So Tudou and Youku screen their videos and the fastest growing microblogging service is run by a portal that has the infrastructure from screening blogs to be able to screen tweets. All these companies are making the same decision that Google made to enter China in 2004 too (and stay for now), but for Chinese entrepreneurs they don’t have the option of not being in the China market. It’s what they know and where they have their best shot at success. And I’m sure if you’d ask them, they’d sincerely agree that eliminating poverty and keeping things stable comes way before access to a few articles in a foreign language about events that don’t mean much to them. I don’t think many non-Chinese would like the aggressively patriotic and self-important China that would probably be the outcome of democracy there today anyways. The Chinese market for startups is growing so fast, is so competitive and is characterized by so many unfair advantages for the big players, that local entrepreneurs just keep their heads down and roll with the political and market changes. Take Digu for instance, they launched as a pretty simple copy of Twitter that focused on celebrity accounts, then pivoted to a social game model when all the startup microblogging platforms got shutdown and Sina (with a lock on celebrity blogs) launched Weibo, and are now back to straight microblogging with a better ability to keep the tweet streams “harmonized.” Digu didn’t whine, they just sucked it up and forged ahead. This is typical for Chinese startups. Whether they are localizing an international hit, copy-2-china style, at a much cheaper price and a better UI like Kuukie. Or they’re a fit for Chinese net culture with a product that you don’t see elsewhere like Douban’s social network for talking about books (and now other media). The thing is while the majority of Chinese netizens really don’t care that much about what’s going on outside of China, the ones who do care, people who would start companies, people who want international news, all know workarounds to use services they like or read about sensitive topics from other perspectives. They use Twitter clients like Bage or free (http://hotspotshield.com/) or paid VPNs. So much so that Twitter won in the grassroots Chinamode awards. So actually, the Chinese government kinda gets the best of all worlds: most Chinese netizens are sufficiently inconvenienced so they’ll never stumble into places they shouldn’t, motivated innovators still find out about, get to, and can track any going on globally, and international companies that would otherwise compete for local market share get locked out. 
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| Is Bill Gates’ New Website Really Running On Linux? Posted: 30 Jan 2010 05:44 PM PST  Sometimes tips come in that seem too good to be true. Take today, for example. I got a tip that Bill Gates’ new site, The Gates Notes, was running on a Linux-powered server. This would be ironic since Gates is of course the founder of Microsoft, which is Linux’s biggest competitor in the server market. It would be the equivalent of catching Gates or CEO Steve Ballmer being caught using (and not just signing) a MacBook at a conference. So is it true?
A quick search on Netcraft shows that thegatesreport.com sure enough looks to be running on the Linux OS. But wait. The results also say that web server is Microsoft-IIS/7.0. That doesn’t sound right, so what gives? Well, it turns out that because Gates is using Akamai to mirror his sites’ content in the event of massive traffic (or more specifically, something like a DDoS attack), this data is being filtered through there. Akamai uses Linux for its servers, so that’s what OS is being passed back to Netcraft. But at the same time, to make things more confusing, the Akamai servers are still passing back the correct server header for Gates’ site: Microsoft-IIS/7.0. How do I know this? Because the same thing happened in 2003 when it was humorously, but erroneously reported that Microsoft was using Linux servers to run microsoft.com. In fact, the same thing was going on: Microsoft was routing its traffic through Akamai, which again, runs Linux boxes. Microsoft has since apparently changed to its own servers since then so that they now correctly return Windows Server 2003 as their OS. That is likely what The Gates Report is running on as well given the Microsoft-IIS/7.0 web servers. So sadly, no nice bit of irony here, it would seem. But if you haven’t yet done so, take the opportunity to check out Gates’ site, it’s really well done and full of good information. 
[photo: flickr/world economic forum]
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| Why Bigger Is Better: The iPad And The Arc of Computing Posted: 30 Jan 2010 04:28 PM PST 
The following guest post was written by Edo Segal (@edosegal). Earlier last week, as the day was coming to an end and I was speaking with my 5 year old at bedtime we shared the highlights of our day. I started by telling him the company that created the iPhone is about to come out with . . . I paused—how do I describe it?—well, a “big iPhone” I said. About this big, I gestured holding my hands about 10 inches apart. "Wow, Amazing!" was his instant reaction as his eyes lit up. Even my 5-year-old knows that bigger is better, especially when it comes to tactile interfaces. In fact, the advantages are probably more obvious to his generation than it is to ours. For this first generation born into a world of the iPhone, Wii and soon the Xbox’s Project Natal, the distance between the metaphor created by these devices and the reality of their interaction is constantly shrinking. My wife is currently doing her PhD research on the merits of tangible interfaces for young children in education and the data is telling. There is no doubt that there is great potential to enhance learning with tactile computing. Through that lens the "Bigger iPhone" is akin to a bigger yard to play in or a bigger room. This insight is telling. For these kids the iPhone's primary function is by no means a phone. It is first and formost a gaming device, followed by a networked camera, followed by everything else. Through this lens one can see the importance of the iPad in the historical trajectory of our human-computer interaction. What’s lost in all the complaints about what the iPad is lacking (multitasking, camera, etc.) is that people need to view the iPad on more than its merits as a first-generation product. Rather, they need to understand it in context of the evolutionary arc of computing. Don’t think about the iPad as just a computer. Its true potential lies in its potential as a communications device. Already, it functions as an electronic reader, helping to bring the world of books to computers. But there is video and audio too, with the potential for VoIP apps and even one day a camera for video messaging. The artificial walls that separate our notion of communications and computing are being broken. It is time for the dawning of communications apps. Think about it. It makes absolutely no sense that we have these parallel universes on our devices that are relics of technologies past. The notion of voice as one stack of technologies and the rest must perish. Communications, both audio and video, will be weaved into the fabric of the app space. For example, an API should allow developers to integrate Skype-like P2P communications into their apps opening a new world of utility. Only a company like Apple can have this kind of leverage over the telcos and only in the very near future will they be able to bring about this change. This goes for the iPhone as well as the iPad. The two are joined at the hip through 140,000 shared apps. In their dash to fortify their lead against the hordes dressed in Google colors, Apple must use its window of opportunity to push the envelope on what one can do with a touchscreen computer, but not yet with an Android-powered device. They must learn from their OS wars with Microsoft. Google will continue to copy their every move as did Microsoft before it. Fueled by their advertising money printing presses, Google gives away what Apple attempts to sell. This means Apple must drill deeper into the telco stack. Think of visual voicemail as a simple prelude. But they will have to go much deeper, making the communication experience itself evolve. Video calling will be made a reality with iChat for iPhone OS, and not just one-to-one calling but conference calling. Many claim that video calling is just a gimick and that it has never really caught on despite being available decades in one form or another. To them I would argued that it has never been attempted by a company with product-design excellence like Apple and furthermore it has never been integrated into a vibrant app ecology with tens of thousands of developers applying their creativity. By opening up the communications stack via the API in a holistic way and introducing video and P2P realtime data transport, Apple will open a new world of communications apps that will further blur the lines between computers and communications devices. Imagine Xbox Live-type experiences where a group of teenagers fire away while being on a group audio chat, calling Hertz to reserve a car while seeing the agent and using swipe gestures to choose your car, even playing REAL strip poker (see illustration). 
Utilitarian business communications, social interaction and gaming will all evolve and co-mingle on the platform. The iPad doesn’t need anything other than a data connection to function as a phone as well as everything else. Whether they like it or not, the telcos will be relegated to running efficient data pipes competing on price and service. The iPad will further blur the lines between device categories and contribute to the coming confusion. As I wrote in a prior post this will significantly impact the media world as well. Here’s another prediction: the coming iPad and next iPhone will have a front-facing camera and rest assured it will be put to good use. The lines between a device you put up to your face (a phone) and a next-gen communication device you speak at will continue to collapse. The fact you put it in your pocket or carry it around will also not define it as a “phone” anymore. In many ways the legacy technologies are coming full circle. You can be sure that when the inventors of the Internet sat down and brainstormed the topology of the network they used the metaphor of a phone number to explain the notion of it being a phone number of a computer. Now the phone number is the IP address of a person. It follows you in a nomadic form that is true to the human condition. Extending this metaphor one can recognize another potential gap in the strengths of the forces aligning themselves against Apple. Namely, Facebook monopolizing the social graph. We carry with us on our "phones" our most intimate of social networks. Your contact list coupled with the frequency of communication you have with those people on your device makes for the most useful social graph of all. Without users needing to do anything they don’t do already, that social graph could be made extremely useful. Not a network of hundreds of people you didn’t want to say “No” to and friended despite your better judgement, but rather an intimate network of your real friends and family with a simple proximity threshold based on communication frequencies. Having someone’s nomadic IP (phone number) is an indication of a real relationship. Apple is in a position to capture that and control this namespace and add value to it. They already own Me.com and can build out that core MobileMe service to become the equivalent of a DNS service for telephone numbers by resolving them to peoples names. Think of it, a phone number is unique and is mapped to a person. It's not so useless after all. With number portability people are holding on to these numbers with the same vigilance that some IT folks hold on to our static IPs. What Apple should do is move Me.com to a freemium model ASAP and start amassing a high value social graph that will have increasing returns for the future of its platform. There is no reason for them to give up the addressable space of users to Facebook and Google when they own the point of origination and the best way to access consumers, their nomadic IPs. So there you have it: the path for Apple to combat the two other majors, who are all inching onto each others turf in more ways then one. The winners, like with all such competitions (as long as no one wins), will be us. Welcome, iPad. Me and the kids are waiting. Guest author Edo Segal (@edosegal) has launched and sold several companies. In 2000 he founded eNow, which he sold to AOL in 2006 (after it was renamed Relegence). Today, he runs his Incubator/Investment vehicle Futurity Ventures, which recently launched a new search engine for wisdom. iPad image via Flickr/Scott Chang, REAL strip poker illustration by Edo Segal. 
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| ClientShow Debuts Realtime Collaboration App For Creative Pitches Posted: 30 Jan 2010 12:55 PM PST 
Last fall, TechCrunch50 startup ClientShow presented its innovative application to help creative, advertising and marketing professionals show, pitch, share and sell their work to clients more effectively through real-time collaboration and communication. Similar to a WebEx for creative professionals, ClientShow allows users to essentially create a “virtual agency” to collaborate and share ideas with clients. This week, the startup is debuting its platform in private beta. We have 1000 invites for Techcrunch readers here. The application, which is built on Adobe Air, includes a dashboard which lets the agency view client lists, projects and pitch sessions at a single glance. The dashboard acts as an organizational launching pad, where you can see attached notes and images about upcoming pitches and a schedule of sessions. The second feature is a "work" section which actually lets you set up and prepare for the sessions. You can drag and drop your files into the application, where you can view the projects. To engage in a virtual "pitch,"clients are given a link that lets them view the session in their browser. While the users who are pitching the idea are using an Adobe Air application, the client will see the actual pitch within their browser. Here’s where ClientShow brings in the collaboration angle: as you are pitching an idea, decision makers on a client team can approve (or dismiss) different ideas and files and give feedback automatically by adding notes and comments to the pitch that are updated in realtime. After a pitch has ended, users will want to look back on clients' comments and feedback, which is where the fourth part of ClientShow's software comes in. The "vault" captures and stores all interactive feedback from sessions. You can also see session reports"in the vault that shows you every file that was documented in the presentation in the order they were presented. The entire application is free, but ClientShow will be monetizing by offering a paid version that includes additional premium features. The startup has raised $750,000 in funding so far from undisclosed angel investors and will be launching the application to the public in the next two months. Of course, my one complaint about the application is that it is built off of Adobe Air which is buggy and has other problematic issues. However, the realtime collaboration functionality of the application is compelling. The ability to create threaded discussions around a pitch and collaborate easily is sure to be useful to the creative industries. 
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