140Char

It looks like Twitter could finally be taking off in Japan, at least according to an article today on the Wall Street Journal site.

Apparently the Japanese press and media is busy explaining the phenomenon, and a recent Tweetup was attended by Twitter’s co-founder and CEO, Evan Williams. Ev referenced the recent world record fvor the ‘most tweets per second’ in the aftermath of Japan’s World Cup victory against Denmark.

For reference, that record was 3,283 tweets per second (tps), compared to an average of 750 tps, or America’s effort the previous week, when the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA Championship and Twitter reached 3,085 tps.

A Japanese-language version of Twitter launched in 2008, with a mobile version in 2009. And Nielsen tracked growth in Japan of 1.9 million between Feb and March 2010, reaching a total of 7.5 million visitors to the site in March.

A recent Comscore study of the Asia-Pacific region suggests 50.8 percent of the total online population visited a social networking site in Feburary 2010, reaching a total of 240.3 million visitors. Japan actually scored 42.3% reach of the population, compared with the leaders: Philippines, Australila, and Indonesia, which were all around the 88-90% range.

The most popular sites? Facebook ruled the roost in Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. Wretch.cc ruled Taiwan, India favoured Orkut, South Korea went with CyWorld, and Japan with Mixi.jp. But keep in mind that the study didn’t check visits from mobile phones or PDAs.

As Twitter grows in Eastern countries, one company which might be threatened would be Plurk, which has seen good growth in those areas despite not making a big splash in Western countries, and also being cloned by Microsoft China.

You could be forgiven for thinking that in the Western world, Twitter is the only microblogging platform available.

But there are public-facing alternatives (ignoring enterprise options such as Yammer), some of which came into existence not long after Twitter, and with different approaches to microblogging. One of these, Pownce, was acquired by TypePad. Meanwhile Jaiku was acquired by Google, but then was effectively released to be open and maintained by Google volunteers in their spare time. Rejaw closed, and in the meantime we’ve seen the launch of Google Buzz. Oh, and Friendfeed acquired by Facebook.

In terms of search interest, here’s some indication of how it splits out – I’ve ignored Google Buzz in the interest of the graph scale, as it’s clearly getting much more interest due to the privacy problems it faced at launch, and the recent API announcement at the Google I/O developer conference:

But does the search interest equate into traffic? There are limitations in being able to only really look at web-based traffic, but it’s an indication:

In terms of current announcements and future plans:

Jaiku went open source in March 2009, and disabled U.S SMS back in June, although m.jaiku.com continues.

The Identi.ca team morphed into Status.net, which offers an open-source micro-blogging platform monetised by services including customisation and support.

Meanwhile Plurk has seen good growth in Eastern countries, only to be hit by a case of cloning by Microsoft China, but still has some awareness in Western countries.

But to be honest, in the English-speaking West, Twitter is looking pretty unassailable in terms of text-based  microblogging, and I still have doubts about the eventual take-up of audio and video versions (I love Audioboo, for example, but there’s a bigger barrier to broadcasting my voice or my face than writing a text update – the creator/consumption split is more pronounced).

That doesn’t always have to be the case though – what would you do if you were running Plurk, leading Jaiku, or trying to promote Identi.ca?

Microblogging service Plurk has been pretty successful outside the U.S, but having already been the victim of a ban in China (followed by MSN China cloning the site with their own product), the service has now been asked by Taiwan police to provide the IP addresses of some Plurk users, without being supplied with a court order by police.

As reported on Global Voices, Alvin Woon, one of the founders of Plurk, posted a message saying he’d been asked by police for the information.

Unless a court deems it necessary, what the police are asking is technically illegal. But it turns out that it appears to be usual practice for the police, who have confirmed that they would make around 10 such requests to Plurk every month. Since Woon is not located in Taiwan, and the Plurk servers are in America, he hasn’t complied with the request.

But obviously Plurk isn’t the only website being asked for user details and IP addresses, and other companies are being more cooperative with police enquiries. Given current laws being proposed and implemented in the UK, U.S and Australia, along with the approach of China to internet freedom, it’s more important than ever to have an understanding of your rights, your privacy, and the attititude of any social network/blog/hosting company/ISP that you use. One book I’d recommend for a greater understanding of the nature of law on the internet and how it can be changed by Governments would be Code: Version 2.0 by Lawrence Lessig

Is Microsoft China’s MSN Juku a straight theft of code and design from Plurk, the microblogging service which has had major success in the Asian world?

Despite fading after initial interest in the West, Plurk now claims to be ten times bigger than Twitter in Taiwan alone, and the preferred method of microblogging in many Asian countries, despite access to the site being banned by China in April 2009. At the time, Plurk’s top five countries were Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines, the U.S and China, so it was a big issue.

Now the issue has got even bigger, as described in a blog post by Plurk co-founder and lead developer, Amir, which states what they think has happened:

• Microsoft China officially launched its own microblogging service, MSN Juku/Hompy/Mclub, some time in November, 2009.
• The service’s design and UI is by and large an EXACT copy of Plurk’s innovative left-right timeline scrolling navigation system.
• Some 80% of the client and product codebase appears to be stolen directly from Plurk!
• Plurk was never approached nor collaborated in any capacity with MS on this service.
• As a young startup, we’re stunned, shocked, and unsure what to do next and need your support and suggestions.

And judging by the images and code displayed on the Plurk blog, it seems far too suspicious to be a mere coincidence.

Spot the difference:

And again…

And once more with feeling:

It’s pretty amazing that a company of the size of Microsoft China would even think about stealing code to power a new launch, and that it’s gone this far if so. The only logical reason could be that China’s internet laws and lack of access to the outside world could lead to people thinking no-one would notice.

The question the Plurk team is asking is how to tackle the problem?

My guess is that the bad publicity wouldn’t necessarily worry Microsoft China, but might worry Microsoft itself a little more, particularly given all the efforts to fight Chinese piracy and protect intellectual property that Microsoft has supported. It’s a big harder to do that when you’ve got a clone of a reasonably well-established and successful company sitting there for all to see.

Techcrunch has also covered the story, and I’m looking forward to seeing what, if any, response they get from Microsoft.

My guess will be that MSN Juku will go quiet for a while, before perhaps reappearing with a slightly more unique codebase and design. If not, perhaps the only other option will be for Microsoft to get into acquisition mode – something that didn’t work out well for Google and Jaiku, and isn’t likely to work when the starting point is a complete rip-off!

Update: The outcome is that yes it’s a clone, but apparently done by a third party developer when everyone else was obviously on holiday or in a meeting. The site has been taken offline indefinitely, and the only remaining question is whether Plurk, which is a pretty small and young startup, will bother to try and take matters further, which given the legal resources MSN has, is probably unlikely…

Once upon a time, there were three prominent microblogging platforms, Twitter, Plurk and Jaiku. One became incredibly popular, one introduced a side-on view, and one was acquired and then released by the Google Fairy Godmother.

Others fell by the wayside, including Pownce, and Rejaw.

But how do they compare now, after the mainstream adoption of Twitter:

Obviously this doesn’t tell the complete story, as it tracks web visits only, but it’s safe to assume it’s proportionally correct. Twitter’s close to 25 million Unique Visitors, Plurk is holding steady between 250,000-300,000 for the past year, and Jaiku has dropped from 70,000 down to 30-40,000 for the last two months measured.

In fact, it’s not even winning the Open Source Microblogging Platform war – as Identi.ca has grown slightly while Jaiku declined.

Meanwhile, Google has listed the 46 official accounts it has on Twitter.

And in the meantime, we’ve seen the rise of Twitter clients such as Tweetdeck, internal microblogging such as Yammer,  the blend of micro and macro blogging in Tumblr and Posterous, and video and audio blogging with the likes of 12 seconds and Audioboo. Not forgetting the lifestreaming element of the likes of Friendfeed.

And although we talk about forums, blogs and Web 2.0 social networks as if they’ve reached the endpoint of their evolution, there’s still a lot more to come from them – I’d say the social elements of the web aren’t even 15% of what they’ll become in the next 10 years.

The question is how you as a person, you as a company, or you as a developer can find clarity through it all…

(There is also the question fo what Google were thinking re: Jaiku, and how it’s managing to miss out on the rise of Open Source as much as it did on the rise of microblogging – after all, the platform itself doesn’t appear to be the cause)

You do remember there are some microblogging networks other than Twitter?

If so, and you have an iPhone, you’ll be happy to know that there’s an official Plurk application, iPlurk, now available via the App store. Ironically for a service that differentiates itself from Twitter with a horizontal timeline and more graphical interface, both aspects have been dropped for the iPhone – then again, if you’re already engaged with the Plurk community, it might make more sense for a lighter interface to update when you’re on the move?

Meanwhile, the Google-owned Jaiku now has it’s own app, developed by third party mJaiku.  It’s got most of the features you’d expect to find, although a test by Darnell Clayton over at Blog Herald reveals that it doesn’t support domain shortening, which may be a significant pain in use. But the good thing is you can contact the developer via Jaiku at raiglstorfer

Before you get back to work on Monday (or for some reading before you get down to working), there have been a few interesting and thought-provoking posts I’ve spotted:

Robert Scoble posted 10 reasons why Twitter direct messages suck, which I expected to disagree with, but he made a lot of sense in explaining why the amount of messages he receives means that he realistically has to ignore them – he can’t autorespond, file, filter, or mass delete, so it becomes unworkable.

Stowe Boyd then takes it and runs further, to outline how the problem could result in an opportunity to earn some revenue for Twitter, around improving the integration and functionality of direct messaging for those willing to pay $5 a month.

My thought is that it’s a very small group who need these features as an absolute necessity, but a larger number might be persuaded they need them. It’s certainly something I could see Twitter exploring, and I suspect that by offering it as a Freemium service, they could avoid some of the ‘sell-out’ accusations that display advertising will generate.

I’m not sure it’s enough to please the VCs and justify the valuation of Twitter – but I’m increasingly convinced that there isn’t a sole revenue stream that provides a complete solution – and it could be a mixture which becomes the answer.

The other thought piece I thought was worth repeating was Dave Winer on The Space Between Twitter and FriendFeed. Is there room for something that exists with a more graphic and visual system than Twitter, but without some of the complexity of Friendfeed which can put users off?

Obviously this wasn’t Pownce. But could it be a direction for Plurk, which already has a far more visual interface? Or one of the services I have to admit to overlooking a little in the influx of clones, copies and variations, such as Rejaw? And would it be enough to achieve the most important and challenging part of taking on Twitter – getting critical mass? Friendfeed is different enough to fulfill a slightly different function and have an identity away from microblogging, but would something in the Friendfeed/Twitter chasm be cursed by being too much of one or the other?

In a slightly bizarre move, blogging platform Six Apart (Movable Type, Typepad and Vox) has acquired Pownce  for an undisclosed sum – and it’s immediately been announced Pownce will be closed on December 15th, 2008 – just two weeks away.

The news has been revealed on the offical Pownce blog ‘Goodbye Pownce, Hello Six Apart‘, written by Leah Culver:

” We’re bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we’ll come back with something much better in 2009. We love the Pownce community and we will miss you all….

*snip*

We’ll be closing down the main Pownce website two weeks from today, December 15th. Since we’d like for you to have access to all your Pownce messages, we’ve added an export function. Visit pownce.com/settings/export/ to generate your export file. You can then import your posts to other blogging services such as Vox, TypePad, or WordPress.

For our Pro members, we’ll be emailing you soon with more information about your Pro account.”

The post explains Mike Malone and Leah Culver will join Six Apart’s engineering team. Anthony Ha at VentureBeat has said that Digg founder Kevin Rose and Digg employee Daniel Burka who were also responsible for Digg will now be advisors to Six Apart.

The official Six Apart blog offers those who paid for a Pownce Pro account a free Typepad account for a year.

You can see some of the latest messages from users on the Pownce homepage.

You can see the responses from Twitter users on the Pownce closure.

There’s a FriendFeed room set up for PownceExiles to reconnect.

Interestingly, @nickdawson has spotted: http://postpownce.com/ – could be official or fan created. The Whois lookup isn’t particularly helpful, but it looks slightly unofficial so far.

Meanwhile, there’s a surprisingly amount of people using Pownce as normal, although there’s obviously a significant number who are either thanking the Pownce team, or expressing their anger – and it seems like users are mainly migrating to Twitter, with a few mentions of FriendFeed.

Strangely, Twitter has the mass user group and VC funding, but Pownce had direct revenue streams already in place, with paid membership upgrades and advertising.Meanwhile Jaiku, Plurk, Identi.ca etc are all continuing, as far as I’m aware, without a mass surge in users or a revenue model that has been revealed. Will any other microblogging services be under threat in the coming months?

I’ve blogged about my lack of enthusiasm for Digg several times over at TheWayoftheWeb, but I don’t think it’s necessarily about the Pownce team ‘failing’ – it’s likely that the impending financial situation, and an attractive offer may have been too tempting to turn down. But it does reinforce my opinion of Kevin Rose’s companies as lacking a bit of customer service – two weeks for people to leave Pownce and shut the door behind them isn’t particularly accomodating.

You can see part of the justification for the closure:

It may be U.S. traffic only, but it’s a pretty fair representation.

Interestingly, from a closer look at the numbers, it suggests that from the ‘big four’, Jaiku would be the next logical service for the chopping block – with Plurk leading the ‘Everything except for Twitter’ group.

My two thoughts are that perhaps the team behind Pownce weren’t seeing the growth they hoped for, and with Twitter being open about monetizing next year, it seemed a good time to exit with some money.

And that perhaps the move to greater federation (e.g. Facebook Connect etc), and aggregation (posting via clients or apps to multiple locations), the prospects of success for a relatively small microblogging platform were diminishing – especially with new services offering the chance to set up private groups (Twingr.com), and services like Drop.io simplifying file sharing.

From a personal point of view, the file sharing aspect wasn’t enough for me to devote enough time on Pownce to build a big community, but I did enjoy popping in for short visits on occasion, and I’m definitely sad to see any microblogging/microsharing service closed suddenly, and without any warning.

Could the current financial situation force Twitter to start monetising microblogging with a newfound urgency?

Yes?

• Within the $20 million in VC funding, there is bound to be an element feeling a little twitchy at the moment.
• Would anyone buy a service for the valuations Twitter has had, without a working financial model?

No?

• $20 million can go a long way, if you’re careful!
• If Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg is being honest that the social network is concentrating on growth over revenue for three more years, then as the pre-eminent microblogging site, Twitter could follow a similar plan. The only flaw is that Facebook is already making money, just not as much as it could!

These are some initial thoughts, so it would be great to hear some opinions and ideas! Personally I think that we may see some of the smaller microblogging sites, perhaps Plurk for example, need to find revenue generation before Twitter, simply due to the lack of funding reserves. Twitter has the advantage of being able to sit back, and perhaps see some of the experimentation take place before acting.

I know Friday is the traditional day for a round-up post, but so much happens in the microblogosphere on a daily basis, all the 140char team have been busy, and Monday gives some nice alliteration:

• Some stats from Twitter on how the new SMS rules have affected UK Outbound SMS usage:

• Zygotweet and tweetSMS plan to offer Twitter via SMS in the UK (Via Twitterholics)
• Useful and interesting list and stats for newspapers on Twitter (Well, American ones!).
• Jaiku got hit by a power failure at the data center provider for their web servers earlier today, but is back online.
• Plurk has had some minor design and usability upgrades.
• Pownce has integrated FireEagle, which means all your uploads and messages can now be automatically geo-tagged with your location.
• Tumblr now allows you to search within Tumblelogs.
• And Seesmic has a new and improved search function, and threaded player. The improvements to the player make it more and more a mini-application for your website and blog, which now lets you: -start a new conversation straight from where you are without having to leave the site, -reply to any video in private and not only in public. -post to twitter the link from your reply.

So not too much has happened!

It’s important for us to have an idea of what microblogging tools are most used by our readers. And so:

I’m obviously a big fan of microblogging, having started this site with a few good people. And yet the current buzz around the concept does bring some of the problems to the forefront.

For starters, how fragmented will my identity become? I already have another blog, a profile on LinkedIn, a profile on a group magazine project, a profile on Facebook, one on Myspace, and one on Twitter. And that’s just the main sites I use on a day-to-day basis. And any reasonable input into microblogging requires a lot of time – enough to have an effect on the blogging output of a lot of people. Although surprisingly it can have a positive effect.

But until now, Twitter has been synonymous with microblogging. But with new challengers coming every day, is it really possible to comprehensively update:

• Twitter
• Plurk
• Twoorl
• Identi.ca
• Globme
• Jaiku
• Pownce

And still have time to check other comments on Friendfeed and Socialthing?

You can always try cross publishing, and the number of posts brought to you by services like Ping.fm has radically increased. But is it really worth autofeeding yourself across so many networks? In the early stages the same early adopters will inhabit most of these sites, so you’re likely to be bombing most of the same people several times.

Or you can try and manually update each site, and unless you’re able to multitask to the nth degree, you can drive yourself insane within a week.

Luckily the answer to the problem will arrive eventually in the self-selection of the main sites. And that will simply come down to where the groups of friends exist. That’s why I think Twitter is secure for quite a while longer, as most people will have already reached a critical mass of connections that they won’t find on the other networks yet.

The issue it does raise, is a wider one, on how many different identities and personas are possible around an individual with even a wide sphere of influence and a lot of spare time – and where will that time come from?