Twitter, Next ?

GigaOm had a post on a more open Twitter like universe: http://gigaom.com/2010/06/17/what-would-a-more-open-twitter-look-like/

I quite like the thought and would like to extend it

1. Use twitter's downtime to "fill transient need"
2. Support Closed communities/groups, workgroups, signed up customers. Yammer, for instance, could also support Twitter accounts with a failover option for account holders! So folks from co X, Y, Z can still communicate beyond workgroups using @twitter-id@twitter etc
3. Create add on functionality that makes it valuable for specific interests. E.g. a cycling community that also has syntax/an interface/smart parsing for logging, planning rides, in-community classifieds, etc. Some sort of an enhanced forum on the same channel ? Again, keep the links alive with Twitter and other open standards.

Some of the above do exist - but there's clearly a space for niches. Twitter has essentially helped establish a habit of and create a market for a new mode of communication on the web and mobile. The next round of innovation to piggyback on this is just waiting to happen!

You Are L(ured) ? Self selling retail web

Imagine!

You're driving and drawl up next to this this majorly cool car (or cycle, or motorbike) at the lights - and you go wow! What's that ? A quick check on the phone brings up the model, reviews, price, blah.

You've memo'ed the specific medicine/grocery item/whatever that you need to pick, but thats not that easy to find. You cross a store where this is available, and your phone goes "beep-pick this up here" immediately.

You're in a meeting and totally dig that phone, or pen, or laptop that X-Y-Z in the room has. You're curious. Problem solved!

You're house hunting and pass a property you think you might be interested in. Check if something's available, prices, T&C.

The guys at the next table in a restaurant get served and you totally want to know what is the yummy looking dish they just got...bingo! The menu presents itself.

Wouldn't it be great if these things could announce themselves, and inform, and even connect you to an interface where you could order it ?

Here's an idea for the RFID guys, retail, and a totally new store format.

What you need:

• Smart tags (RFID?)
  
• Phones with sensors for these tags
• Brave new retailer

I don't think I need to explain more. Can be applied to non commercial stuff as well.

Some thoughts/use cases:

• Its a distributed web of real things, way more contextual!
  
• Its a distributed retail mechanism
• It will lessen social interaction in some case, trigger them in others
• Maybe poiliticians/marketers could distribute these real world URIs to campigners for info dissemination
• A limited version of this is already in use at toll booths! So why not a larger "web" ?
• Everyone could possibly be a walking blog!

Oh well, Sunday morning stuff :) What we call these - WorldTags ? LORs (Life Object Resource) ?

I'm already half sure someone, somewhere, has given this a shot.

Rebooting

Have decided to move on from my current role at Ziva. Its been a fun nearly-4-years and I've learned tremendously about more than just technology and products in this time.

Next ?

One clear plan is to try and offer the experience I've gained to help folks execute product ideas quicker, better. This will help build on what I and a couple of friends have learned during our tenures as product people at both startups and larger corporations, including some ideas I've discussed in the past.

There's a couple of books to catch up with, and a few dreams to pursue. For 6 months, at least, its likely to be "unstructured" and I'm taking time off for some good thinking, and exploring various skills and interests I've taken a shine to.

Primarily, lets-see-how-it goes :)

// maybe this is all so I can write a good book someday!