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http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_detai...
Also, the 2 "twines" that they're automatically inviting new users to join -- "Get Started" and "Twine News and Announcements" -- has only 1,100 and 9,400 members respectively, which means quite some users sign up but didn't bother to explore the site. (It's a bit complicated even for me whose job is scoping out web applications.)
Plus, if you digg deeper into Twine's keyword list on Compete.com:
http://searchanalytics.compete.com/site_referra...
You see that the keyword "twine" only represent 7% of their search traffic, which is really low if the site is only growing organically -- twitter has more than 15% for "twitter" related keywords.
So I think JD is right in that they're buying clicks but how much of that traffic would stick nobody knows!
Sorry but somehow I doubt the Power Users, newbies and those who wanted to nurture Twine to become the semantic social media destination of choice saw their content and themselves as "s***.
Maybe as a "former poweruser" you can still relay to Nova Spivack that that video was really uncool and stupid marketing, offensive and most likely explains why Twine now attracts spam and s*** which disrupts users' enjoyment of the service, and may be contributing to the traffic ramp-up and attracting the noise and wrong audience.
I appreciate that the truth hurts. Yet it is also said to "set us free".
Maybe once Radar Networks accepts its mistakes and the truth that Twine is not the smart service users hoped for and built towards, apologizes to people like Twain Luu and the other Power Users (current and former) and makes a genuine commitment to fixing it --- instead of more cosmetic improvements and hype............
It may become that Global Brain / SemWeb star / quality site of sharing and collaboration that was originally envisioned this time last year.
I do not have any bigger influence with Nova then you do, so I cannot relay anything to him.
One of the problems with becoming popular and relevant is that sites attract this incessant storm of garbage that clutters up the system. And the trouble with the Semantic Web right now, is that it still can't distinguish between junk and relevance, relying on manual removal, which consumes manpower and diverts focus.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Twine--it's become an integral part of both my work and my play. I hate to see it though when a good thing goes bad because they shysters and spammers are looking for that fast buck.
http://www.twine.com/search?type=Member&text=zo...
That's just a very small portion of it. An RSS feed from this member search phrase returned almost 200 new member signups on February 5th:
http://www.twine.com/search?type=Member&text=
A great deal of these are not members at all, and they are not being blocked by any spam detection algorithms. Are these not counted as unique page views by the web trackers?
A good chunk of their $13M may have been spent on driving traffic.
Obsessed with Twine. You think? LOL.
I personally see Twine as a wonderful experiment in collective intelligence. It may not live up to all the semantic web hype but it certainly has innovated in a lot of ways that I'm sure has positively influenced the thinking of many next generation social media companies so in that sense it has made a really positive contribution. Also, one has to give credit to Twine for taking on so much with fewer than 30-40 employees. They have features that compete with Delicious, Facebook, Google Groups, Google Reader, Flickr, you name it. I was just listening to an interview with a founder at Twitter who was talking about hard it is to deliver some features that they have been wanting to deliver a long time and that they have had to remove more features than they have added. Clearly, delivering features is harder than most people realize.
Whether it will succeed or fail as a *business* is still an unknown. Clearly there are some people that think Twine won't succeed and if people feel they need to get off their chest far be it from me to get in their way. But I don't see any benefit to attacking them in this kind of aggressive, "insult then demand" attitude. I think it's totally legitimate to ask for more metrics but the name calling (in both directions) is totally uncalled for.
I wonder whether many of those next generation social media companies will be positively influenced by this:
(1.) how Twine alienated its core users numerous times, including not providing user guides or appropriate user support, going radio silence on queries and instead marketing about the users + the community with the s*** video that offended users' intelligence and sensibilities. Plus expecting the Power Users to be user support for free when it is not their responsibility or job.
(2.) allowing a user called Chesterfield to violate site policy by posting spam porn, which is seriously annoying the Power Users.
(3.) 30-40 head count which doesn't make R/RW's "Top 10 Semantic Apps 2008" whilst Zemanta with its 9-12 head count has AND is already syndicating and integrating into the biggest political blog out there, the Huffington Post.
(4.) features that INCREASE the noise and the work users have to do.
Let's recall Greg Boutin's comments to Candice Nobles, Twine's Director of Marketing:
"Sorry, but telling me to remove Twines from my email digest feels like corporate rhetoric, especially when I've made it clear to you and in my previous posts above that it's not a solution."
and also to Nova Spivack:
"Nova, address the problems instead of trying to kill the messengers. If you don't like my posts, fine, but engage in them constructively instead of calling me "irresponsible" in a poorly-thought attempt to silence my feedback.
The feedback I expressed is not just my own. It is that of a large number of users I have interacted with online and at conferences. If you don't like the way I expressed it, I can handle that, but if you for one second look beyond the tone and choices of word of all the folks who commented above, you might find that those are folks who care and are actually try to tell you something that might be useful to Twine."
Radar Networks should go back and look at comments by others who are/were their supporters like Calvin Smith and note how even the ones who are technically gifted are having to find ways to hack around the system instead of the system smartly servicing them.
(5.) turning their best evangelizers and most pro-Twine people into people who would come onto another site to voice their concerns and/or criticize what the company has not delivered instead of being able to do that on a private Twine and actually listened to by the company with improvements implemented thereafter.
Here's the crux of it: NO business model can succeed where a company:
* doesn't genuinely LISTEN TO ITS USERS
* doesn't foster an environment of democratic, open and transparent flow of information and instead clamps down on the opinions of its core members which may not toe the corporate line.
Sorry, but those core members are not employees. They are at the front lines and the coal-face of the platform, they use it, they interact on it and they call it how it is --- rather than spin it.
* doesn't respect the users and their contributions
As for "innocent bystander's" comments on "Twine as a wonderful experiment in collective intelligence," let's all note that BEFORE the s*** video and it's cause+effect in flood of s*** and spam, there used to be large volumes of high quality conversations initiated and cultivated by the Power Users on the site.
Now, those conversations are clearly not happening.
How can we know this?
It explains why the page counts per visit are down from their beta highs of 12+ to the current 1's and 2's. People are NOT engaging in the same way at all. Collective intelligence is not happening. As has been said many times, "Any monkey can bulk bookmark."
As for "innocent bystander's" comments about my "kind of aggressive, "insult then demand" attitude" it should be known that according to "Twine Lore", Twain Luu with her prodigious brainpower spent almost a year not only being pro-Twine she even produced materials to make it work AND had lots of peaceful private conversations with Nova Spivack in the interests of encouraging the realization of Twine's potential as a Global Brain, full of smart connectivity, a diverse community and open democracy.
"Twine Lore" tells us that instead of taking that win-win advice on board, the company decided to close User Feedback as a communication channel (a move she completely objected to), sanctioned the s*** video, kicked out the "prodigious brainpower" who had been leading collective intelligence conversations, kept the porn spammer called Chesterfield and resultantly making Twine less than the SemWeb shining star it should be.
Being nice, helpful + reasonable to Nova = he kicks you out.
Be aggressive + direct = he has to pay attention and take positive action that will benefit the users ultimately.
Trust me on this: what Twine needs now is TOUGH LOVE.
All the Power Users' buttery, soft, "let's all help out" approach has clearly not worked. Otherwise, Twine would not be this s*** + spam site with falling user engagement.
I'm in touch with all the key Power Users. They're remarkable as individuals and even more impressive as a collective. They show all the relationship traits social network detractors say can't exist online: genuine friendship, trust, loyalty, intelligence, tolerance, humanity, compassion, consideration and bonhomie.
Radar Networks is letting them down if one of them comes here to say:
"Double-check your figures for "explosive growth" and ask how many of those unique page views are from spambots that have managed to circumvent the member sign-up process and upload links to fake pharmaceuticals, porn, and other garbage."
The Power Users are known to be pro-Twine. Ordinarily, they wouldn't break cover and come onto any other external platform to criticize the company --- even under a pseudonym. They would go onto one of the private twines, discourse it amongst themselves about practical solutions and then propose the prioritized ones to Radar Networks.
They're the smarts of the Twine system and they clearly don't want the s*** or the spam.
Even if that s***+ spam does give Radar Networks a temporary and superficial boost in uniques.
I am the one user you called "chesterfield", and I dont really know why you are spreading lies about me.?
"Spamming with porn"? Que? I Have never spammed Twine with porn. I once posted a inappropriate picture that I after that deleted. ONE time.
You seem to hate me? I cant understand this agression.
You seems agressivly obsessed with twine, and your agressions got you banned from Twine. And that wascyour own fault. You banned yourself out from Twine by attacking people in a unbalanced way. I was one of theese people. And because of that you seems to hate me?
But you have no reason to spread lies about other users.
I think problem is that you once was involved in the beta users team and had some kind of personal "Platform" there on twine, where you took much place, and got some kind of ego-boost out of it, but got kicked out when you became unbalanced and agressive and uncomfortable for the Twine team. And you just couldn accept that you are not in the focus any more. Because you think YOU _are_ twine. You think you are the "shining star" or something like that, some disturbed dellusion. Then you becames agresive.. Its almost psychopatic.
But as I said, please leave me outside your agressive obesession with Twine.
As anyone can see, I have not spammed Twine with porn. That is a lie:
http://www.twine.com/user/raveofchesterfield/items
Yes, you're the one who publicly called Nova Spivack "SPINVACK" (supposedly accidentally) on Twine only last month that a respected Power User had to haul you up on, aren't you? You're the one who wrote that Nova's vision is "all of nothing" and that "You don't see the future of Twine belonging to theese (typo is yours) people, the Power Users," aren't you --- to which Nova replied, "We totally agree..."
[Thanks for Nova's lack of support to the Power Users, btw --- the Power Users].
You're the one who sabotaged and hijacked threads where the Power Users were trying to help newbies like Greg Szczotka and instead you insisted on ranting and raving about Twine's failings:
* http://www.twine.com/item/11zv0p43p-2grd/don-t-...
RAVEofchesterfield is a pretty appropriate name you chose actually. Of course, you've been schizo before and called yourself Jonathyn, Mongoloid or whatever of Chesterfield too.
Let's set the record straight and have transparency once and for all on the chain of events around Nova kicking Twain Luu out of Twine.
(1.) Nova sent Twain Luu several IMs to say that if Chesterfield continued to personally attack her and did not comply with Nova's request that any negative comments Chesterfield made about her were not deleted, for Twain Luu to notify Nova.
Nova even wrote that Twain Luu should regard him as her "Big Brother" and he would protect her from Chesterfield's nonsense. He even agreed he would kick Chesterfield out.
Twain complied with the deletion request, Chesterfield did not; Nova was sent the screenshots and evidence of that by Twain Luu.
Instead of honoring his part of his own promise, Nova issued Twain with a "Last Warning" for her notification that Chesterfield had not complied. A notification which Nova himself TOLD her to provide him with!
(2.) Twain Luu advised Nova it was offensive and disrespectful to the community to have it represented with the "We organize that s*** video" when what was needed at point of launch were proper user guides.
(3.) Twain Luu sent a simple request for clarity on Nova's claim that the average stay was 12 minutes when compete.com said it was around 8 minutes.
That simple request was immediately deleted by Radar Networks and Nova sent Twain Luu some very nasty IMs.
As for your claim that you don't post porn, why is it then that a reliable and trustworthy Power User went onto another social network where other Power Users are to say that they had disconnected from the twines you're a member of because they can't stand the porn and drugs materials you're posting and that you think is funny?
I dont know what you are doing right know. In my eyes your behaviour seems obsessed and not very healthy.
You are spreading lies about me, and I dont know why.
As everyone could see I havent spammed Twine with Porn. So why are you keep telling this? I have spelled Noa Spinacks name incorrect one time. Does that make me spam Twine with porn? You are really nuts.
My items:
http://www.twine.com/user/raveofchesterfield/items
Dont know why your acting this way.
Maybe you think I have something to do with the fact you got banned from Twine? You doesnt seems to understand that you banned yourself out. I also think you suffer from some kind of psyciatric diagnosis.
I dont use Twine much nowadays, however.
I have noticed The overall activity has been much lower the last two months.
It's funny that "anti-spam" / "poweruser" / other alias (aka Nova Spivack) tried to use the term "looony....nuts.....paranoid schizophrenic" as cheap shots and you think I "suffer from some kind of psycriatic (your typo) diagnosis".
A paranoid schizophrenic is actually like when you kept screeching crap about how the Power Users were supposedly persecuting and bashing you. The Power Users never did anything of the sort --- just like they NEVER TOOK A MAJORITY VOTE TO KICK ME OUT.
For the record, the Power Users came onto the twines to hand-hold newbies and to share their experiences / shortcuts with other members of how to get the best out of the system.
You, meanwhile, tried to jump onto the coat tails of the Power Users. Your rants, raves and Twine naysaying on Beta Feedback was routinely ignored by the other members of Twine as well as by Radar Networks.
By comparison, when the Power Users wrote something, at least 12 people would read it and collaborate in scoping out the solutions or bring relevant materials to the fore in the interests of increasing collective intelligence and trying to make sense of it all.
YOU decided to cling onto those coat-tails and use those threads to bash Twine in a way which wasn't even related to the users' requests for help or points the Power Users were providing about badly needed feature improvements.
Oh well.
Maybe you and Nova are twins, two-of-a-kind since you both think I'm "nuts" for pointing out that Twine is full of s***, spam and porn which none of the Power Users --- and other members for that matter --- want, deserve and which is artificially boosting Twine's uniques traffic.
Then again.........you did call him "Nova SPINVACK" and, if he doesn't fix the s*** on Twine (please see my links under "PROOF TWINE IS A MAGNET FOR SPAM + PORN):
* http://www.twine.com/search?type=Member&text=no...
* http://www.twine.com/search?text=twain+luu&star...
As I noted, RADAR NETWORKS BETTER DELETE THOSE ENTRIES WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT and I am not joking with them.
I almost feel sorry for you.
However, I hope you are going to feel better in the future.
This is my last ansver to you in this "discussion".
Now everyone knows about Nova's, yours and Twine's nonsense; the delusions and denials about what the realities of Twine's ramp in traffic, its semantic limitations, spam algorithms not working, an environment that enables fake member sign-ups, porn etc. that boost uniques; AND the gross untruths you both perpetuate about how there was a majority vote by the Power Users to kick me out.
As Ardent Twine User has truthfully pointed out, "There was no vote."
So...anything you and "anti-spam" / "poweruser" (aka Nova) have contributed to this thread has been............
FAR FROM RELIABLE or based on the realities and actualities of what happened and is happening on Twine.
Yes, it's better for you that you don't ansver (your typo) anymore.
You're a librarian. You should consider borrowing some books on the film 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington', justice, defamation laws and.....
HOW TO SPELL.
I also wouldn't feel sorry for me. You're the one who so lacks confidence in your own identity and wants to aspire to be like me that you're now using a cat avatar.
ALL the Power Users know that I was the first one to use any type of feline avatar on Twine --- a tiger cub --- and I did so consistently for the entire 10 months I was there.
You meanwhile were so schizo you went from a pink worm grub to Malcolm MacDowell circa 'Clockwork Orange' to your avatar impersonating some real-life Czech philosopher / anarchist whose name you couldn't even spell right to your own picture to whatever other identity crisis.
Oh and I had no star power?
Why are you copying my feline avatar, then? Have you no brains or sense of your own?
That's uncool.
It is also uncool, offensive and downright goodwill-destroying to write untruths about Twain Luu, the Power Users' relationship with her, why she was kicked out of Twine and how RN treated her after her 10 months of positive contributions and this so-called "prodigious brainpower".
That slur on her is deliberate misinformation and uncool on Radar Network's part also.
There is nothing offensive about what I've written. I am not the person who called another contributor a "paranoid schizo" nor am I the person who wrongly accused them of spamming nor am I the person who brought up any Power Users' name for sullying.
In my comments, I was responding to Greg Boutin, Ardent Power User and Jamlin423's observations that we need clearer information on this "explosive growth".
"anti-spam" and "poweruser" were the ones who got all uncool and offensive, mentioning this Twain Luu and casting aspersions which are wholly unrelated to the crux of this article.
(1.) What's the independently available and reliable information on Twine, its growth, its community.
(2.) How is Twine servicing its users --- is it delivering on anti-spam measures? Is it providing suitable user support? Is it reducing quality : noise?
(3.) Is it going to deliver on its strategy in appropriate time and be a site of smarts and quality rather than spam / unrealized features?
It would help if RN and its representatives, including "anti-spam" and these "powerusers", would focus on answering those questions truthfully instead of referring to this Twain Luu as their diversion.
============
Perhaps you and Radar Networks should provide clear examples of that non-existent 'deliberate misinformation'.
Perhaps you'd both like to provide the following:
* screenshots of compete.com's analysis for average stay in minutes and pages viewed for Twine during that period;
* screenshots showing that only 1,100 people are members of the 'Getting Started' twine which is supposed to show users how to use the site;
* screenshots showing some of the spammers (porn as well as "I'm from Nigeria and would like to do business with you" etc.) who've circumvented the sign-up process and contribute towards the inflation of member numbers as well as unique traffic.
* screenshots which show how user engagement and threads have lost quality and quantity since the launch.
* screenshots which show Radar Networks breaching user privacy and decimating their content.
If you can't.....I can.
I'd like to see stats about stickiness and engagement indeed. I've stopped using Twine as an information source (for now) due to low signal-to-noise ratio. Email is key delivery mechanism, and the recent changes there haven't delivered.
Letting users choose what twine to show does nothing to solve the problem. When I still have over 100 items in that email and on my twine homepage, I know there is something seriously wrong with usability. Stop everything you're doing and get someone to help you with this now. SF has tons of folks who can fix that. Are there still platform performance issues?
Having said that, I'm 200% in agreement with "potential". Twine, focus on one core user need: overload. Do that, you'll explode. Don't, you'll nosedive. My prediction.
I believe they told me users are averaging 9-12 minutes per visit (without looking at my notes; it was in that range). So there's engagement. Not sure on stickiness.
Thanks for the follow-up. Compete doesn't seem to agree with Twine's data for Jan then, although of course one can argue that unique users is a different metric from traffic. Anyway all of that doesn't matter that much.
As for time spent, yes I've heard that time-per-visit stat from Twine too. I'd love to know if that's active time spent on it, or includes things like "I open a page, look at other websites on different tabs, then go back to the page and close it". How many pages per visit? Beyond that, how many repeat visitors? Repeat business seems lower than I'd think, as per quantcast below.
Beyond all this, the stats can say anything, I don't think the site delivers what it could deliver on engagement and stickiness. That's my experience and I've also heard about it from too many users.
I am the one user you clled "chesterfield", and I dont really know why you are spreading lies about me.? You have two times written that I have spammed Twine with porn. Are you insande, or what are you doing? Whi do you lie?
Anything you can't share for competitive reasons? I'm getting silence radio everytime I ask those questions to "Twineese" (how does one call a Twine employee?)
There's no such data on Digg, but for Venturebeat (yes, different site, I know): only 58% of visits from passersby.
That means little repeat business, can improve.
Those stats also caught my eye. I think any service that's growing quickly would tend to have a much higher % of single-time visitors. VentureBeat is a bit more mature; we've built up our return audience, but we're not shooting up 50 percent month over month, either.
I think the stat is meaningless at this point. The question is whether the traffic trend will continue, and if so, whether a significant number of those people will stick over time. If others agree with your evaluation of the design (that it's bad), the answer will probably be no, unfortunately.
Notably, during its beta peak in August, Twine claimed average stay was 15 to 16 minutes and the average number of viewed pages was 12 in May, which are gold mine metrics for prospective advertisers.
Alas, at 3:08 minutes and only 7 pages how likely will Twine attract advertisers and therefore revenue in this tough climate? Why would an advertiser / marketing company go to Twine when there are social networks / tech sites with 1 million page impressions per month and average stay of 6+ minutes that are themselves struggling to attract advertisers?
The ramp up in # of unique visitors at point of launch can be explained easily:
* a sizeable volume of spambots signing up; this has been seen and documented by the Power Users
* one-off curiosity and no repeat engagement
* some form of traffic buy-in
More informative for gauging Twine's traction is to examine NOT the absolute number of unique visitors. It's metrics like:
* average stay in minutes
* number of pages visited within an hour
* volume and intensity of active twines --- activity defined by at least 10 items being posted there within 24 hours.
* how many people joined "Getting Started" twine. Jamlin423 makes a valid point on this.
Twine's compete.com graph for December shows 550K uniques and yet only 1,100 people joined "Getting Started" which means Twine's conversion rates from uniques to joining a twine are not at all impressive. It means that in the 6 months since "Getting Started" was created, only 1100 people (or 183 people per month) were successfully marketed to.
* length and quality of threads --- volume bookmarking by a crawl bot will also distort the number of uniques. Only substantial threads between users since product launch will show whether users are engaging and interested in the links being provided.
Previously during the beta, some of the postings attracted 150+ comments by at least 20 different users. It's highly doubtful post-launch in late October 2008 whether there are many postings of more than 5 comments on them.
* HOW MANY DEADWOOD + INACTIVE TWINES THERE ARE --- of the 30,000 twines created probably only 100 could be considered active
To be perfectly frank, "potential" does not cut it anymore in the current economic environment.
Twine had the conditions, the goodwill and the community to hit the ground running and launch the leading Semantic Web service. Instead, they didn't make the grade into R/RW's "Top 10 Semantic applications of 2008" --- despite having twice the financing and head count of others like Zemanta who not only made R/RW's list, it's also syndicated on Huffington Post as its semantic link provider of choice.
Twine also opted to make a joke out of themselves and their community with their "We organize that s***" video:
* http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/21/twine-we-o...
The "outspoken smarty-pants people" consistently told Nova not to insult the community's intelligence, to deliver on the UI and navigation, and to expedite the monetization model.
Instead, Twine is not the service those smarty-pants people hoped for at all.
Unless substantial strategic and marketing improvements are made Twine will continue not to be that service.
The comparison with Digg is unfortunate for several reasons:
(1.) Digg just laid off 10% of its workforce.
(2.) Digg has been operational for 4 years since Dec 2004 and its revenue model is clearly flawed as Michael Arrington of TechCrunch explicates:
* http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/20/diggs-sorr...
(3.) Digg has issues relating to the exclusion of its Power Users and its recommendation system:
* http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_digg_u...
===================
As I noted in my lengthy reply, you are most likely a Radar Networks person.
If so, you would be well-advised to campaign there for the removal of all the spam, porn and other garbage which the site is attracting rather than to try to oppress my legitimate and objective links to the likes of compete.com, Read Write Web, TechCrunch, etc. and to suppress online democracy of opinion.
Twine had A WHOLE 12 MONTHS OF PRIVATE BETA and Radar Networks has been operational for several years, working on this product.
Expectations would be that they would have a much stronger and smarter product rolled out than what they do --- particularly given all the quality of input from their "outspoken smartypants" members (that is when Radar Networks doesn't threaten them with exclusion for having and voicing their democratic opinions on improvements).
Twine may have had 550K uniques in December 2008 but their membership number was only about 55,000 at that time-point (and that includes the 45,000+ who participated during the 12 month beta --- a sizeable proportion of whom signed up and either disengaged / lost interest / interacted infrequently; moreover, they clearly belonged to the "early adopter" set and the fact is that they lost patience with Twine's cumbersomeness, slowness and lack of user support).
The key issues raised during beta remain unresolved:
* UI and usability
* the semantic smarts being able to differentiate between the junk content and the quality
* contextualized recommendations
Other Semantic Web applications have a fraction of Twine's development and lead time, its financing and its team size --- and yet they've achieved much more respectable user engagement, technical innovation, defined marketing positions as well as good press.
Even in comparison with Web 2.0 services, Twine's so-called "smarts" fare poorly. LinkedIn's recommendation engine is more accurate than Twine's and that's not even pitched as being semantic.
================================
A notable trait of spammers and spambots is that they more or less repeat their comment and there's little intelligence, articulacy or substance behind what they submit.
Compare your repetitious and non-qualifying platitude with my well-considered and objective reasoning which is backed by links to established social media sites and their analysis.
It becomes clear you're the spammer / spam bot and I'm the human being with the intelligence, curiosity and patience to question the numbers, interpret the available information, reason, contextualize, deduce, transpose, inter-link other people's comments to validate / deconstruct my own presentation from the wealth of information available on the Web, and to provide an analytical perspective here in what is a smart, democratic online environment.
Meanwhile, you add nothing to the enlightenment of others and want to suppress publicly available information.
In case you're not aware, we're supposed to be moving towards openness, responsibility and transparency on the Internet. Please read up on Cloud Computing and the open sharing of democratic opinions and content.
Also, isn't there some initiative towards increasing collective and connective intelligence which are the founding values of the Semantic Web, the Singularity and the Global Brain?
Clearly, if you want my comments to be deleted you're not one of the people who "walk the talk" of the Semantic Web or of online democracy.
It's unfortunate you're a spammer and did not actually provide any intelligent or reasoned comment.
Instead of hyping Twine up and contributing to, potentially, another tech bubble that will burst --- particularly in this precarious and fragile economic environment --- Venturebeat should perhaps take a leaf out of R/RW's journalism, be more analysis based, question the pros + cons of the tech, its peers and its traction, and then arrive at a better-considered headline and conclusion of those compete.com numbers.
I am all for tech innovation and corporate successes. In fact, I often foster and champion start-ups so that they can realize their potential and build out their business models.
However, responsible and quality journalism also matters if we don't contribute to a repetition of tech hype, tech bubble creation and then ........
BUSTS.
Additionally, the two graphics provided in this VB article contradict each other. In the compete.com chart, it shows Twine had 550K users in December. Yet in the smaller graphic it shows Twine had 350K users in December.
Which one is the reader supposed to rely on?
As for the 9 --- 12 minutes average stay claim, the PR spin will always be "according to our internal tracking systems". Well, sorry, unless that's independently verifiable and provided by at least 3 other sources (including compete.com / Nielsen / Google Analytics / Hitwise / Zwicky / Jupiter and other reputable Internet traffic tracking sites), it's a number with no credible basis.
It's like the "weapons of mass destruction, deployable within N minutes" or "We had no idea US$ billions of toxic assets were accumulating in our banks" spin.
Journalists should be the FOURTH ESTATE in any democracy and challenge / verify whatever PR they've been fed. They have a responsibility to source, cross-check and clearly explain that material.
They owe it to their readers.
The shortcomings of Twine have been well chewed over, and are there to judge for anyone who goes to twine.com. I think the general consensus before its launch was that the shortcomings were enough of an impediment that it would take Twine's traffic a long time to grow. That doesn't appear to be the case, which is what interested me, and what the story is about.
You're right that Twine's numbers conflict with some Compete numbers. Most notably, Compete shows higher traffic to Twine than Twine itself records, but a lower time spent on the site by visitors. I'd tend to put more faith in Twine's numbers; internals are usually more accurate, especially for smaller sites. And yes, Twine is still quite small.
I think the comparison to banks with toxic assets is a bit of a stretch, but I suppose I should be thankful Godwin's Law hasn't made an appearance yet.
It's not aggression actually. It's annoyance at a company which, despite all the best efforts of its Power Users and members, refuses to acknowledge its shortcomings or to treat its intelligent members and audience with the type of respect they deserve.
This includes being open and honest about growth figures and whether or not spam is contributing to them.
Unfortunately, it may not be wise to over-rely on Twine's internal numbers. There was once a claim that there were 70,000 members and yet a search on Twine produced only 42,000 members.
Why the discrepancy from Omniture and what's published on Twine's own pages under the search filter for "members"? Is that another bug in the count or are not all the members being accounted for?
Wrt the journalism, headlines like these which can be easily challenged are not that helpful sadly. The tech sector is a labyrinth. People do appreciate guides which are "fair, accurate, unbiased, transparent and well researched."
Of course, it would help if companies contributed to the transparency too.
If that's from someone ardent, then that tells us Twine needs to take its improvement to-dos a lot more seriously and also that Twine risks disenfranchising its members if it doesn't.
It also suggests the lines of communication between Twine and its own key users have broken down if they feel strongly enough to comment on VB instead of via Twine's own user feedback mechanisms.
All-in-all, Twine is not the service it's supposed to be.
===================
As I noted in my lengthy reply, you would be well-advised to join Twine and campaign there for the removal of all the spam, porn and other garbage which the site is attracting rather than to try to oppress my legitimate and objective links to the likes of compete.com, Read Write Web, TechCrunch, etc. and to suppress online democracy of opinion.
If I was Twain Luu, I would never apologize for my past behavior. Why apologize for being the person who:
(1.) provided the interactive user guides.
(2.) handheld newbies.
(3.) fostered and cultivated smart and democratic threads which shared enlightenment, open discourse and wit with the community instead of spam, s*** and sub-standard stuff.
(4.) fought for users' rights.
(5.) put up with being personally attacked for being pro-Twine.
--- only to see RN launch with the ill-judged "We organize that s*** video", breach user privacy, decimate users' content and allow spam to help drive its traffic?
As for this nonsense about her need to win the Power Users back. Interesting isn't it how all the key Power Users joined all her twines, actively and willingly participated on her posts and wished her "Happy Birthday". In fact, hers was the birthday posting to attract 30+ comments of good wishes whilst others garnered about 5 comments.
Interesting too that her final thread attracted 16 different people (Power Users and newbies alike) because they wanted to share their democratic opinions with her.
Yet, anti-spam / poweruser / Nova Spivack wants to paint her as someone the Power Users disliked.
Interesting isn't it how after she left Twine they all came to seek her out on Ning and other social networks so that they could continue to engage with her. This person who was supposedly disliked, according to "poweruser" who is clearly Nova Spivack.
Twain Luu apologize?
No. Nova Spivack owes Twain Luu a serious and public apology for not delivering on Twine as a smart service to her as a member, a user, a contributor and as someone he insisted was his "friend" and whom he treated so shabbily.
She is clearly still on the side of the Good. The Good believe in sharing enlightenment, reason and objective analysis. They believe in accepting the limitations of others and of systems and admit when they've made a mistake and acknowledge the improvements they need to make.
The Dark Side uses language like "paranoid schizophrenia" to try to silence legitimate concerns, go radio silence on its users and try to suppress democratic opinions online --- either by eviction, threats of, eradication of information and other unseemly behavior (including false promises of the type...." If you would apologize for your past behavior the power users might invite you back to Twine.").
If I was Twain Luu, I would look at the unfortunate state of Twine with its spam, garbage and unhappy users and instead of apologizing I would be justifiably ANGRY, UPSET and DISAPPOINTED that I put in so much positive effort with my "prodigious brainpower" to make it the leading SemWeb that would win awards, gain traction amongst other smart people and be a s***+spam-free place....
And it has not won those awards. It is not servicing the users who matter. It is not a s***+spam free site. It is not the smart service the community worked so hard towards.
If I was Twain Luu I would spot "anti-spam" / "poweruser" as Nova Spivack immediately since nobody else would contradict themselves by inferring that "Someone who..." is a "paranoid schizophrenic" as well as this person Twain Luu with the "prodigious brainpower".
Anyone interested in Twain Luu are free to Google her; if she was a paranoid schizo she'd be really worried about people Googling her, I'm sure. Maybe read her contributions on:
* The Global Brain
* Credit Crunch 2008
* Web 3.0: socially voiced co-creation
Then they can decide for themselves whether she's informed, intelligent, well-adjusted and believes in sharing and advancing knowhow.
More importantly, those readers who are Twine's users should inform themselves about how uniques etc. breakdown and use their influence to ensure:
(1.) the end of spam, s*** , noise and clutter on Twine;
(2.) they get the smart service they deserve;
(3.) there is some form of revenue-sharing with users within a reasonable timeframe --- 15 to 18 months of launch.
Enough already with the hype, the misleading "explosive growth", the denial and intimidation tactics to suppress objective and democratic opinion and analysis.
TIME FOR TWINE TO DELIVER ON ITS POTENTIAL and to earn its respectful position in SemWeb.
If they're as incapable as "anti-spam" of exhibiting the simple human traits of intelligence I listed (reasoning, deducting, contextualizing, interconnecting etc.) then it's unlikely Twine's algorithm can be truly smart.
After all, we build machines in our own mould.
Twine is supposed to be a smart system.
The second time she was excluded was the result of some hard-headedness on both sides of an issue, and since Twine held the keys, they decided to delete her once again. The entire process was unfortunate, and a great deal of once very active people no longer participate as a result of that bombing. Twine didn't learn it's lesson about how to deal with it's membership then, and it is still very apparent that personalities supersede issues even now.
Both sides on this debate ought to simply own up to their own culpability, and stop the bickering--parents should never fight in front of their children, it's bad form.
Regarding the spam issues, Twine has been making efforts to reduce and prevent it--that's apparent with the most recent upgrade they instituted this week. I personally hope that it is cleaned up, for all our sakes. With that in mind, however, I do think it's not in the spirit of transparency to promote site activity as a sign of growth when anyone with an RSS feed and a few key strokes can simply read what all that activity is really. It would certainly be better PR to come out and admit that Twine has become popular enough that the SEO's and spammers have begun their assault--even they wouldn't be wasting their time if Twine wasn't reaching some kind of audience.
The good part is, if they are able to identify and obliterate this garbage before it takes over, then Twine will be much more robust, and able to withstand further assaults as it grows.
Now wrt the "parents should never fight in front of their children, it's bad form" people should be aware that since Twain Luu has no access to her Twine accounts and, therefore, no control over what is wrongly written about her or wrongly associated with her on Twine including this kind of spam nonsense which the system is housing and propagating:
* http://www.twine.com/search?type=Member&text=tw...
Let's all bear in mind Twine's public content (including member information) is publicly searchable and crawled by the Google, Yahoo! and MSN bots.
ANYONE and EVERYONE would be mad as hell that not only was their hard work on behalf of Twine for nothing, their smart collective content was decimated during lock-out etc...
Nova (aka "anti-spam") calls them a "spammer" when actually it's TWINE which is generating and housing all the spam about / directed at / associated with its members and their twines, and then Nova having the gall to say Omniture's figures are more accurate than compete's!
Is that Twine's own SPAM-A-LOT included?
Sorry, all, it really isn't a flame war. These are extremely important points because there is material on this VB thread which does get to the serious crux about:
(1.) what counts towards user engagement?
(2.) what is making the Twine semantic system seemingly more susceptible to spam than say other systems like LinkedIn which has a low volume of spam and a high volume of quality connections and content.
What measures will all SemWeb apps need to put into place that this move towards contextualization --- rather than pure Bayesian statistical analysis of the Web 1.0 search engines --- will actually produce the smart, discerning and synaptically sophisticated filter everyone's after?
(3.) what are the types of member and platform policies with regard to digital lock-out / death that should actually operate to ensure mutual benefit and acceptable communication channels post-lockout to both sides?
(4.) do and should excluded members (or dormant / infrequent activity accounts) still count towards traffic --- particularly if their members' names are being spammed and driving uniques. This, even though they themselves are obviously NOT engaging at all on the site.
Are they counting towards user engagement when actually the system may have inadvertently allowed spambots to somehow hijack their name and tag to their content?
(5.) how various parties should always check their own house is in order before casting aspersions about those who legitimately ask questions about what may be responsible for their traffic increase, whether spamming is a factor and who is actually doing the spamming and fostering the s***.
Then again maybe Nova as the father part of the parenting thinks that s*** and spam is what Twine needs to grow.
Twain Luu believes it needs sunshine, oxygen, democracy, transparency and a firm hand in terms of intolerance for nonsense its members don't want, btw.
Different parenting skills = they're better off divorced.
Since it's the case that a "great deal of once very active people no longer participate as a result of that bombing" (Twain Luu's), then maybe there's something to her claims that she was a positive force on Twine.
But, hey, the spambots have replaced those once very active people, right?
What does one member, with whom other people enjoyed actively engaging with, matter?
She only used to write and post links about smart stuff like business books by the leading management consultants; cool cities and places to visit, what the global financial crisis means, wacky gadgets, Conscious Awareness open discourses with lots of other users etc.
Spambots full of porn, fake pharmaceuticals etc. can bring Twine 1,000 times the traffic she can!
I do not think Twain is spamming since she is speaking the truth, but I wish she would not say what she said in such an offensive manner.
Spammers sometimes target websites, including social networks, and yes, even Twine. This is not uncommon and in fact as social networks have become more popular they have become more of a target for spammers. Just like email. This is true of all social networks from MySpace to Facebook to Friendster and others. Twine is no exception and the fact that Twine has received its fair share of spam is not surprising.
When spam is reported on any large user-generated content website, it sometimes takes a little while to delete it manually, or to create automated scripts that can delete it on an ongoing basis. Twine's support team has stated to Twine users that they have recently built spam detection and deletion algorithms that are coming online now.
It is likely that within a few days you will probably see that the spam you found has been detected and removed. If not, or if you find new spam and wish for it to be auto-deleted, please report it to the company through the proper channels, of which you are certainly well-aware as a former user of Twine. I don't think that Twine has any wish to have spam.
However this discussion forum is probably not an effective means for you to report your concerns to the company or to achieve any sort of resolution. While you may or may not have valid concerns, this is not the appropriate place to determine that or to discuss them, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that this debate is getting repetitive.
If you still have concerns that you feel are unresolved, perhaps you should reach out to the appropriate parties at Twine directly (via email or on their site) and ask to work towards a resolution? It might also help if when you communicate with them you start with a more friendly stance as that is more likely to elicit cooperation.
I sincerely hope that your present concerns will soon be resolved. As for your past concerns, well, it is impossible to change the past. Perhaps it is time to just move on?
It is time to put this to rest.
Thank you for your comments and I do take on board your concerns about the appropriateness of this forum as a means of communicating about Twine's growth and its various serious issues.
Unfortunately, Radar Networks does not seem to be genuinely committed to upholding their own proper channels for members (current and former) to address very real and very serious issues about the spam, feature improvements or servicing their invaluable members properly.
Some current Power Users have brought to my attention that RN has closed User Feedback (again). The company gives some spin about how they're focussing on their Help + FAQ channel, and how the previous content is still accessible to Power Users and other members.
This is an untruth because searches for those User Feedback links lead to an Error 404. This means that the users who contributed all the collaborative smarts in terms of identifying issues with triples, why links should be refactored and problem-solved a whole wealth of technical knowhow about how to make Twine a lot better are now locked out of their own content and those keen insights. Keen insights on semantic tech, how to manage user expectations and examples of them collaboratively handholding newbies.
Knowhow that they should have received some form of compensation and remuneration beyond just a Twine T-shirt for because their work can constitute strategic advice, PR services, user support and technical consultancy.
If Radar Networks has closed this communication channel deliberately (which they have since they did issue a statement to that effect) and are suppressing their members' content and contributions there on User Feedback, then that says a lot about the company and how it treats its users in exchange for their goodwill, tolerance and help.
RN is trying to re-write history not only in my case. They seem to be trying to whitewash the fact that it is the Power Users and other technically-gifted members who deserve all the credit for proposing, bug-reporting, trouble-shooting etc. the features that actually work on Twine.
It's interesting to note how instead of focussing on resolving their clear spam issues definitively, Radar Networks decided instead to close down User Feedback which is the key communication channel between the company and its members.
It is also obvious from the comments by others on this thread how members' legitimate queries via email, IM etc. go unanswered by Radar Networks. The Power Users tell me they flag the spam and the porn and get no reply from RN. User feedback and requests for help/information was routinely ignored or mishandled in the past last year throughout beta and is still a factor of Twine's problems today, months post-launch.
From this, readers should take what they want from whether lessons have been learnt by RN from their past mistakes.
Certainly, it is impossible to change the past as you rightly note.
However, it is important to set the record straight. It is my responsibility, the debt of gratitude and the honor I owe to the Power Users and other key members --- the ones whom Ardent Twine User notes as: "a great deal of once very active people no longer participate as a result of that bombing (of Twain Luu). Twine didn't learn it's lesson about how to deal with it's membership then, and it is still very apparent that personalities supersede issues even now" --- to set the record straight.
Radar Networks does not get to:
(1.) present the false case that the Power Users took some majority vote to exclude me when they did no such thing --- there was no vote.
It is not good form to assign these false attributions to the Power Users. The ones I know and still interact regularly with are all extremely smart, honorable and decent people. They would NEVER have stabbed me in the back.
(2.) PR spin à la Nova's "The answer is that very little comes from traffic campaigns. This is by far organic growth.....No the growth is not due to bots. And we have automated spam detection algorithms and processes now."
As I pointed out, some Power Users flagged me about Family Buy last month and the spam that started after I left. Clearly, spam membership and content spam is contributing to Radar Network's so-called "organic growth".
Family Buy had 50-ish members last month. It was flagged to RN. Why did they not take action when they're known to go OTT and be able to decimate Power Users' entire threads and positive contributions? Instead Radar Networks allows Family Buy and other spammers to breed / organically grow to 250+ members and twine-tag all manner of nonsense that annoys users --- all seemingly under their own spam radars.
(3.) close User Feedback and re-write history by suppressing the evidence that it is actually the Power Users and all other members who --- of their own smarts, goodwill and democratic inclusiveness --- did all the hard work, collaborated on all the problem-solving to make Twine and its features work, AND WHO DESERVE THE CREDIT (and monetary compensation for those efforts).
Yes, it is indeed time to move on. Now that the record is set straight, I do seriously hope that Radar Networks will adopt the straight and narrow:
(1.) put Twine's members and RESPECT for them first;
(2.) give credit and due monetary compensation to the Power Users for their contributions and advisory / consultancy services.
(3.) acknowledge RN's gross mistakes and untruths, apologize and take action to make Twine the service the Power Users and many others did SO much to evangelize, expectation manage and share Enlightenment with other about.
As for me and whether I should adopt a more friendly stance with Radar Networks to elicit cooperation. Well, it's a real shame that RN has now again closed User Feedback and made all those previous postings inaccessible, plus obviously locked me out of my account and eradicated all my high-quality, reasonable and collaborative postings with the other Power Users.
Plus the fact that the last time I contacted Twine support to notify them of obvious breaches of user privacy (RN made private conversations that the Power Users and I had public), they did not show the consideration to follow-up or to remove those breaches. This despite me sending them the specific screenshots and even the links of where the breaches were happening.
Instead of co-operating, Nova informed me all my emails were going into his spam filter. Interestingly, I had shown him the consideration of rescuing his emails from my spam filter to help him out on various issues!
Readers should also be aware that I was MORE THAN co-operative with Radar Networks. In fact, before the release of the new UI on 16 October as well as the public launch of Twine itself on my birthday, 22 October, Nova IM'd me and I was the first one to proselytize the improvements --- which actually got me personally attacked by Twine's naysayers.
Everyone will simply have to forgive me for feeling disappointed that Nova then stabbed me in the back. They will also have to forgive me for being a little bit outspoken when I see RN continue to disrespect its members (closing User Feedback, going radio silence on queries), spinning about the growth which is clearly attributable to spam rather than quality user engagement which all the Power Users note has dropped, and being in delusion and denial about the platform's sorely needed improvements.
I arrived on this VB forum to highlight that there is compete.com analysis to increase the transparency of this "explosive growth" claim. Other people tried to divert readers' attentions away from that and RN's lack of transparency. Instead, they made it into a personal attack of gross untruths about me and what the Power Users are like and did/did not do.
Well, if those diverters want to play dirty they had better come prepared with the facts and the truth rather than the spin, spam, skews or s***.
The record is now set straight. Providing that henceforth I do not read or hear about any defamatory, scurrilous, spam, porn, gross untruths, discredit etc. communicated about or associated with me on Twine (or generated by Twine which then appears on the wider Web), where I have no access to defend myself against such nonsense or request the immediate removal of, there will be no need for me to communicate to Radar Networks or reach out to them.
Moving forward, if they ever want my opinion, advice or help on anything they will have to compensate me financially UP-FRONT. There will be no more friendliness, goodwill or reaching out in the interests of advancing collective knowhow and the Semantic Web movement.
THEY will have to reach out to me and all the other Power Users. Our hands are more than sore from all the reaching out we did at the coal-face helping other members and at the back-end being tolerant, diplomatic and supportive of the Radar Networks' team.
The record is now straight. The marker is now also firmly placed into the very foundations of the next generation of the Web (SemWeb) and how companies should respect their user members and give credit, transparency, compensation etc. where it is due, and take GENUINE action against spam and reduce untruths.
Barring any further nonsense from RN in the form of comments by "anti-spam" / any other alias or Twine members who want to personally attack me rather than address the issue of the spam that's contributing to Twine's growth and disappointing the Power Users, I will not be commenting further on this particular thread.
In fact, I would STRONGLY ADVISE that no one continues to spread nonsense about me or to provoke me. If you have something to add, FOCUS ON THE ISSUE OF THE REAL SPAM ON TWINE or what the constituents of internet traffic are or how to collectively eradicate spam from traffic counts.
I'm moving forward, off-Twine, on other social networks which are spam-free.
http://xosfaere.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/twine-...
- The Author
He made them on Product Community.
Twain still has the screenshots of that entire post, including his public apology. Twain also has the email Nova sent to Twain in which he disparaged David Scott Lewis' behavior as well as one from his senior engineer, Jim, which said, "Wow......" for the way in which Twain handled that entire post, focussing on the issues of NLP systems.
Twain also has the email in which Nova says he considers Twain his friend whilst David Scott Lewis is not his friend.
You really shouldn't try to start a flame between David Scott Lewis and Twain to detract from the fact TWINE DOES NOT WORK and this thread is about the serious issues (spam, systems failures, etc. related to Twine).
Whatever happened in the David-Twain disagreements are already satisfactorily resolved and history on both sides.
TWINE'S FAILINGS ARE NOT RESOLVED THOUGH.
You should also not contradict yourself by writing Twain "made more of a lasting contribution" and then "All you ever did was write posts in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and rant about meaningless techie bullsh*t."
If other users didn't care about Twain's content and she didn't add value to Twine why did Nova keep asking her to do the user guides --- including on the public twines (also screen-shotted)? Why is it her postings attracted 90+ comments by many users who wanted to engage with her and her posts have much higher view counts than the Twine norm of 0-5? Why did twines she created attract participants and joiners way beyond her group of friends before she had even sent the invitations out?
Sorry, Nice Try (aka Nova) nothing about what you say about Twain stacks up.
Somehow, it's doubtful that Twain's twines on the following subjects:
* Health + Fitness
* House + Home
* Business Books
* Sinosphere
* Twain's guide to Twine
were not useful to others beyond a few of her friends. Oh and how interesting those aren't only about your so-called "techie bullsh*t" that you try to paint her as writing.
It is you, Nova, because no one else would refer to Twain writing in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Twain never wrote in all capital letters. It's best if you stop writing more nonsense. She put the headings in capitals for legibility reasons and then as soon as she was told other users didn't like that she put all her headings in lower case.
You are a disappointment, Nova. You're disappointing a lot of users.
That's not crazy, at all. Check how many comments there are to Bent's 'Twine --- a vision lost' post. People are not crazy at all for pointing out where Twine is failing to deliver despite all the Power Users' help.
Compare this with RN team's delusional denials about everything instead of tackling the issues properly.
The fact you once again try to make it a personality one between two people who are no longer active on Twine instead of the serious issues concerning Twine says it all.
Even if you hadn't kicked Twain out of Twine she wanted to leave a long time ago. In June 2008 she started to delete her twines. You sent her emails begging her to stay. She stayed out of loyalty towards her friends.
How you've mistreated everyone's goodwill says a lot about why Twine is failing.
Twain's relieved not to be on Twine anymore.
She's certainly glad she doesn't have to take the Nova s***, spin, spams of "Please help...." emails/ IMs, self-contradictions, lack of convictions about implementation or RN's lack of service and respect towards users.
I am the one user you clled "chesterfield", and I dont really know why you are spreading lies about me.? You have two times written that I have spammed Twine with porn. Are you insande, or what are you doing? Whi do you lie?
x suppression of users' opinions x not sticking to issues but falsely slurring people
= tanking......all twisted out of vision and strategy.....(see Twine --- a vision lost)
= R.I.P.
TWAIN = quality content x smarts x collaboration with others x democracy x wit x skills
= leaving Twine behind
= thriving, thanks.
They couldn't win on the substance of the issues and used the usual bullying (crazy, loony and all of that language) to try and stop a young woman from getting answers and giving her side of events.
I for one won't be signing up to no Twine or buying any bs from this guy Nova.
Twine doesn't sound like the kind of site for me either.
Too many issues and I don't care who did what when to who.
Now Penny (aka Twain), let's not go making even more fake names ok?
And I say to you "random guy" -- please don't use new fake identities. There are already enough fake identities in this thread. Everyone here is fake.
Which fake identity are you really????
Non Twiner aka Twain aka Twine Follower aka Twain aka Former Power User...
or...
The Bored One aka The Bright One aka David Scott Lewis aka Nova aka Power User aka DSL follower
?
Moore's law is about the increase of SPEED or processing.
Thoughts, meanings, values, trust, emotions, perceptions, humor etc in the natural human brain are VECTORS. They carry direction, force, weight, acceleration, gravitational pulls of clustering, propensity of choice of one over the other, prioritization and natural selection of options, displacement of the nucleophilic / electrophilic mechanism kind etc. etc. etc. which have not yet even been postulated in those Singularity/ transhumanism constructs being bandied around.
So Twain did not only disagree with Nova on strategic issues, she also disagreed with him on the Singularity and the practical path to realization.
Mostly she disagreed with him for allowing s*** and spam onto the site to drive traffic when all of the content she and the Power Users had produced was smart, collaborative and striving towards the better aspects of human nature: sharing intelligence, improving systems and helping others out.
THAT is the issue.
Differences of personality and perspectives on strategies are par for the course in any corporate venture.
See Apple circa 1985-1997 when the board ousted the visionary Jobs. He returns, bolstered by his successes with Pixar (another US$ billion company he founded from scratch), makes the smart move of hiring Jonathan Ives to lead design on the iPod, brings in the best operational people.......
And who even cares about his strategic differences and spats with Sculley?
What matters is functionality, service, brand perception and performance.
Apple has CACHET --- not hype.
Apple is COOL --- not kitsch.
Apple products WORK --- not crash.
Apple adverts are SMARTLY irreverent --- not stupid and amateur.
A lot of SemWeb cos would do well to gain a few gold nuggets from Apple on how to attract and retain consumers in a positive and strategic way.
YOU.
SUUUUUUUCKKK!!!!!
Moreover, RN team shows a total lack of graciousness by the fact they ARE your employees, you're not directing them to do their jobs properly (provide user guides, user support, systems stability and security, sanity check strategy etc.), some outsider has to step in and now you have the absolutely despicable lack of honor to say that what she did was of no use except to her and a few of her friends?
Oh but of course RN doesn't place value on showing users how to use the system.
RN doesn't place value on user support.
RN doesn't place value on stability and security.
RN doesn't place value on sanity-checking its strategy.
Lack of honor and respect for the goodwill of Twain who DID place a value on those items and either provided them or moved Twine towards them may be worse than the BS you have plenty of.
Compare this with RN team's delusional denials about everything instead of tackling the issues properly.
The fact you once again try to make it a personality one between two people who are no longer active on Twine instead of the serious issues concerning Twine says it all.
Even if you hadn't kicked Twain out of Twine she wanted to leave a long time ago. In June 2008 she started to delete her twines. You sent her emails begging her to stay. She stayed out of loyalty towards her friends.
David Scott "Lightman" Lewis differentiates Twain as being more a "visionary" whilst he is "strategic". The issues raised on this thread are not about personality differences.
As some points of fact:
(1.) Twain is a trained corporate strategist. Trained by senior McKinsey, Booz Allen, Accenture people and she worked on a consultancy basis within a big investment bank on tech investments and systems.
(2.) Nova sent her his SemTech 2008 strategy presentation to sanity-check and within 60 seconds she spotted Candice Nobles was using 2002 market analysis to project Twine's consumer base.
BIG mistake since even the most junior business grads would tell you the only acceptable data reference is from Q3 2007 and, preferably from Q1 2008 if you're going to try and segment customer bases for targeting, attraction and RETENTION.
(3.) Twain had to re-position Twine's competitive Porter matrix because it was clear whoever was doing it had NO clues.
(4.) Twain did not approve of the s*** video or any of Twine's marketing tactics, including a user marketing survey which was pointless.
(5.) Along with the other Power Users Twain created and collaborated on all kinds of commercially-oriented twines which were specifically targeted towards the consumer segment and which advertisers would have found appealing and easy to work with.
Please don't use new fake identities. There are already enough fake identities in this thread. Everyone here is fake.
Which fake identity are you really????
Nova wasted Twain's time. Him and his site are not worth it.
Time to stop watching the Twine ship that a poweruser thinks has already crashed into the iceberg.
Everyone SUCKS!!!!!!
You go girl!
Twine sucks. Nova sucks. DSL sucks. They all suck.
- please stop not impersonating yourselves!
Please stop attributing posts to Twain which she did not make.
There are serious issues on this thread about Twine's spam and systems non-performance. If you continue to generate Nice Try identities and detracting this thread off-track then RN and Nova are not going to take action to focus on and resolve the issues raised here.
It is in all user members interests that Twine actually functions as it should and that RN team provides the level of service and user support they should.
OK, TWAIN???????
(1) As a power user of Twine, I think I am qualified to assess the value of the comments you cite.
(2) I do not need instructions from you as to how to conduct myself in this discussion.
(3) Had you not originally accused me of spamming the power users none of this would have ever happened.
(4) Why do you hate me so much and accuse me of posting porn to Twine? What have I ever done to you?
And, maybe all the comments are from me -- or from someone impersonating me. Alas, we'll never know for sure.
Anyway, I now remember that Twain did indeed do some coding on behalf of Twine. I don't recall what it was for, though. She also created a tutorial, although so did I. Hrafn created the first tutorial, I created a tutorial primarily aimed at our local Chamber of Commerce, Twain created another tutorial, then a high school student produced some very good videos, one funny video based on the song, "Radar Love" (this is the one I used on behalf of Radar Networks at the Semantic Technology Conference), another that was a more traditional tutorial video.
Let me rephrase my "strategic" comment. I was looking at things as a user of competitive products. That was my only focus -- and my only concern. My bottom line: Is Twine an effective substitution technology for other services that I was then using.? Twain looked at things very differently, e.g., demographics. (Twain and I agreed on this point.) My comments were more along the lines of, "Furl can do this, Zotero can do that, Zemanta has this angle." Pretty straightforward stuff. Her comments were pretty much like what you've read in this thread.
The "mad passionate love" statement was just a joke. I was simply noting that I admired her. (This is before things got nasty between us, before she started pissing off a lot of other Twinerians.) In fact, Twain is rather homely -- and I'm being generous when I say this. And I never made a public apology as she has suggested; there was NOTHING to apologize for. She totally lost it when this whole issue was brought up on "Power Users," making absurd claims that she must be attractive because she was evidently asked to be in someone's Executive Office, showing pictures of a party where she got totally wasted, showing a photo of an ex-boyfriend, all sorts of things. It was VERY sad. She obviously has a lot of insecurities about her appearance ... and this was obvious to everyone who read her response. (I talked about this with several Power Users at the Semantic Technology Conference, even with several Radarians at the same conference. 100% agreement on this point.)
So, let me add some context to what happened. Nova sent out a question to "Power Users" and to "Product somethingoranother" ("Product Community"?). Two guys gave their opinion and then Twain pounced on them. I came to their defense. Well, things got out of control from there.
This seems to be her MO: She likes to attack people with differing opinions, believing that only her opinion is valid. (OK, that may be too strong. But if she doesn't like you, then she'll simply attack you, regardless what you may say.) People who know me -- know me very well -- came to my defense in the various threads. (A couple were other so-called "Power Users.) She had some admirers, like JDL (I think that's who it was). Kurt even suggested that they should get a bed together. (He was joking, too.) What can I say: Different strokes.
In retrospect, the whole thing was silly and a waste of time, both Twain and Twine.
Anyway, I now remember that Twain did indeed do some coding on behalf of Twine. I don't recall what it was for, though. She also created a tutorial, although so did I. Hrafn created the first tutorial, I created a tutorial primarily aimed at our local Chamber of Commerce, Twain created another tutorial, then a high school student produced some very good videos, one funny video based on the song, "Radar Love" (this is the one I used on behalf of Radar Networks at the Semantic Technology Conference), another that was a more traditional tutorial video.
Let me rephrase my "strategic" comment. I was looking at things as a user of competitive products. That was my only focus -- and my only concern. My bottom line: Is Twine an effective substitution technology for other services that I was then using.? Twain looked at things very differently, e.g., demographics. (Twain and I agreed on this point.) My comments were more along the lines of, "Furl can do this, Zotero can do that, Zemanta has this angle." Pretty straightforward stuff. Her comments were pretty much like what you've read in this thread.
The "mad passionate love" statement was just a joke. I was simply noting that I admired her. (This is before things got nasty between us, before she started pissing off a lot of other Twinerians.) In fact, Twain is rather homely -- and I'm being generous when I say this. And I never made a public apology as she has suggested; there was NOTHING to apologize for. She totally lost it when this whole issue was brought up on "Power Users," making absurd claims that she must be attractive because she was evidently asked to be in someone's Executive Office, showing pictures of a party where she got totally wasted, showing a photo of an ex-boyfriend, all sorts of things. It was VERY sad. She obviously has a lot of insecurities about her appearance ... and this was obvious to everyone who read her response. (I talked about this with several Power Users at the Semantic Technology Conference, even with several Radarians at the same conference. 100% agreement on this point.)
So, let me add some context to what happened. Nova sent out a question to "Power Users" and to "Product somethingoranother" ("Product Community"?). Two guys gave their opinion and then Twain pounced on them. I came to their defense. Well, things got out of control from there.
This seems to be her MO: She likes to attack people with differing opinions, believing that only her opinion is valid. (OK, that may be too strong. But if she doesn't like you, then she'll simply attack you, regardless what you may say.) People who know me -- know me very well -- came to my defense in the various threads. (A couple were other so-called "Power Users.) She had some admirers, like JDL (I think that's who it was). Kurt even suggested that they should get a bed together. (He was joking, too.) What can I say: Different strokes.
In retrospect, the whole thing was silly and a waste of time, both Twain and Twine.
(1.) Twinerian not Twiner.
(2.) DSL did admire Twain.
DSL made Twain lose her respect for him after his so-called “joke” and the way HE lost it on all the threads, went completely off-track like send the ‘Charlie Brookes gives Twine advice’ post to Power Users when it was his personal attack on Twine and on Nova and Twain came to Nova’s defense.
That’s by-the-by because………
(3.) Twine was and is a waste of time.
As for “100% of agreement on this point?” Highly unlikely, particularly since that screenshot of DSL’s very public apology does exist --- he made some excuse about it being due to working late, some private stress and not having his coffee fix. Both Nova and Steve O’Donoghue sent Twain emails or Twine private posts of support saying the Radarians found DSL’s comment inappropriate and that’s why he was ordered by Nova to delete it which, to be fair, to him he did.
Who are these “a lot of Twinerians”? If DSL means his buddies (Daniel Feldman, Hucheng, webferret and Chesterfield)….yes, Twain does regret being pro-Twine and trying to explain how Twine could be used as a collaboration hub and asking people to give the RN team a chance as well as getting into various discussions about the Chinese culture and language (which Twain understands more of the subtleties about since Twain is Chinese whereas they are Westerners with a lot fewer years of actually being fluent in the language and culture).
More than anything, though, Twain does regret any instances where she upset other users by being pro-Twine when they were being naysayers --- particularly when those naysayers went onto User Feedback, made unreasonable demands and started flames over whether Twine was SemWeb or not.
If Nova had been open and honest with Twain from the outset (and not lied about the friendship thing and sent her his SemTech 2008 ppt in April 2008 to sanity-check), she would not have bothered to give Twine a chance, to defend RN team and then got into all sorts of issues for actively testing Twine and sharing her knowhow. She would have road-tested the system to suit her needs for a couple of months and then abandoned it in April 2008 of her own volition.
Fyi DSL, Hucheng and Twain had other vigorous exchanges and, yet, in the last of Twain’s post “Never the Twain Shall Meet: the Global Brain + technology?” in Oct 2008, he and other users came onto her thread and participated in it, providing his perspectives in a very open and constructive way ---- proving that someone Twain had supposedly p***** off, she had not p***** off and people can agree to disagree on some things, yet interact on others.
As for supposedly “pouncing” on two guys on a Product Community thread from a Nova post, sorry you have amnesia. It was Twain’s post. It was entitled “DSL cf Twain: a case study of NLP, user psychology, business models and experience differences” and it went right into how both sides approached Twine’s business model differently.
Re. this supposed MO of attacking people with different opinions. Clearly, DSL’s read it wrong. The threads have been deleted by RN (their flawed and haywire algorithm sliced and diced Power Users threads during Twain’s exclusion because…….wait for this…..no one at RN bothered to test what happens on lock-out; yes, Nova sent a groveling apology to Twain for that too and an empty promise of restoration), but on Conscious Awareness twine as well as Web 3.0 and Hrafn’s Artificial Intelligence Twain’s MO is clearly collaborative.
Somehow, it's doubtful she would have bothered helping newbies all over Twine, engaging others in discussion threads and everything else she did if she was otherwise.
Did she ask people to support their opinions with facts, personal experiences and other direct case examples? Yes, she did. This isn’t being aggressive. It’s trying to discern the validity, applicability and proof of an opinion and link its relevance to other opinions to prioritize the merits of any opinion. Even that process is semantic!
Wrt. Twain’s looks and a party where she got “totally wasted,” the other Power Users know this is a total lie since Twain has low alcohol tolerance so she’s not likely to get wasted. The video shows a harmless film school wrap party and Twain helping her friend clear up his house in the morning --- hardly possible of she was "totally wasted". As for the holiday photos, she posted them because there was a call on Power Users for brave people to introduce themselves so we'd get to know each other better since everyone was just an avatar.
Here’s some more definite amnesia and misrepresentation from DSL: sorry, but if Twain said she was asked to be in anyone’s Executive Office she would not have said it was because of her attractiveness. She would have said, “I was promoted on merit for my skills, hard graft, team working and knowhow…” She would definitely have made a list of substantives like degrees, training, direct experiences, etc. She has looks insecurity in the same way she has intelligence and memory insecurity --- none, thanks for checking.
In any case, it’s all pointless history.
Both parties have and are moving on from Twine. Twine was a waste of time.
David Scott Lewis is doing his thing. Twain is doing her thing.
End of story.
Regarding my buddies, it was a helluva lot more extensive than that: At least a dozen "Power Users" who made it to the conference and another ten or so Radarians whom I talked with either during the conference sessions or at the Radar Networks reception.
But, in fact, none of this really matters anymore. We have very different perspectives on life, which is fine. It is somewhat amusing that we both came to the same conclusion regarding Twine ... and Nova!! (If two polar opposites on this planet can agree on something, some of what we agree upon may have merit. Of course, most of it is just our personal opinions.)
Also, don't go into the Chinese thing (again). Most mainlanders would not view you as a "real" Chinese and you know this. It's Dan and yours truly who have lived here for over five years; you've never lived in mainland China. You are ethnically Chinese and speak the language, but you're not *really* Chinese, and least not by local standards. You think you understand Chinese culture. You don't. And the longer I live here, I know that I'll never understand Chinese culture. Such is life ...
THAT would be why Nova wrote, "Twain Luu has put together a great set of tutorials for beginners to learn how to use Twine." That's on Google, y'know.
That'd also be why Josh Dilworth, Radar Network's external PR from Porter Novelli, wrote, "Twain, you ROCK."
Oh and since she used direct screenshots of the Twine interface in those user guides, I guess you're saying the Twine UI is geeky looking and amateurish then.
She's a "legend in her own mind" too, huh? So THAT''s why Nova wrote, "Twain your brain is impressive" on his Money + Investing twine.
I'm curious, oh objective opinion. If you're rarely involved these days how's it possible you know it's a lot quieter with Twain gone? You're contradicting yourself again..........NOVA.
As for Twain supposedly dominating the powerusers, please don't insult the powerusers' intelligence. They're each strong distinctive individuals. They would hardly have joyfully said, "You go, girl!" and had 200+ comment long threads with her if they felt dominated.
Plus people who don't like other people on Twine can DISCONNECT, y'know, or have you even forgotten about the features on your own platform you've been AWOL so much twittering instead of taking care of the members of your own platform?
Disconnecting stops you seeing people's threads and being involved in their twines, y'know. Funny how the powerusers always had that option, know it and yet never disconnected from her, huh?
Interesting how as soon as she returned she received invitations to connect from all the core powerusers, huh? Interesting that it was the powerusers who campaigned for her return during her first exclusion, hmmn? Do people dominated by someone go and campaign for her reinstatement? Hmmmn.........
She disconnected from Nova, though. That was her choice.
It's Nova who is dominating the powerusers, closing User Feedback, marginalizing them into little private twines, making their legitimate concerns go unheard.
But thanks, objective opinion, for showing yet another side of Nova's many aliases here.
Back to the drawing board, Nova.
As for whether people used her guides you know perfectly well they did. You yourself even linked to them from Nova's Public Twine, Twine Beta Feedback, Power Users, Web 3.0, Twine News + Announcements (Steve O'Donoghue and Susan Mayo linked to it from here), etc.
Geeky looking and amateurish?!
So THAT's why when you upset Twain and she started deleting her guides, you went into a panic and emailed Twain to stop her deleting her guides. Steve O' also sent an email. Twain agreed to stop deleting her guides from that twine to your relief and even made Steve and Susan co-owners.
You're only thankful it's been quiet since Twain's been off-Twine because she's not there holding you to account to deliver features users have asked for and need.
Don't worry, though, Twain doesn't want to be on your platform anyway.
She simply set the record straight so you cannot whitewash the substantial positive contributions she made in collaboration with the other powerusers.
Everytime someone calls you out on your fantasies you decide it must be Nova or David Lewis when actually the comment above was not by either one of them, but think what you want.
But there are other people you hated besides just those two.
For example, the one you accused of spamming Twine so many times. Who you accused of posting porn to Twine. When in fact he did no such thing and it was your false assumption.
And now this time, your false assumption again. Maybe you have friends in the powerusers today. But there were more before and they left because of you and your behavior.
You should think twice about blaming people publicly when you have no idea of what you are talking about or who might be upset with you.
You SUCK!!!!
And stop impersonating me.
Ha ha ha ha ha
Lighten up, Twain. And everyone else who was offended by the video should lighten up, too. It was just a joke on Nova. Maybe it was in bad taste, maybe it wasn't funny. But it was just a joke.
They're the ones who defined “What is a twine” (Nova was even on that thread) and their MO’s reflected the best of the Twine community: smart, collaborative, open, diverse, democratic and genuinely funny.
If he had been part of that Power User set (the ones who now currently belong to the private lounge on Twine), he would appreciate that the s*** video was offensive to the spirit and the brand positioning they were helping to foster on Twine.
Candice may have been pulling a fast one on Nova, but the fact is neither Candice nor Nova thought to clear it first with the Power Users and yet RN expects the Power Users to do all their work for them (provide user guides, handhold newbies, be user support, act as community managers, etc.). Then they turn around after the Power Users' help and say, "Oh but you're volunteers" and worse.
Bottom line: Candice's video is insulting and really appalling user marketing whichever way it’s looked at --- even with a humor hat on that belongs to Robin Williams.
a young woman is expressing her pains
Why do you bother?
Well, it IS funny....
Tot.all.y
SUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!
However, the video received an overwhelmingly positive response on TechCrunch. You didn't like it, I didn't much care for it, either. But it did get a positive response on TC.
Frankly, who really cares what the "Lounge" or "Power Users" think? We were not some special class of superhumans with divine insights. We were just more active than most. (In fact, you were NOT very active when it came to using Twine, although you thought about it more than most of us. I probably still have the most connections, most popular non-Radarian twine -- my "Apps" twine, maybe even the most added items. And I haven't used Twine regularly for at least 9 months!)
Candice has had numerous successful product and service launches, far more than you have, Twain. She has a much better command of this market than you do. And have you noticed that she's now featured on the Radar Networks management team page? (She wasn't one year ago.) She seems to be moving UP their ranks, not down. Good for her: I like her. Matter of fact, Nova is the only Radarian I really didn't like. Just personality differences. Again, that's fine. I still have a lot of respect for Nova -- and I really hope that Twine makes it. (IMHO, the world needs a good semweb service.)
BTW, I like Robin Williams -- a lot!! He's one of my favorite comedians.
Twain, there is one thing that all three of us agreed upon: We all supported Obama (although, of course, you couldn't vote for him). And in the grand scheme of things, what Obama is doing/will do is a helluva lot more important than ANYTHING relating to Twine, semweb, AI, VR, whatever. I was absolutely delighted, however, that he made solar, wind, EV and biomass among his top priorities during his speech before the Joint Session last week.
Solar power, wind power, electric vehicles (and I'm involved with all three; our company is in each sector and I'm a Group SVP): All got a key mention by Obama. Gee, he didn't mention AI, semweb, ... In fact, the AI nonsense doesn't really matter except to those in the field and SF fans. Whether or not AI, et al is real or hype, it just doesn't matter. OTOH, renewables DO matter!! A life well spent versus a life wasted ...
I also remember Candice let "Take the Tour" go 6 releases out-of date. Twain was the one who flagged it on feedback.
Also recall she sent out a marketing survey "Tell it to Us Straight!" in Sept just before launch that pissed quite a few people off. What did RN think users had been providing on beta feedback for MONTHS if it wasn't feature improvements and what other bookmark/socnet tools they were comparing with?!
Four-fifths of people who signed up for beta didn't even join one of the three main Radar twines which is a click of a button. They disappeared never to surface; not even as lurkers. How many people you reckon bothered to fill out her 5-page marketing survey if they could not even be bothered to press click to join a Radar twine?
Plus some people filled it out more than once cause no one thought to make sure Survey Monkey only did one account one survey --- duh!
Yeah and she knows how to market to users so much only these last few days the original users just blasted her silly for knowing nothing and giving them more crap and LOLed at her msg about "higher purpose".
They've scared her out of the lounge, matter of fact.
As far as Candice is concerned, WHAT-EVAH, as Nova would say.
She's management because according to her assistant, Bonnie, Radar is at 20 staff. Did anyone else get that? 20.
So unless Bonnie's made a mistake or Innocent Bystander (who's proly James Todd) has in his comment above:
"Also, one has to give credit to Twine for taking on so much with fewer than 30-40 employees."
Twine marketing isn't even communicating properly amongst themselves --- much less to the user members!
That or they cut head count by a 1/3 and no one's told anyone else yet. Oops.
People signed up and 95% of them never posted a link or came onto a thread 'cos they didn't know how to use the damn system. HA HA!
She was so good at marketing she didn't even think of ways to get them to thread.
'Course, she was just waiting for the SEO spam bots like the rest of Twine's team to drive traffic instead of real user engagement. Seen the engagement metrics are WAY down?'They'll spin some foo but it's DOWN.
Hmmn, an' have you seen Bent Rasmussen's reply on this very thread?
""Cultural friction"? Either you didn't read the article or you failed to understand it. It is about a massive wasted effort - on the part of the "frequent" users. If you think it's fun to put that much energy into something and see it deteriorate into a pile of rubble, you need some "cultural friction" of your own.
- The Author
Bent's one of the most tolerant users possible, v. tolerant, v. polite language.
You think he would be as irked as he is (and a lot of people are) if Candice was a good marketer? "MASSIVE WASTED EFFORT" Bent says.
Now that just tells us a LOT of marketing comms is going all wrong all over Twine........
Re. "Frankly, who really cares what the "Lounge" or "Power Users" think?", RN keeps telling them they do, that their opinions matter, that they are special because they're Twine's best advocates, have uploaded most content and have been with Twine SO long......C'mon, they even set up private lounge for them with a "higher purpose" so they can have contact with one RN team member!
Funny, there used to be Power Users twine where they could have contact with ALL Twine team, including engineers. There also used to be Product Community, Club Twine, Beat That Dead Horse, Twine Users Forum....
Duplication of marketing much? More deadwood twine much?
Anyway, they create this special lounge to "listen to their most frequent users" and then they go and ignore those users for days on end when the users flag systems issues --- like TWINE CRASHING FOR A WEEK.
Candice comes into lounge 5 days after problem still not being fixed and gives them the "higher purpose" blah but no explanation about what's happening in engineering.
Yeah, grt marketing.
WHAT-EVAH, as Nova would say (when pretending to be gangsta on TC).
She is sorry she was tricked by you into wasting her time. She is sorry to all the other user members for being the person who asked them to give Twine a chance. She is sorry she tried to make up for Radar Networks’ gross inadequacies as strategic thinkers, as implementors, as service providers, as communicators and as community managers.
Nova has shown his true colors writing as “anti-spam” and various incarnations and she's glad she's set the record straight on specific contributions she did make and the nonsense she had to deal with for 10 months.
All the spam postings here on this VB thread should be ignored (i.e., by the various fake Nice Trys, fake Twains, fake David Scott Lewis, fake whatevers, fake impersonations). They are NOT the postings of Twain or associated with her. What she has written focuses on the very serious flaws with not just the Twine platform but also with the Twine team (strategic and operational).
The Twain experience of Twine is a cautionary one for all beta-testers and people who are Good Samaritans and who offer their goodwill to others to help them cross roads.
Twain’s experience of Twine means she would never be a Good Samaritan again. If she could turn back time, her reply to Nova sending her his SemTech 2008 slides in April would have been, "My rate is.....I'm prepared to work with Radar Networks under these contractual terms.......We should execute an NDA....." --- except he had recently emailed to say he considered Twain his friend.
From now on, she will be 100% sure to charge for all strategic consultancy services to so-called “friends”.
She would certainly never recommend Twine, Nova or any of the Radar Networks team as a platform or people to get involved, assist or align with. They proved themselves to be amateur at best in the way they deliver the platform and how they service their user members, and deliberately antagonistic at worst in the way they routinely ignore users’ contributions, collaborative efforts and concerns. Then they either provide some sob story or some spin --- neither of which should be believed.
Mostly, they are a disappointment.
They have NOT given return on the investment that the Power Users put in them (in the form of content on Twine, providing user support and also steering Twine towards feature improvements).
Twain did not arrive on Twine to have her time wasted, be subjected to personal abuse, have her content erased, her privacy breached, her online trust destroyed or her reputation maligned --- all of which happened on Twine. It is the first-time she has ever experienced such nonsense so it shows remarkable character for her to have been as tolerant as she has been.
She certainly did not arrive on Twine to be stabbed in the back by Nova, twisting of her contributions as of no value and his lack of truthfulness, ethical behavior and transparency.
She arrived full of optimism because the Semantic Web and its technologies are an area of professional interest for her. She recognized the limitations of the Radar Networks team early on and a combination of factors: Nova saying (his lying, she now recognizes) he considered her a friend; the goodwill of other Power Users and the knowledge she could make a genuine positive contribution, that she agreed to be one of the most pro-Twine advocates as well as the person who leveraged her skills, practically, to help other user members as much as the Radar Networks team.
Her online trust and content was given to Radar Networks team and they abused it.
Several times, she deleted her content and moved to leave because she resented the impositions on her goodwill and skills Nova made (via emails and IMs) and the fact Radar Networks took for granted the Power Users would be their advocates and do things for them for free (like handhold newbies and deal with user queries when it was actually Radar Networks’ job and responsibilities, which they were failing to perform).
Each time Nova sent her an email to say sorry for something or other he and RN team had done wrong (again), and her tolerance would kick in and she would give it all another chance.
This was also greatly helped by the fact she had met some good people amongst the Power Users. They too had an enthusiasm to realize the SemWeb dream and to build a community. They too were prepared to help other users get up the UI-learning curve and to populate the platform with the best available content around.
Unfortunately, the result of everything the Power Users did for Twine and RN is that they’ve now been marginalized. Quite a number of them are seriously disappointed and some are even downright angry. This is why a current Power User blogs ‘Twine --- a vision lost’ and others are much more vociferous on public twines about Twine’s system persistently either collapsing, being too slow or simply not offering standard features they need.
Before, these people were tolerant and reasonable. RN has eroded their trust, their loyalty, their tolerance and their humor so much that the most active Power Users will no longer hold back on their criticisms of Twine or give it more chances.
Quite apart from RN’s treatment of Twain --- particularly Nova --- the thing which disappoints her the most is that this is not a one-off mistake.
It is a habit. A really bad one.
RN is in the habit of repeating their mistakes and alienating / disrespecting / trashing the very people who in some way or other have been Good Samaritans and helped them out.
In seriousness, Twain doesn’t want anything more to do with Twine. Provided no more nonsense about her is written there (spam links, references, etc.) and no one tries to start an online flame with her on the Web that associates her with Twine, Nova, any of the Radar Networks team or any users of Twine --- former and current (there really is no point; the Twine thing is so over and it has no legs as far as she's concerned) --- she just wants to put what was a bad experience where it rightfully belongs.
In the history bin.
If Twine sucks, that’s RN’s problem. If Twine tanks, that’s RN’s doing. If it succeeds, no one benefits but the investors and Twain doesn’t want to invest even another second or neuron on anything relating to Twine.
It’s now redundant as a utility.
****************************
Twain genuinely asks people not to continue to comment on this thread.
If they have an opinion about Twine they should go there and say whatever they'd like to.
Twine’s all tied up and thrown into Twain’s trash can now. Thanks.
==========
On this VB thread, let’s all ignore the fake IDs, the trolls and the Twain (versus whomever) issue and let’s focus on the most important comments:
B.R. 17 hours ago
"Cultural friction"? Either you didn't read the article or you failed to understand it. It is about a massive wasted effort - on the part of the "frequent" users. If you think it's fun to put that much energy into something and see it deteriorate into a pile of rubble, you need some "cultural friction" of your own.
- The Author
B.R. 13 hours ago
Also, I would add that there is a lot of crap on Twine, created by random users. I think you underestimate the value of high-quality content over random stuff. Random stuff can be found everywhere, carefully assembled material - not so. But good luck with all the empty twines, all the spam twines and all the twines about "Web 2.0". That's sure to be a magnet for new users. Maybe they'll be just as loyal after they've posted their first 3 items as the people who spent months on end creating something cohesive. Time will tell.
His blog post: http://xosfaere.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/twine-...
His direct quote:
"The twine lounge is, to me, a nursery. It is not about listening to and talking to users. It is about giving a false sense of listening. After all, the team is more or less unable to fulfill the vision and so they are not interested in having the feedback made public and also not in hearing it. This also explains why there is only one nurse - the creator of the twine. No CEO, no developers, only frustrated users."
Bent Rasmussen is someone Twain knows well and whose opinions are valuable and credible. He is a talented Web developer and designer. He knows a fair amount about Semantic technologies, RDF structures and information harvesting tools. He also knows a lot about Adobe and the most cutting-edge applications of visualization solutions in the market.
Bent has been a Power User on Twine since March 2008. He’s been at the coal-face nurturing it for almost a year now. At various points, he was either ranked #1 or #2, which means that his activity levels on Twine were extremely high; he really does know the system.
People can search for Bent's comments on Twine in the 'Web 3.0 --- Semantic Web," "Adobe" or "Apps" twines and you will all discover that Bent is a very grounded, tolerant and reasonable guy.
He sticks to the issues. He does not get into personality debates.
He has also been one of the most supportive of the Radar Networks team and Nova personally. Each sprint, Bent along with the other core Power Users has come onto the Feedback twine to commend the team on feature fixes they did get right and then constructive prompts on features which still need attention.
If he feels disappointed enough to not only write what is a cogent and articulate blog post off-Twine, he raises it on-Twine, he also comments on this VB thread not once but twice, then RN needs to pay attention to the issues Twain has very specifically raised here:
(1.) A CEO who is present (and seen to be present) and who takes the lead in delivering on what users need.
(2.) effective systems to detect, flag and remove spam.
(3.) QUALITY of user engagement and not superficial quantity, in chasing traffic.
(4.) features, UI and service levels user members want, need and deserve.
In particular higher-level views that may free up the speed.
(5.) organizational structure and professionalism --- SOPs et al.
E.g., the team actually knowing what the left and right hands are doing. No more marketing Bonnie saying head count is one thing when tech team is saying another.
(6.) re-opening of User Feedback to enable user members to have their full democratic and public say to RN team.
Structure will have to change with designated Power User as proxy community manager (paid for at reasonable rate).
(7.) conflict resolution mechanisms and communication channels spot-on.
(8.) marketing which is intelligent, cogent and empowers rather than alienates user members.
(9.) symbiosis between company and its community restored.
(10.) remuneration and incentives to core Power Users for their specific contributions to Twine.
No, we don't mean T-shirts.
TO THE TROLLS
=============
You’ve all provided us with LOLs and some of it was even ingenious wit circa Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ and Laurel+Hardy--- “It wasn’t me. It was ‘im, sire. Stop pretending you is me and I is ‘im and we is me, y'see! I didn’t do it, no not eye, it was my fibula.”
Yes, Twain does have a GSOH. She likes early Eddie Murphy from ‘SNL’ as much as Robin Williams, the Marx Bros and Tina Fey.
However, intelligent people like her can differentiate between the bait and the issues. The voices of the real Power Users, members of the RN team and other user members is very distinctive and identifiable to her. As is whatever substantive point they have to make.
The rest is white noise and she's pretty good at fine-tuning all that nonsense out.
TO TWINE'S SENSE-MAKERS
=======================
This is to RN team, Power Users and casual members alike. You are the people with the intellectual rigor and connectivity of lateral and literal thinking to deduce; discern; prioritize; cogitate; and problem-solve.
It is your responsibility to ensure that Twine continues to be a site of QUALITY user engagement.
Why is this important? Well, during times of economic uncertainty (aka recession) there is........
FLIGHT TO QUALITY, folks.
Yes, there are probably investor concerns and targets but the quantity will flow naturally from the quality. Remove the s***, spam, spin and other stuff. Take the short-term dip in uniques and shoot for the long-term gains in user satisfaction.
It will be a win-win. Power Users like Bent will be happy the plots of Twine they've been cultivating for months are not swamped by spam weeds. They will then be more effective advocates for Twine community and attract more caliber users.
RN will get the traffic it needs for next financing round. Simple logic's always best.
TWAIN IS FINE, THANKS
====================
She's just spent February designing and coding a Papervision3D, AS3, AJAX-js prototype front-end to an internet venture some old friends and she are founding.
Yes, it is visionary, strategic, collaborative, sexy, cool and all that good stuff.
BYE-BYE!
========
Now will the people who want to properly contribute to resolving Twine's issues please go to Twine and stop diverting onto Twain (whose ego and mental health don't need any of your concerns, thanks).
Ciao and bonne chance!
A few tips:
(1.) Twain thinks you're very funny, have provided a lot of entertainment and she knows exactly who you are because you wrote "pardon my English all" and the only time Twain has ever used that turn of phrase --- albeit in reference to another language that "Fake French Guy" would understand --- was very recently on a private social network.
So touché!
(2.) It's not "Here here". It's "Hear! Hear!" --- that's what's said in Parliament.
Just so you know in case you want to try and impersonate her any further; she wouldn't make mistakes like that. She's particular about language precision as she is about getting everything else spot-on.
(3.) Twain has not written here as "Twain," "The Real Twain" or any another version of Twain.
That's obvious because what Twain has written on this VB thread has been informed, analytical, cogent and focussed on the very real and serious issues RN team have to tackle and get right for its user members.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER
====================
She's tied it all together, linked all the dots and frame-worked specific pragmatic solutions, actually.
(1.) Jamlin423 wrote:
"Also, the 2 "twines" that they're automatically inviting new users to join -- "Get Started" and "Twine News and Announcements" -- has only 1,100 and 9,400 members respectively, which means quite some users sign up but didn't bother to explore the site. (It's a bit complicated even for me whose job is scoping out web applications.)"
Twain has very specifically pointed out Twine marketing's failures to properly communicate with its users, get them to engage on the site or to provide proper user guides (leaving it to Power Users to handhold newbies when they're not RN employees or being paid for it; its not their responsibility, actually).
Naturally, Twine marketing's failures affects the engagement figures and explains how low they are. It's all inter-connected.
(2.) Greg Boutin made perfectly valid complaints about RN being less than helpful in providing information, transparency and in listening.
Twain has provided clear examples not only of RN policy decisions which have been counter-productive to company-community relations:
* closure of User Feedback by RN (repeating their mistakes)
* marginalization of the core users who know exactly what feature improvements will help all users
* spin & denial & character slurring from RN instead of them tackling the issues to benefit clarity of information and transparency for all
(3.) Bent refers to the lounge as a "nursery".
Twain has been more than expressive about the need for RN to improve the professionalism and quality of service provision with which they treat ALL their user members.
For RN to come out and spin about their so-called "explosive growth" when someone like Bent and all the other experienced core users knows this includes a lot of crap, SEO spam, deadwood twines, a non-performing Interest Feed, periodic system crashes and lack of proper user engagement on a platform that was marketed by RN as a "smart system" is simply not good enough.
There's no "cultural friction". There's a big gap between spin and delivery and user members want delivery, thanks.
CONCLUSION
===========
In seriousness, RN should get working on the 10 points of recommendation Twain made above.
Nova needs to stop playing Victorian father to his core user members: "See no evil. Hear no evil. Say no evil," by banishing them to some nursery twine, and instead actually TAKE-IN what their concerns and improvement suggestions are.
He also simply needs to stop being a Twit and remember to be a Twinerian again. It is his company and his community after all and he has a responsibility to deliver to Twinerians.
Twain does not want to have to come onto any more public forums to demand for the removal of crap relating to her on Twine, to ensure the core users' concerns get properly heard and addressed, to set the record straight or to waste her time repeating herself about what constitutes standard GOOD operational practice and strategic implementation.
For the record she's a premier league corporate strategist. People do not get promoted into CEO-Chairman's Office of a Tier 1 bank, run e-Intelligence, be co-responsible for a US$billion valuation portfolio of tech investments by the age of 26 unless they are premier collaborators, thinkers and doers. Finance people also usually do not know how to code or anything about configuring Google Earth KPIs or kernels or weaving with Papervision3D in web design and Twain can.
If others can't stomach or commend that hard-earned success of hers which is the result of a LOT of collaborative effort and hard graft on her part, (and they choose instead to be petty and make character slurs) then they have small minds and pea-sized hearts and it's not her problem. It's their own immaturity, insecurity, ignorance and ego inadequacy issues manifesting.
So all the s*** and spam about her supposed craziness should just stop. Exactly like all the s*** and spam on Twine should stop.
The Twine journey is over as far as she's concerned. She has no need for nurseries, no clues people or for nonsense.
The Twain journey continues happy and anon, striving towards much better on something she's building and that's much more meaningful and sense-making than Twine.
PEACE, in the words of one of the best Twinerians.
Duh. Because it's fun. LOL.
I wish the best for Twine. Unlike some former/current "Power Users" who wish ill for Twine, I don't. For one thing, if Twine/Radar Networks sinks, it may spell trouble for other semweb start-ups, may make it more difficult for them to receive funding. But this issue aside, Nova and Jim had -- and still have -- a good idea ... and good ideas need a chance. One of the earlier comments in this typical "Power Users" thread noted that many other services morphed way beyond their equivalent to "Power Users" on Twine, and Twine is likely doing the same. Hey, if Twine moves beyond "Power Users" and becomes a mainstream service, GREAT for Twine!! That's a win in my book. It may have little utility for me, but why should it? Anyway, I'll likely wait another two/few years before giving another semweb service a try. No harm, no foul. I volunteered for the private beta, I wasn't drafted.
One thing that bothers me, though, is that Lew Tucker seems to have left Radar Networks. He was third in command, but is no longer listed on their management page. Jim is their semweb guru, Chris is their UX guy, but Lew was their infrastructure guy. Looking at their management team page, I don't see an infrastructure guru -- and they evidently need one from what I gather in some of the aforementioned comments.
Sad to see Lew Tucker leave. He was a great catch for Radar Networks, proved himself at Sun and Salesforce. His departure is a HUGE gap on RN's management team.
Last words to Radar Networks: Mazel tov. And I mean this.
It's unlikely they would have put 100,000+ quality items onto the system, compensated for RN team's shortcomings (by providing consultancy services, by being community managers, by providing user guides, by handholding newbies, by troubleshooting bugs, by prioritizing feature improvements, and a whole host of other talents) or put up with being personally attacked by Twine's naysayers --- if they were those types of people.
Actually, it is they who gave GENUINE GOODWILL --- not simply in the form of empty words like, "Congrats," "Mazel Tov", "Jolly good show, chaps!", "Bravo!" Their goodwill was actual, tangible and concrete.
It was their input that is the lasting contribution and not those of empty words.
They're the ones who set up twines to socialize it --- make it a proper social / interest network --- and to open it up to audiences wider than the tech geek Semantic researchers. Twines like Music, Jokes, Books, Health+Fitness, Politics, Election 2009, Global Financial Crisis, House+Home, Trawling the Net, Programming Everything, Cookery, Photography, Animation, Art etc. etc. etc. They're the ones who set-up twines and threads to try and INCREASE quality engagement on Twine --- not only amongst themselves but consistently and constructively welcoming newbies.
They're the ones who created twines which would attract mainstream audiences. Not a single one of those Power Users created a twine called "Singularity" or "Semantic Applications" or "Kurzweil" so to suggest that they were obstructing Twine's move into the mainstream is simply.....INVALID and completely misinformed.
They're the ones who debated how the UX could improve and seamless integration in straight through links so that Twine would become more user-friendly, clearly explained and synch in. They did all this in the interests of making Twine as mainstream and functionally useful as Google Reader, Facebook and DIGG.
That Twine is now troubled has nothing to do with the constructive efforts of the Power Users to help it on that path.
It has everything to do with RN's poor policy decisions, repeated mistakes and its alienation of its own most ardent users, defenders and advocates.
All of which was avoidable. All of which is salvage-able.
If they will --- with cogent thinking and collaborative effort --- implement good practice.
That's what the core Power Users have been pressing for and trying to steer Twine towards all along.
(1.) Sequoia Capital's advice to deal with the downturn:
http://gigaom.com/2008/10/09/what-startups-can-...
Please note these particular tips on their list:
--- Focus on building the absolutely essential features in your product.
--- Be brutal when it comes to marketing — anything that isn’t working, cut it.
(2.) TechCrunch's layoff tracker:
* http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/17/keeping-co...
She posted those items, which were published on Gigaom and TC during the fortnight right before Twine's public launch, precisely to encourage RN to focus on getting features aligned and the marketing message ship-shape before it went out the door.
Not for a second did she think RN would allow its public launch to be accompanied with such low-quality stupidity as the "We organize that s***" video to be representative of what is a smart community.
Does anyone seriously think the "We organize that s***" video was good marketing?
Do people think the likes of Sequoia Capital or WPP or Apple would say it works and that it brands and positions Twine in a favorable way to survive the economic storms as well as make a statement about the SemWeb and the smart people involved in it?
Read the TC comments carefully. Quite a lot of people say they're none the wiser about what Twine is, how to actually use it, what its features are, it doesn't seem to be their sort of community after watching that video etc.
They don't have humor bypasses. They're talking common sense.
Exactly like Sequoia is when they provide tips to start-ups on how to survive this financing climate.
Twain is all for advancing innovative ideas as much as the next person. As a banker, she championed budgets and re-investments in tech companies and internal incubations that had technical merits, defined strategic paths to market and talented mgmt teams.
Heck, she even tried to turnaround co's that were heading for Chapter 7 bankruptcy because of market conditions and not because of lack of talent on the part of the techco.
However, she will write down and be tough on companies which have not converted consistent goodwill into ROI capital, user servicing or who have not adopted good practice when they've been given more chances to do so than most.
That's what Sequoia et al would do too. It's standard expectation and practice, actually.
Twine management clearly needs serious external support. Good visions and ideas without good implementation, observing SOP or "walk the talk" is not enough.
No one is wishing Nova and Jim or anyone at RN team any ill will for the vision or the idea that was originally explicated in Nova's post "Why Twine Interests Me". In fact, the core Power Users went out of their ways to realize that vision and to be part of positive implementation.
The Power Users did not lose their bearings. RN team are the ones who seem to have uncontrollable propensities to steer towards the s*** and icebergs, leap before they think-through properly (ratings systems, twitter integration etc. failures) instead of towards the safety of havens, smart processes and other folk's sensibilities.
It isn't too late for RN. They just need to re-plot the course and set sail for starboard again.
Then they'll have a better chance of making their next round.
Here it's a case of "Bonne chance!" There are other semweb offerings being released in Q2 and Q3 of 2009 and they too will be chasing the same monies.
May the best quality offering win the money and the user members!
Twain knows who you are and your comment is appreciated.
Here's hoping Erickson is "solid as a rock" and that there will be no more crock towards users.
Here's hoping RN can steer the ship back from downstream and the s*** creeks and head upstream to the sense havens and the original collective destinations of the SemWeb and smart, quality services.
Here's hoping Twain will NOT have to defend herself or the other core Power Users again because other people want to make it a personality contest and not one focussed on the issues resolutions.
The issues are clear: s***, spam, spin, service crashes etc which are unacceptable to users.
This faux "explosive growth" nonsense should not be allowed to mask the realities of the serious fixes Twine platform needs nor the level of professionalism due towards its community.
These are issues raised persistently by the core Power Users who have always had Twine community's interests at heart. No, not the ones who want to make cheap potshots at Twain and whose words have no credibility or basis. She's cited very specific examples to support her extremely lucid, coherent and reliable analysis whilst they've suffered from amnesia, fuzzy logic and tried to divert from the issues.
The fact of the matter is the core Power Users are the ones who fostered the conditions for Twine to appeal to the mainstream. They are the ones who fought for open and transparent communication channels. They are the ones who proposed and lobbied for the features to work as they should. They are the ones who provided the quality content, the context and the commitment to making Twine the smartest and most collaborative community in the Webspace.
They are also the ones who were most consistently supportive of RN team.
Therefore, they have every right not be to marketed to with s*** videos, not to be subjected to spam and crap, not to get vacuous spin when what's appreciated is technical resolution and open communications, and to get Nova's proper attention and delivery of the service that is their standard expectation.
Twain, meanwhile, was indeed forced to "walk the plank" (twice) and she's overcome the freezing water and the sharks.
She's already on the sense havens, thanks.
That's where Twine needs to head for.
Maybe only then Mayer Spivack's post, 'The Twain shall meet at last!"
* http://artsandminds.typepad.com/artsandminds/20...
Direct quotes:
" Twine is both a revolutionary and a disruptive technology in syncretic combination."
“Twine” solves the greater knowledge and information problem inherent within most areas of knowledge—that the twain never meet unless forced together by brilliant discovery, invention, or by lucky, observed accident. Orphan technologies will now find their relatives! Neglected and forgotten ideas will shine at last. Integrative insights will become beacons for the future."
There is veracity in what Mayer Spivack says. He's spot-on about the syncretic potential of Twine.
However, he is also right to note that twain only meets when disparate fields of thinking are forced together.
Look at how Twain has had to apply her "phenomenal brainpower" (Nova's words writing as "power user") to bang heads together and make sense of them.
She hopes you're all savvy now. She's waiting for you all on the sense havens.
Adieu.
====================================
Well, that hope of change and goodwill granted to RN didn't last long.
Does RN seriously think its new rankings algorithm is credible like its claims that traffic is not due to spam is credible?
Seriously, it's great to see the team finally tackle their less than transparent uniques numbers (including Nova's admissions to Greg Boutin that confirmed all of Twain's points about user engagement being at a 1/5 of its previous peak etc.) and for RN to try to reduce any over-eager counting of triples, s*** and spam......
However, this new algorithm is 24 hours old and is already opening RN up to even more questions. In fact, it's almost laughable.
Are they really trying to tell intelligent people that someone called Sean Doug can be ranked #3 having started 23 twines and only uploaded 11 items when every single one of the core users has (for some bizarre reason; we wonder what --- maybe RN can't take their constructive comments) been dumped from the Top 100?
Core users who've started and joined HUNDREDS of mainstream twines, posted THOUSANDS of items, connected to HUNDREDS of other users, made THOUSANDS of comments, in fact.....their individual activity in one day is 5 times that of Sean Doug's.
Yes, we mean current activity and not some beta nostalgia.
If Top 100 rankings doesn't auto-correct and those core users aren't restored to properly and fairly reflect their level of activity...
Either there's something seriously wrong with the algorithm or RN are excluding the people who've made the "greatest contribution to Twine" (Nova's words, quote unquote). If this is the case, that reflects extremely poorly on user relations and marketing on RN's part.
Hopefully, that's not the case.
Hopefully, RN is magnanimous towards people who are responsible for populating the majority of content on Twine and who went out of their way to support Twine's progress (everything Twain has listed) rather than for RN to be mean-spirited, petty and vindictive.
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, shall we?
After all, a few core users dropping out of the Top 100, fair play. We can all celebrate a new form of democratization of the ranking algorithm but every single one of the core users?!
Conversely, if it is the case that they have naturally dropped out of the Top 100 this means their level of activity and engagement must have dropped right off the scale.
QUESTION 1: isn't RN after all the user engagement they can get and keep?
QUESTION 2: what have they been doing to alienate the people who are normally their most avid, supportive and active users?
QUESTION 3: can they understand how the way they're seen to treat core users reflects poorly on the way their user services are seen to be generally?
Hopefully this case of no core users in the Top 100 is another temporary tech glitch because all Twine insiders know the core users should be in the Top 100, fair and square, based on their levels of activity which are certainly higher than the likes of Sean Doug with his 11 items.
Let's see what that algorithm's going to do: be credible or crock.
Let me quote you directly:
"The algorithm counts velocity of recent activity, as well as private items that a user has added or shared. You cannot judge a user by just their public items. Some users who appear to have only joined a few public twines, or added a few public items, actually have huge levels of private activity that you can't see. In addition, the algorithm only looks at the last 7 days of activity."
Now let me quote the RN message on Twine's Top 100 page directly:
"The top 100 members are ranked based on the volume and popularity of the public items they contribute or share within the last two weeks."
I don't want to point out RN's inconsistencies, but.....
(1.) you say the count includes public and private items, RN's own blurb on its Top 100 page says it's only public items.
(2.) you say the count if for the last 7 days of activity, RN's own blurb on its Top 100 page says it's the last two weeks.
Let's also make these observations:
(1.) There was someone ranked at #13 who had shared 1 item. There are others listed who have shared 0 items.
Meanwhile, the core users share 10-20+ public items and make 5-10+ comments a day and they're not listed in the Top 100. They are also very active on private twines so if the count is indeed on the basis you say, they should be in the Top 100.
(2.) There are people on that Top 100 page who haven't been active on Twine for months. There are screenshots showing their activity from 6 months back and their activity now and the numbers of twines they've created and items they've posted are almost unchanged.
How is it possible people who've been inactive on Twine are listed in the Top 100?
(3.) RN says it wants to appeal to the mainstream audience and yet, for some strange reason (or RN's seeming "we'll handpick the Top 100"), there are quite a number of Semtech sector people there.
Meanwhile, the core users are the ones who created all the mainstream twines and all that velocity of activity.
What kind of message is RN sending out in its Top 100 selection? Well, you don't seem to want to show mainstream people as an integral part of your platform. You want to showcase the niche Semtech / AI people.
(4.) A fifth of the Top 100 is RN's own staff. This is supposed to be a consumer platform rather than a stage for staff, isn't it?
Or is user activity so low staff count has to be used?
(5.) Over-reaction is an emotional response from someone who has no rationale or analysis at their disposal.
I've just provided the facts, figures and contradictions in RN's own words and practice.
Frankly, the way RN is treating its core users, has marginalized and excluded them from the Top 100 in this ridiculous "let's invent a new Top 100" way and continues to say one thing but do the other and not deliver does not help Twine at all.
There are screenshots of RN's original nonsense rankings which the core users flagged. That's what's being referred to in the list of 5 observations.
Unfortunately, the inconsistency of what Actual Person wrote still stands:
""The algorithm counts velocity of recent activity, as well as private items that a user has added or shared. You cannot judge a user by just their public items. Some users who appear to have only joined a few public twines, or added a few public items, actually have huge levels of private activity that you can't see. In addition, the algorithm only looks at the last 7 days of activity."
Twine's own Top 100 page still says:
"The top 100 members are ranked based on the volume and popularity of the public items they contribute or share within the last two weeks."
Moving forward, RN may want to make it clear which definition they're using for the ranking algorithm in their marketing comms.
CONCLUSIONS
============
"May we live in interesting times," as the Chinese say.
Let's see what we've achieved for Twine users in this lengthy, often unproductive and yet necessary thread.
It's not about this Twain person at all. She's been focused on the issues, the users, their feature concerns and giving them due credit and attention.
(1.) SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT
----------------------------------------
It's now clear it's the core users who shape, steer and contextualize Twine in a good direction. Their list of contributions is substantial, over and above the content they link.
This information is now transparent for the whole Webspace.
Recently, RN chose not to listen to the core users' concerns so...
Twain had to speak up. She has a pre-existing commitment to core users to do so and honors those commitments, I hear.
(2.) SPAM REMOVAL
--------------------------
She noted the unacceptable levels of spam which is probably contributing to this faux "explosive growth" and which none of the core users want. Nova takes real and immediate action to remove and delete that spam and fake user accounts.
This is good.
Hopefully, RN is going to take spam filtering seriously now instead of Nova giving some "We have spam filters...."
(3.) INFORMATION TRANSPARENCY
---------------------------------------------
She flagged the issue of unacceptable user engagement drops and Nova finally concedes to an interview with Greg Boutin to improve transparency of information.
This is good too.
Only then can RN face up to its own realities and think through viable ways to increase and improve user engagement.
(4.) CEO PRESENCE + PARTICIPATION
-----------------------------------------------
She highlighted that Nova as CEO has to be present and be seen to be present, properly listening & engaging with core users, plus the need for tech team explanations and lo+behold....
Nova, James Todd and Scott White all comment on Aasemoon's twine in a way that's not been seen since Twine's pre-alpha/beta high points when 100+ comments of collective sense and symbiosis were the norms.
Open democratic communication channels are good, imo.
Hopefully, RN will figure out a workable way to re-open User Feedback.
(5.) ALGORITHM CREDIBILITY
---------------------------------------
This too is related to numbers sanity-checking and reputation.
She points out the ridiculous new ranking algorithm which excludes the core users and therefore completely undermines Twine's reputation, and the ranking gets acted upon and restored to a more acceptable and reflective count which (rightfully) includes the core users.
OUTSTANDING ITEM
---------------------------
APPROPRIATE REMUNERATION FOR THE CORE USERS for their positive contributions (acting as community managers, consultancy focus groups, etc. --- everything I've listed). Plus share of advertising revenue stream and any apps development.
For now, given Twine's small community size (approx 77,000 total sign-ups as of end-Feb; please see Greg Boutin's analysis --- http://www.semanticsincorporated.com/2009/02/as...) which means advertisers are unlikely to be piling in this instant, we should give RN some leeway that they WILL figure out a way to incorporate remuneration and revenue share for core users into their business model.
All-in-all, ticking off the list, we're making progress in the right direction for both sides which is a good thing.
COMMITMENT TO USERS
--------------------------------
Actual Person may want to relay to Nova that Twain made a commitment to Twine's real users.
Nova may have written that he "totally agrees" with Chesterfield who wrote that he doesn't see the future of Twine with the core users (Rick, Jack, Bent, Aasemoon, Giorgio, JDP, Frank, Lynn and a whole host of other smart, democratic, mainstream and collaborative people).
We'll forgive Nova this lapse of judgment.
Twain's position has always been:
RN better hope the future of Twine is with these people because they're not only smart and innovative content contributors, they are also the sense-makers and the stewards of a constructive community ethos on Twine. They give Twine good values, good taste, good conversations, good humor and good insights.
They certainly do NOT give Twine or RN s***/ spam / spin, so in reciprocity, RN and Twine should not give them any.
Otherwise, Twain may get tough on Nova as per this thread.
NOVA'S NAME CALLING + OTHER NONSENSE
---------------------------------------------------------
Well, he tried to discredit this Twain person by saying she's "crazy" and taking the thread off-issues etc etc etc.
Here's the undeniable fact and the lol.
He ACTED immediately on almost all of the points she raised which benefit users and the community, so who's the crazy one?
Nova actually takes this Twain person extremely seriously indeed, respects her "phenomenal brainpower" (his words, not her ego) and acts on her lead.
Please don't let any childish name-calling on his part trick any readers; that's his id @ work.
It's advisable to account for someone's id, but pay more attention to their actions.
Now, Nova knows fine well that name-calling doesn't achieve anything constructive. It's good he's now at least trying to re-focus and renew his commitment to users after these recent very public critiques (on and off-Twine).
As has been noted, the core users don't wish ill of anyone. They simply want tools that work and a community that's open, democratic and enjoyable. They don't want to be swamped with nonsense or poor quality people / content.
Some people on this thread may not appreciate or approve of Twain and her methods. I hear she tried to be reasonable with Nova and RN for 10 months in the interests of moving the Twine community and the Semantic Web vision forward.
To those offended by what may have seemed to be an aggressive tone because they don't know me or the trials+tribulations she's had with RN and Twine or the Nova-Twain dynamics, please excuse her directness.
What's been achieved matters more: RN is actually paying attention to users' concerns and trying to take action towards improving the service (spam removal, count credibility, comment moderation, more user controls, speed etc.).
Comment moderation is a feature Twain requested back in April 2008 so it's great to note it's on the schedule for the next one or two release iterations.
Maybe if it had been a feature in the first place, Twain may not have got into a whole myriad of issues with other users during her reasoning that SemWeb naysayers should simply give the technology a chance.
In any case, core users want to foster openness, democracy and collaboration on Twine. Moderation tools will help them keep out trolls so they can cultivate healthy threads.
See? It's all simple, sensible and reasonable stuff.
Sayonara.
For example the spam issue -- the spam detection and deletion algorithms were in fact underway, and starting to run, prior to your ever mentioning the issue. Similarly the ranking algorithms issue, etc. etc. It's not helpful when you make a big emotional disruption over known issues that are already being worked on. If you really wanted to help you would just contact Twine support to find out if an issue was known before making such grandiose posts and trying to raise alarms.
The company did not act on your suggestions -- it was already acting on those issues before you made your suggestions. Proof: It's not possible to code solutions that fast, yet they launched almost immediately as you point out. That's because they were already developed and in process of being launched prior to or simultaneously to your comments. Just because B follows A does not mean A caused B.
If you really want to be helpful, as you so often claim, then please use the established channels that are in place for reporting possible bugs or concerns. Then wait to hear back about whether they are already being fixed or what the response is. Threads like this are not the place for bug reports. The fact that you continue to post such hypotheses here is just proof that you are more interested in drawing attention to yourself than actually making any form of positive change. You are not a bad person, but your methods are totally ineffective. Try a different approach.
Sure.....Twain's suggestions were already on RN's list of to-dos.
Just like user guides, hmmn? RN had a whole year (that's 12 months) of beta and no one in the team even thought of producing visual user guides to facilitate newbies. In fact, RN didn't even provide user guides until 4 MONTHS after its public launch.
Any idea why user engagement is down? Here's a clue: no one knows how to use the site --- despite the UI redesign last summer. The company never explained it to them; that's RN's responsibility.
Yes, and of course spam detection was already on RN's list.......and is clearly NOT WORKING.
Why else is it that the core users continued to flag it for MONTHS. How is it possible Nova was unaware that a spambot set up several fake accounts with variations on his own name and posted items to do with him being part of "sexual swingers". That was quite a few pages of porn spam, btw.
If the company didn't act on Twain's suggestions, why is it that within 24 hours all the spam she flagged was immediately removed?
Would you like to see the before+after screenshots?
Ditto for the ranking algorithm issue. Ditto info transparency. Ditto Nova finally communicating with the core users instead of being off in Twitter hype-ether. Ditto everything else here that's been listed.
We all know what the release cycles for Twine are, thanks.
"Inconsistent" may be the word.
It takes from April 2008 when moderation tools were first requested by Twain (and probably others before then) to March/April 2009 for users to maybe get them; we'll see with the next few releases.
Yet it takes a month to remove the rating systems which were introduced and then no one used because it interfered with the title editor. Or a week to fix the recent crash (or even acknowledge there was one). Or 1 minute to lock an a/c and completely eradicate 8 months of collaborative content.
As for your suggestion about "using established channels in place for reporting bugs and concerns", please re-read properly:
http://xosfaere.wordpress.com/2009/02/27/twine-...
The author points out Twine lounge, which is where the core users provide feedback and constructive bug reports, is "a nursery".
Plus RN has closed User Feedback (again). Wasn't that an established channel for company-user communications?
Plus please see Greg Boutin's point about how user queries to support and RN team go unanswered.
Oh and if the company didn't act on Twain's suggestions, why is it they finally agreed to talk with Greg only after she came onto this thread?
Or was that already on RN's schedules too? You may want to check but Greg writes that his questions went repeatedly ignored and he was (rightly) frustrated.
On the contrary to Twain's methods being totally ineffective, the fact you're continuing to comment says RN is paying extremely close attention to the ISSUES highlighted by her here.
Oh and in case anyone at RN has amnesia or Aspbergers (which may explain the inability to read users' sentiments and concerns) --- unlike Twain since all of her points have been cogent, consistent and all about improving things for the community........
Please remember ---
RN locked her out of her a/c and decimated all the collaborative threads she spent 8 months building with other users, so....
Do you all seriously and logically think she can even go into Twine and call up the "report a bug" feature panel on Twine?!
Yeah Candice suggested that as the way for a core user to report the recent crash too. Problem? The core user couldn't even log into Twine, much less launch the reporting panel.
My goodness, there alone is the proof you haven't properly thought through the logic of your own reply!
No, Twain is not going to send an email to support@twine.com either because the last time she did that (to report RN's breach of user privacy for a private twine) no action was taken to remove the items and put them back into private viewing protection.
Ergo, Twine's company-user channels don't seem to be effective.
Now please compare this.
She comes here to flag the ridiculous spam that's accumulated on Twine --- especially relating to her --- and it gets removed within 24 hours.
She comes here to point out RN should be transparent with its traffic figures and Greg Boutin gets an interview.
Etcetera erratum.
These are not hypotheses. She has a maths degree. She can tell you all about hypotheses and corollaries, thanks, and RN's about hers (craziness etc.) don't stack up.
Wrt "big emotional disruption," um.......RN did that to the core users when they closed User Feedback first time. RN also did that when they decimated those collaborative threads that took 8 months of really hard and joyful work between the core users. RN did that by pushing them onto a little private twine they regard as a "nursery".
RN also do that now by letting spam or low quality content swamp twines which have been painstakingly nurtured since beta. RN also does that when it fails to properly and openly communicate to its users. RN also does that to users when it plays pick+mix with features instead of simply having strong core features that work consistently and properly as users would like.
Seriously, you have no idea what "big emotional disruption" really is.
It's a pity RN hasn't been able to read the sentiment of its users, including its strongest advocates.
If it had, it's unlikely Nova would finally have gone onto Aasemoon's twine and admitted he was unaware of a whole myriad of issues (technical as well as collective feeling).
Meanwhile, the core users have always been able to openly discuss issues with Twain, troubleshoot them together and she's raised them here since users don't seem to have been able to be raised on Twine (from concerns of being excluded).
If Twine has become the place where even the core users cannot speak up without fear of exclusion (and get the sense they're being marginalized into a private twine) or feel they're being properly listened to, then it's obvious that --- unfortunately --- Twine doesn't seem to have properly functioning "established channels in place for reporting possible bugs or concerns."
That's not right.
It doesn't matter how snazzy the Semantic goodies are under the hood.
Genuine, open, mature, transparent and democratic communication channels with users are paramount. That too is the responsibility of whoever's responsible for user marketing.
Actually, Twain would like to commend Venturebeat for enabling this conversation.
It's certainly not one which she could have had on Twine. When she tried to query Twine's numbers before on Twine (a perfectly legitimate request), her comment was deleted by RN within an hour.
Ironically, the Semantic Web has Open Access data and the principles of the democratization of information at its core.
In any case, Twain is disappointed RN don't seem to "get it".
The issues all revolve around RN not delivering on several fronts (features and community values) what users want and their inability to market and communicate effectively. The issues certainly don't revolve around Twain.
The fact that RN people have been tracking and commenting on this thread, only proves that has been and is an effective way to gain RN's attention about users' serious issues and its actions.
How does Twain know this?
Normally, RN people try not to comment on threads because they have this thing about trolls and not wanting to add any credence to anything trolls write.
This Twain person clearly cannot be a troll since so many RN people have come forth and written abnormally lengthy comments in reply to her analysis. Abnormally lengthy means they're giving it time and attention.
Thanks all the same, her approach is working just fine.
RN started off being aggressive-defensive and tried to sling mud at her (crazy etc.) and none of it could stick. Now they're trying to be conciliatory "You are not a bad person, but your methods are totally ineffective. Try a different approach."
It's quite LOL, really.
Obviously they've changed their own approach. Twain's been consistent in hers.
Twain doesn't care about RN's hypotheses and nonsense about her.
She does care that RN had better improve its service, remunerates the core users for their contributions and makes the community what the core users originally envisioned and have worked so hard towards:
* smart
* open
* transparent
* democratic
* diverse
* collaborative
* fun
Mostly, deliver on SEMANTIC features that actually work.
Ciao.
***************
Oh and to Nova, you may want to tell RN people to stop commenting further on this thread.
After all, you wouldn't want to give this Twain person and the issues she's raising any attention, right?
Here's the ironic and confusing bit: BEFORE launch, Twine said it had 900,000 unique visits. It's written in the public emails they sent out to users and is also mentioned in other press interviews in case anyone's interested (check ZDNet, R/RW, TechCrunch etc. carefully).
So......if Twine had 900,000 uniques before October' 2008s launch.....how can 550,000 uniques in December 2008 be considered "explosive growth"?
Unless someone's reinvented the laws of addition and subtraction, that's not growth.
Oh you mean like when Radar Networks removed view counts from Twine so that people would have no means to independently gauge how many people actually read or comment on a post? The reason given was, "It's a bug."
How many simple bugs take over 6 months to fix when there is a release virtually every fortnight?
Or do you mean the claims of 9-12 minutes average stay based on what exactly when compete.com shows average stay is around 3-5 minutes for Nov + Dec 2008?
Let's be adults and professionals here. We're simply trying to gain some clarity and insights on how numbers break down and whether this "explosive growth" is credible and genuine, arises from respectable strategies (aka non-spam traffic) and what improvements are requested by users.
Paranoid schizophrenia which is defined as "delusions of persecution, reference, exalted birth, special mission". Is that how Twine and its team sees itself and is this what you're trying to sell us?
Also, please excuse us all here but what relevance does your unfounded and unsubstantiated comment have on the actual content of this article and the commentators' legitimate replies?
You'll please note that I've stuck to the numbers and objective analysis at hand.
It's probably best that you do likewise or you risk looking even more like someone who's lost the plot.
anti-spam and poweruser are clearly Nova Spivack.
Perhaps Spivack should focus on providing independent and qualified evidence of Twine's real traction rather than spread malicious untruths about how the power users disliked Twain Luu and how she antagonized the company endlessly.
Perhaps he can also explain why he pestered and spammed Twain Luu with emails and IMs to help him out (with strategic advice, with user guides, with 3D samples of visualization techniques which could be applied to benefit users, with handholding newbies) etc. and then he kicked her off the site for her objections to the s*** video, Twine's lack of user support and other improvement issues which RN did not deliver on.
If anyone should be ashamed, it is Nova Spivack.
Twine is NOT the service its users hoped for or expect.
It is interesting that you do not acknowledge any of your behavior, which is the actual formal reason for why you were kicked out of Twine. Of course everyone has screenshots of all of your bad behavior and emails. It's common knowledge. All the powerusers are well-aware of your story and how you burned your bridges with Twine.
In fact, you were not kicked out for having an opinion and your many contributions were positive -- but you negated all of that by breaking the policies over and over again.
The only person on Twine who uses that term "burn your bridges" and pattern of sentence structure like "Wrong. But nice try. Fail" is Nova Spivack.
As for breaking user agreements, perhaps Radar Networks can explain why despite their various policies designed to protect user content and user privacy they:
(1.) decimated users' content and failed to restore it.
(2.) breached user privacy --- accessed private twines as well as made private content public?
(3.) closed User Feedback without consultation with Power Users which had them up in arms.
From what I hear as part of "Twine Lore", Twain Luu got kicked out the first time for daring to send an email to Nova Spivack objecting to the closure of User Feedback as being undemocratic towards the users. Moreover, 20 Power Users campaigned for her reinstatement to Twine.
Nova Spivack then had to send her an apology to persuade her to return, set no conditions for that return and even promised to restore the users' decimated content straight after launch (which never materialized, incidentally).
Then he kicked her out the second time for objecting to their smart community being represented with the "We organize that s***" video.
That's part of Twine Lore too, I hear.
In any case, I would suggest to you, RN person hiding behind "poweruser" and to your friend "anti-spam" that you get Nova Spivack working on delivering Twine's potential, removing spam from the traffic count and servicing the users properly rather than making dishonest and spurious attacks on someone you say has "prodigious brainpower" and is Twain Luu.
It's doubtful that anyone with a prodigious brain would intentionally violate the site's user agreement, annoy the power users or do whatever you say they did.
Prodigious people are positive, productive and collaborative folk.
That's how they get "prodigious" in the first place. They get along with other people nicely and actively share knowhow.
I do not think Twain is spamming since she is speaking the truth, but I wish she would not say what she said in such an offensive manner.
Not sure what just happened here, I saw a reply from you to the last thread I was in and then it was gone... Anyway, you were telling me that "as we already discussed" all that was still work in progress and I should remove Twines from my thread and if I want to talk more I should drop by or call (as opposed to comment on blogs, I presume). Mmm. My original reply below.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
You seem to say that sharing the numbers is what created the controversy, and therefore you do not want to disclose numbers anymore. Seen from where I stand, it looks as if you shared those numbers thinking it would address the questions of user retention and engagement that were asked to you, and unfortunately, it backfired, as the number you shared did not convince everyone, me included as you know. So we asked for clarification and more solid metrics, and for now you decided not to give it.
This is your right, and I am the first one to respect that. However, it is our right as users and commentators to think that the reason you are not providing them is that, well, they are not showing what you'd like them to say.
I am not sure what you are suggesting in your last line about talking once more. I appreciate the invitation, but why not put on this forum any detail you might want to share with me in private? You have not shared more with me so far, and I am not asking for it.
As a matter of corporate policy, let me suggest in a constructive spirit that transparency would certainly work better than whatever Twine's party line has been so far. You have great assets in the shape of Twine's technology and methods. But you appear as in denial of your retention and engagement problem. If there isn't one and the strategy is clear, then why not prove it and tell us what user benefit exactly you are going after? If there is a problem, as I think there is, then acknowledging it and saying you're working hard at fixing it will solve half of it already, and the rest when you finally tackle the issues we've raised for such a long time. Sorry, but telling me to remove Twines from my email digest feels like corporate rhetoric, especially when I've made it clear to you and in my previous posts above that it's not a solution.
I don't understand what's with the PR approach of all these semantic web startups that seem to prefer hype over relevant feedback. I had a similar discussion with Andraz of Zemanta yesterday about their new "Zemanta for email" which I think is kind of useless (as opposed to their blog app, which is a GEM!) and he kept wanting to convince me they got great coverage (which is not what I saw) as if it was going to change what I thought about the app. I work with a number of startups in a range of emerging technologies and surely the semantic web has proved to be at the cutting edge of that metric!
Another thing, is that really Nova posting anonymously in the comments below??? I don't care what Twain did in the past, or how she expresses herself, the point is that beyond the poor choice of words, her comment do raise issues that indeed are not properly addressed and getting back at her that way is a cheap shot. By all means if that's not Nova, do ask him to post under his real name and confirm he didn't make those answers.
Last, I must say I have now been made to feel as if I had asked the "wrong questions" to Twine and had somehow become one to "deal with". Again, I wish you were to take a more open-minded approach on those questions, and understand that not all criticisms are attacks on Twine, threatening the application's chances of success. A more Obama-like approach to building Twine would increase those chances further.
Greg
Comments welcome :)
A Power User flagged me about this VentureBeat article or otherwise I wouldn't have known at all since the word "Twine" isn't a search term in any of my RSS readers.
Some of the comments about me have been astounding (and some outright LOL).
Putting that aside, it's informative that instead of answering its users' legitimate questions via User Feedback and Twine's other mechanisms, RN went silent on them, made them feel questions are unwelcome and it's taken a "Someone who..." to keep pressing on --- despite the onslaught of cheap shots --- and extract some form of answer for users, even a rote corporate response.
My advice to Nova has been consistent since last January:
(1.) respect the community's intelligence.
(2.) democracy, openness and transparency.
(3.) deliver on the smarts and revenue-share.
I stand by those recommendations.
***********************************
To Greg + others who don't know me,
I'm a former banker and was a board observer on over 30 TMT plays globally by my mid-20s. I was co-responsible for a sizable Strategic Investments portfolio. This means I'm fairly well-versed in strategy, marketing, servicing clients and the composition of balance sheets and Internet traffic metrics.
The advantage of anyone with "prodigious brainpower" is that they genuinely think and strive towards the win-win and the best. The disadvantage is that some people can't cope with it or know how to harness it and resort to cheap shots to deal with it.
That's A-OK.
So long as I can harness it that's good enough.
Nova, address the problems instead of trying to kill the messengers. If you had actually read my post, you wouldn't try to answer questions I never raised, on the spam, or the validity of your stats. If you don't like the nasty posts of some people in the thread, just don't address those. If you don't like my posts, fine, but engage in them constructively instead of calling me "irresponsible" in a poorly-thought attempt to silence my feedback.
The feedback I expressed is not just my own. It is that of a large number of users I have interacted with online and at conferences. If you don't like the way I expressed it, I can handle that, but if you for one second look beyond the tone and choices of word of all the folks who commented above, you might find that those are folks who care and are actually try to tell you something that might be useful to Twine. So stop being so scared about your next VC round and engage in the discussion constructively. I guarantee you that if you do that we'll all (well, many among us) turn around and be your best evangelizers.
I hate those stupid back-and-forth as much as you do and really was just hoping to get some feedback across and some answers perhaps... Missed opportunity.
And as I said on Twitter, saying that Twine had a CEO problem was, in hindsight, overreacting, given the last moves he made especially. I'm sorry it took some much insistence, but it looks like we might get answers. I'll let you know where we post them, won't be on this thread for sure given all the anonymous dirt!
It really should not have taken me to come onto VentureBeat to kick Nova's butt for that to happen, but there you go.
To all Twine users this is my advice: don't be intimidated by Nova's scolding, threats of exclusion, actual exclusion, cajoling about his next VC round, personal attacks or any other nonsense to stop you from pushing for feature improvements, transparency of information and the collective smarts you all deserve.
The users ARE what can make or break Twine and it's time they reclaimed it from the s*** and the spam.
As for the possible CEO problem....well, Nova is ultimately responsible for the increase in s*** and spam on the site:
(1.) he sanctioned the s*** video which got suitably tagged with all the other s*** on the Web, so it all came towards Twine.
(2.) he kicked out Twain Luu with her "prodigious brainpower" and kept Chesterfield whom the Power Users tell me has been posting spam porn, further attracting spam and s***.
(3.) instead of being open and honest and responding to yours (Greg Boutin), Ardent Twine User, Jamlin423's requests for information he and his people tried to divert everyone from getting that information (independent sources and from Twine itself) by rubbishing someone called Twain Luu under his various pseudonyms of "anti-spam" / "poweruser" / "former poweruser" / "innocent bystander" --- not.
Maybe he needs to ask himself whether that behavior is befitting of a CEO and what he should do to compensate for any previous bad decisions which he's made that's aversely impacted upon Twine's community and the Power Users' affections and loyalties towards the platform.
Sure, we all make mistakes and we should all forgive and forget CEO lapses of judgment if changes ARE made in the interests of the users.
My concern about Radar Networks encouraging this "explosive growth" theory is three-fold:
(1.) they will delude themselves into thinking it's quality user engagement and carry on anon.
(2.) they will conveniently brush aside Power Users' concerns about the s*** and spam that the PU absolutely DO NOT WANT.
(3.) they will chase superficial quantity instead of delivering on actual smart quality.
It is possible for Twine to achieve both quantity and quality of traffic and content. That's contingent on their strategy and marketing --- s*** videos and their ilk like buying low-grade high volume traffic are not the way to go, I would say.
Hopefully, Nova as CEO can acknowledge his mistakes and make amends towards Twine's users.
I am the one user you clled "chesterfield", and I dont really know why you are spreading lies about me.? You have two times written that I have spammed Twine with porn. Are you insande, or what are you doing? Whi do you lie?
"Spamming with porn"? I Have never spammed Twine with porn. I once posted a inappropriate picture that I after that deleted. ONE time.
You seem to hate me? I cant understand this agression .
You seems agressivly obsessed with twine, and your agressions got you banned from Twine. And that was your own fault.
You banned yourself out from Twine by attacking people in a unbalanced way. I was one of theese people... And because of that you seems to hate me?
But you have NO reasons for spreading lies about other users.
I think Your problem is that you once was involved in the beta users team and made some kind of "Platform" for yourseld on twine, where you took much place, and got some kind of ego-boost out of it. But got kicked out when you became unbalanced and agressive and uncomfortable for the Twine team and other user. And no, you just couldn accept that you are not in the focus any more. Because you think YOU _are_ twine. You think you are the "shining star" or something like that, some disturbed delusion. Then you become agressive. It is almost psychopatic. You are sick.
As I said, please leave me outside your agressive obesession with Twine.
As anyone can see, I have not spammed Twine with porn. That is a lie:
http://www.twine.com/user/raveofchesterfield/items
PS-
I hope the blog owner removes theese kind of innapropriate behaviour from now on.
How convenient for you and "anti-spam" / "poweruser" / other alias (aka Nova) to try and slur me with these non-existent mental issues.
How convenient that Radar Networks decimated all the content which showed all the positive contributions I'd made to all the other members and how they thanked me for that help.
How convenient that Nova kept deleted the threads I'd participated in which contained 200+ comments in which the Power Users and many others brainstormed "What is a twine," developments in Web 3.0, Conscious Awareness etc. and which all show that far from being aggressive or psychopathic (your typo is psychopatic, btw) I was inclusive, democratic, objective and others enjoyed interacting with and around me.
Don't worry, though.
I still have the screenshot evidence of IMs from Nova in late October 2008 promising me he would kick YOU out of Twine if you annoyed me anymore.
Of course.....Nova didn't keep to his promise to someone he insisted was his friend, did he?
He probably didn't tell you that, did he? He also probably didn't tell you that there was NO MAJORITY VOTE BY THE POWER USERS TO EXCLUDE TWAIN LUU.
Maybe he can produce the screenshot evidence of that like the screenshot evidence that Twine's spam algorithm is working and spam isn't contributing to Twine's uniques --- errr....probably NOT, since there was never any Power Users' vote of any kind and since Twine definitely has spam contributing to that ramp in uniques rather than real user engagement!
In any case, you and the CEO you called "Nova SPINVACK" are welcome to each other.
He has some delusion that spam's not contributing to Twine's traffic. You're obviously deluded because you kept insisting you weren't a Twine naysayer when all of your posts were and the Power Users --- instead of persecuting you as you kept ranting and raving about --- got tired of trying to be reasonable, expectation managing you and explaining how features work to you. They just started ignoring you and even jumping off threads as soon as you appeared.
If you weren't posting porn and content about drugs in violation of site policy, it's unlikely that trusted Power Users would flag Radar Networks and me about it, is it?
***********
Incidentally, as I advised you before because of your clear language limitations, you really will have to read up on defamation laws.
I'm clearly not a liar. I haven't been spreading lies.
The truth is certainly unlikely to be "anti-spam" (aka Nova's or the person you called "Nova SPINVACK") version or your version.
I've just set the record straight.
Anyone who wants to back-stab me, intimidate me, defame me, sully my good reputation etc. should take proper note.
Nova did this to himself.
Nova once wrote, "You are Twine Twain" and also directed me to a link by Flash Chemist which said, "The presenter is Nova Spivack from Radar Networks, who is working on a product called Twain."
* http://www.flashchemist.com/?p=45
At the time we both thought the typo was really funny and it is true that some users on Twine saw me as being synonymous with the platform.
I actually saw Twine as being all about the Twinerians and the Power Users whom I hold in high regard as the "guardians of the good" or the "dolphins who dig the cod (cool online discoveries)".
In any case, my "prodigious brainpower" is no longer there. The second I was gone s***, spam and superficial traffic was allowed to shape the platform.
Interesting, hmmn?
Before I get any more nonsense from Nova and his people about "grow up" and whatever other form of non-existent mental issue I'm supposed to have, let's all note that I did not try to intimidate anyone or shoot the messenger by taking cheap shots.
Rest assured, I'm not the one that's being worked on by Nova --- he thinks scoldings can silence my smarts, users' request for improvements and alas he's wrong. People simply feel more annoyed, disappointed and alienated from Twine and that's not the way it should be.
If I'm not already fairly smart, collaborative, mature and sensible I doubt very much my Harvard / Columbia MBA colleagues would have recommended me for promotion into CEO-Chairman's Office of a Tier 1 bank in my 20s. I doubt I would have been one of only 30 people bank-wide globally to be selected for a corporate finance course taught by the Dean of Insead himself. In addition to all my responsibilities as Editor of e-Intelligence and with the Strategic Investments portfolio as well as corporate strategy projects.
Most directly in terms of Twine, I doubt I would have the maturity of consideration towards other users to fight for features, foster a positive ethos in the community and put my expertise at their disposal in the interests of sharing and MAKING SENSE of collective intelligence.
I also doubt I would have shown the maturity of consideration and tolerance towards Radar Networks by helping them to handhold newbies, and to present Twine's naysayers and attackers with objective perspectives that the Twine team were working on those improvements.
Nova (aka "anti-spam" + co) needs to stop all his nonsense about Twain. Nova needs to deliver the smarts to Twine's users.
That's what ultimately matters and can make him a good CEO.
Nova is not working on a product called Twain. She doesn't need working on.
Nova should be working on Twine and how to become a better CEO who puts users' and respect for them at the brain, heart and soul of Twine's strategy instead of allowing spam to count towards traffic in the chase towards VC funding.
QUALITY platforms and communities which are smart, democratic, inclusive, progressive and innovative will always attract VCs --- even in this tough environment.
People should take my word on that; I do have some expertise on tech strategy and financing and an awareness of user dynamics, after all.......
USERS + RESPECT FOR THEM AS THE BRAINS, HEART AND SOUL OF TWINE instead of the nonsense, Nova, and Twine will become the service and success it should.
***************
Ok, now everyone will have to excuse me. I have an online art club to set-up with some of my finance sector pals, some 5-star replacement tools to code+develop and, oh yeah, that life that "anti-spam" (aka Nova) says I need to get,
LOL.
Score line is Nova = 0, Twain = ∞.
I'm sorry to those who tried to ask legitimate questions in an appropriate manner here -- this thread is not the forum to have a mature discussion, as you can see from the comments. We can continue those sincere discussions elsewhere. I will not be commenting on anything in this thread.
To whoever is posting the flaming messages: please don't associate my name to yours as if we shared the same cause. I don't know what happened between you and Twine, but I know that your aggressive messages and all their abrasive and arrogant content (who keeps referring to oneself as someone with "prodigious brainpower", seriously?) only helps destroy your credibility. Twine's PR approach frustrated me, although clearly to a much lesser extent, but clearly it's something they are open to discussing if you're reasonable about your expectations. I'm not going all crazy posting dozens of incendiary messages. If you make your points in a clear, concise, and polite manner, they'll have a better chance of gathering support and getting addressed.
All those anonymous comments should be deleted by Venture beat, IMHO.
Oh you mean like when you stabbed Twain Luu in the back after all her goodwill and help (user guides, handholding newbies, collaborating with other members on projects), reasonable points about feature improvement, expectation managing with other Power Users and personally tolerated all your spam emails and IMs to her of the type, "Please stay, Twain....Please help me with this newbie...."
Mature?
Oh you mean like your marketing team's juvenile "We organize that s*** video" and your immature thinking and articulation there.
You're sorry to those who tried to ask legitimate questions?
If you're so sorry why were you not open and transparent with them from the outset? Why did you not provide the numbers straight up?
Why did it take someone else to shine a spotlight on the information available from compete.com?
Why did you as "anti-spam" / "poweruser" / other alias try to divert attention from the numbers to bash this Twain Luu?
Sincere and mature? Hardly.
Also, I didn't discover very much from Twine. I was hoping to see semweb magic, but never did. For the thousands (yes, thousands) of items that I added, I may have come across a couple/few dozen that I didn't know about that I truly enjoyed. But I don't believe that I ever discovered a truly useful item (link, report) via Twine. No semweb magic that I could see.
Nova is a pain-in-the-butt, but that didn't detract me from using Twine. In fact, I was his chief cheerleader at last year's Semantic Technology Conference. Who gave the main tent Twine demo? Not Nova, but yours truly. But as my own responsibilities morphed, I found Twine less and less useful.
Examples: Most of my time these days is in the solar and wind power sectors, with a fair amount of time devoted to ITsec/infosec/hacking (whatever you want to call it). I found that Twine didn't help me filter sources in these areas; the content added to Twine in these areas was mostly useless, maybe OK for someone with a passing interest in one of these subjects, but woefully inadequate for someone in the field.
So my key reason for dropping out of Twine: It's simply not useful!! If you're in the semweb sector, it has utility; for others, it's mostly another way to waste one's time.
Strategically: Not useful. Tactically: Way too slow.
To Twine's investors: Do some housecleaning, put in some professional managers; get rid of the cult(ish) figure(head)s.
http://digg.com/business_finance/Twine_Better_t...
And this defense of Twine too?
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/give_twine...
LOL
Did I lose "so many battles with Twain"? Your opinion, but not mine. Anyway, none of that matters anymore -- and neither of us are active Twinerians.
But what if David Scott Lewis and Twain Luu are really the same person! LOL (But seriously, has anyone ever met either of them in person?)
Twain and I approached Twine from different angles. I was more of a true private beta tester -- actually, more like a hacker. I'm the one who compared Twine to every alternative and in just about every conceivable way. I'm the one who, in essence, tried to "break" Twine by adding so many items (and different types of items -- and by various means), having more connections than anyone else, things like this. She gave more useful McKinsey-esque feedback, which was also needed.
I always felt that the RN team wasn't too aware of many competitive services, didn't really understand where/how Twine fits in the Web 2.0/Web 3.0 value chain. I've seen Firefox opened on Nova's laptop and the guy has practically no add-ons. Does he really understand competitive positioning issues? I seriously doubt it. (At one point, I must have had 10+ semweb add-ons.)
I was strategic (from a marketing perspective) and tactical in my inputs, whereas Twain was visionary. Nova likes visionaries; he acts like a self-proclaimed visionary (and some people might consider him one, but I'm not in this camp). So in many ways, Nova and Twain were on the same page more often than not. Where they seemed to disagree was when it came to policy issues, target markets, sales strategies, things like this. But I'd put them on the same page from a self-proclaimed/so-called "visionary" perspective. OTOH, I was on the same page with Nova more often than not when it came to sales, marketing, things like this. However, Nova and I did not/do not share the same visionary perspectives. (He's a Singularity Institute kind of guy; I find most of that stuff nothing more than science fiction at best, pure hype at worst.)
From an information science and technology perspective, I was more in line with Twine. But from an AI/Singularity Institute/transhumanism/VR perspective, Twain was more in line with Twine. Just two different people with very different world views. And since Twine seemed to fit somewhere in between both worlds, I believe that both perspectives were/are needed.
BTW, many Twinerians (and Radarians) have met me, so I'm pretty sure that they know that Twain and I are not the same person. But it was a funny observation, albeit a scary one (for each of us).
Twain and Nova disagreed on all sorts of strategic issues.
RN's original customer segmentation of 25-45 was so unrepresentative of its natural and actual user base that Twain wrote a post, "Snoopy is too old to play in our sandpit" to reflect how absurd RN's segmentation was. At the time, Nova's avatar was of Snoopy and Twain pointed out that within 5 years Nova would fall outside the segmentation he set.
More importantly:
(1.) The top active Twinerians are mostly 45+ years of age. They're the ones providing Twine with the smartest links and the benefit of their wisdoms and wits to other users on threads.
(2.) Twain's instincts were that the core audience was 30-45 with another large clustering for 45-55 and the silver surfer segment that is currently under-served by social networks. They have the most disposable income and the most time to spend on the Internet, but they need easy to use UIs.
Twain even provided links to reports by various consultancies and Ofcom to support this argument.
(3.) Twain positioned Twine as having both commercial appeal --- on a par as an adult Facebook or more content-rich LinkedIn --- as well as a corporate CMS to compete with the likes of eRooms but only if features like priority flagging, calendering, security, user support, stability and speed were implemented.
Funnily, after Twain made that "Snoopy is too old" post RN reviewed their customer segment and, finally, did their market survey. They moved the target age group more in line with Twain's recommendations.
David Scott Lewis is clearly wrong when he writes, "But from an AI/Singularity Institute/transhumanism/VR perspective, Twain was more in line with Twine."
He should read Twain's piece on the Global Brain on Google Knol carefully:
* http://knol.google.com/k/twain/the-global-brain...
Please note the section "THE GLOBAL BRAIN: CURRENT LIMITATIONS".
Moreover, Twain used Twine as a cross-pollination of "e-Intelligence", an information hub she created in big bank, and eRooms the well-known corporate CMS. That's commercial and pragmatic and has absolutely nothing to do with any Singularity or science fiction or pie-in-sky hype dreams.
Twain also went onto Nova's Public Twine countless times to point out any flaws in the Singularity concept --- not least of which the leap from the Moore's law increase of processing power being inversely proportional to the surface area of the chip and that this somehow miraculously leads to some form of SkyNet AI single machine that understands us, our meaning and controls all our online decision-making from what we consume online to what we purchase off-line.
Twain believes the Singularity concept --- even if it is the field of brainiac thinkers --- is currently incomplete at best and deeply flawed at worst.
As a simple reference point..........
Moore's law is about the increase of SPEED or processing.
Thoughts, meanings, values, trust, emotions, perceptions, humor etc in the natural human brain are VECTORS. They carry direction, force, weight, acceleration, gravitational pulls of clustering, propensity of choice of one over the other, prioritization and natural selection of options, displacement of the nucleophilic / electrophilic mechanism kind etc. etc. etc. which have not yet even been postulated in those Singularity/ transhumanism constructs being bandied around.
So Twain did not only disagree with Nova on strategic issues, she also disagreed with him on the Singularity and the practical path to realization.
Mostly she disagreed with him for allowing s*** and spam onto the site to drive traffic when all of the content she and the Power Users had produced was smart, collaborative and striving towards the better aspects of human nature: sharing intelligence, improving systems and helping others out.
THAT is the issue.
Differences of personality and perspectives on strategies are par for the course in any corporate venture.
See Apple circa 1985-1997 when the board ousted the visionary Jobs. He returns, bolstered by his successes with Pixar (another US$ billion company he founded from scratch), makes the smart move of hiring Jonathan Ives to lead design on the iPod, brings in the best operational people.......
And who even cares about his strategic differences and spats with Sculley?
What matters is functionality, service, brand perception and performance.
Apple has CACHET --- not hype.
Apple is COOL --- not kitsch.
Apple products WORK --- not crash.
Apple adverts are SMARTLY irreverent --- not stupid and amateur.
A lot of SemWeb cos would do well to gain a few gold nuggets from Apple on how to attract and retain consumers in a positive and strategic way.
Maybe RN team should.
Both Twain and Nova have VERY distinctive writing styles. From what I've glanced at, both have been correctly called out in their anonymous comments; hence, they're not really anonymous at all!!
Bad Nova; you shouldn't be posting anonymously. For the CEO of Radar Networks, just state what you have (which I find legit), but don't hide under an anonymous banner.
So..............it was also true when he posted "Twain, I don't know whether we should fight or make mad, passionate love. Are you coming to SemTech 2008" and compared her favorably with his first wife --- a very smart woman --- which was not only inappropriate, it was completely off-topic and not remotely witty since Twain's posting was about NLP systems and how to correlate people's interests with their personality types (of the kind developed in Myers-Briggs and other psychometric tools).
The fact is DSL's behavior got a formal warning from Nova, DSL had to issue a public apology to everyone on that twine for his behavior and the result was the "Report this" tool got made and implemented.
Could be you posting anonymously below too. Hard to know.
My guess is that anyone who cares enough to speculate is either a former or current power user, or a member of Twine, or a troll, or one of the various named people. Nobody else would give a rat's booty about such trivia.
Who is smarter Twain or David Scott Lewis? Who is really right, Nova or Twain? Who gives a sh*t? Now that is easy to answer: Nobody else.
And, maybe all the comments are from me -- or from someone impersonating me. Alas, we'll never know for sure.
The ISSUES on this thread get to the very serious and timely points every consumer-oriented techco has to consider in its STRATEGIC IMPLEMENTATION:
* what constitutes traffic and growth
* transparency of information instead of hype
* spam detection, deletion and reporting to benefit users
* how to foster conducive communication channels with users
* conflict resolution policies
* technical support
* brand positioning and reputation (see RN's s*** video)
* how realistically achievable is the SemWeb when even amongst humans we can't even interpret each other's meaning and intent fully --- never mind expect a fusion of AI, Bayes, NLP, neural nets and pair differences of machines to do so.
********************
You can be sure Twain is focussed on the issues more than the personalities --- although the personalities involved are directly attributable to some extremely poor decisions made by RN which now has the Power Users increasingly angry, disillusioned and disappointed.
This includes the s***, spin and spam, btw.
Twain is not the reason for the Power Users' anger and disappointment. The Twine service is.
It is a case of TWINE NOT WORKING as it’s supposed to!
On Thursday 26 February 2009, the Twine system CRASHED with plenty of 404's with the wordings of "Twine is feeling a little frayed right now" or "This twine does not exist. Your sense of adventure....blah-blah-blah." Those technical issues took an entire working week to deal with.
The Power Users (the original users) spotted it and reported it. Not for ego or vanity or any sense of self-importance / betrayal / revenge / paranoid schizophrenia but FOR RESOLUTION to benefit all users and out of STANDARD EXPECTATIONS of a service and its ability to observe STANDARD operating procedures.
Their goodwill isn't appreciated. Instead, they're told by Candice Nobles to send an email to Support which apparently goes AWOL in the tracking system and she antagonizes them further with waffle rather than specific transparent solutions. Separately, they've already described the technical faults they're experiencing ON A TWINE THREAD itself and to her directly.
So how difficult would it be for one of the technical team or Nova to appear on that twine WITHIN 24 HOURS to provide reassurance that what is a serious issue is being dealt with and to give a timeframe of when it may be fixed?
Answer: not very. Especially since RN knows the Power Users do not flag issues for the sake of hearing their own voices but because they're serious and need resolving.
Instead of being on Twine servicing and communicating to his own user members Nova is on Twitter doing who knows what. An engineer doesn't appear on a thread to offer an explanation until SIX DAYS in.
The worst thing is the Power Users are treated like they're an inconvenience / burden. These are people who have provided more than enough support to RN as well as to other user members throughout an entire year of beta. They're the ones who've populated the site with 100,000+ quality links and countless interesting threads. They're the ones who've given Twine its proof of concept and validation.
It is their right to be properly communicated with just like it’s the right of all user members of Twine. It's not a case of original users versus consumer users and the original users thinking they have more special rights. In fact, the original users WELCOMED Twine going public and looked forward to engaging with new people on the threads. They did everything they could to facilitate newbies being able to navigate Twine, so there is definitely no issues of cultural differences here.
It is about UNIVERSAL STANDARDS OF USER SERVICING --- not unreasonable expectations or spin excuses.
Moreover, some of the Power Users use Twine for professional reasons. They've brought colleagues and traffic onto Twine and their professional reputations are impacted when the system DOES NOT DO WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN!
To paraphrase an out-dated Silicon Valley analogy "the dogs are NOT eating the dog food."
Also if there is cultural friction, is the onus not on RN to work with its original users to make the transition from the beta to fully-fledged consumer offering a smooth one rather than to disrespect / alienate / antagonize and disappoint people who are (or increasingly WERE because they feel so let down by RN and the non-functioning features of Twine) their keenest advocates and evangelizers?
As a direct example of cultural friction even before public launch, take this issue to do with the continuous closure of User Feedback. Instead of Candice Nobles publicly giving some nonsense about how the Power Users took the threads off-track and attributing closure to them would it not have been MORE INTELLIGENT, collaborative and reasonable to go to the private Power Users forum, raise RN's concerns there, have an open discussion and then resolve it appropriately --- rather than for RN to take a policy decision that was undemocratic and alienated users further?
Everyone will note that only recently Facebook committed to giving its users more say on policy decisions.
* http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?...
* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/27/facebo...
Meanwhile, RN decides to close User Feedback (repeating their mistakes) and does little about increasing user support. Both seem counter to its consumers’ interests.
Actually the original users of Twine have as much claim to being the average consumer as the next person. They simply know the system better and they've even transmitted that knowhow onto other user members.
If, as professional users as well as part of the consumer majority, they see the system not working they're going to ask for refunds, their content back and move their business and links elsewhere like everyone else.
Since Mr Anthropology is so interested in consumer behavior he may like to read up on the term "user promiscuity" which explains why online consumers don't stay sticky or loyal to sites which don't serve their needs and purpose.
Let's make this key observation.
CEO's reputations are not made by them being somewhere else when their system is crashing or by them ignoring their user members or taking a week to respond. Good CEOs anticipate the icebergs, walk the talk, take responsibility for the situation, walk shoulder-to-shoulder with others on the same journey, communicate effectively and move to mutually beneficial resolution ASAP.
They also do not make untruthful personal slurs or attacks that aggravate others. They FOCUS ON THE ISSUES.
Please see Steve Jobs, Michael Bloomberg and Jack Welch for examples of phenomenal CEOs.
PRESCRIPTION FOR RN
==================
(1.) Stop alienating your users (original and new alike).
(2.) Deliver on the features.
(3.) Communicate more transparently and effectively. Less spin, s***, spam and other nonsense.
PRESCRIPTION FOR INVESTORS
==========================
Either intervene directly and improve the management team (give them 3 months to get Twine on track and to improve their client relationships and communications with users) or..........
Replace them.
Sorry, but it's a step which may have to be considered and taken.
There is a lot at stake here (ROI, reputations, quality content, user goodwill, systems, etc.) and the strategy seriously needs to be re-aligned and spot-on.
Any ramp in traffic is pointless if the quality of the service (functionality, features, SemWeb goodies etc.) to existing and original users is not up to normal standards of even Web 1.0 and standard expectations.
Nova + RN would be advised to go back and grasp the concepts from the brilliant books by the foremost management and IT gurus on systems management (architecture, human relationships, communication models and value chains).
They should refer first to Drucker, Kotler, Peters, Maslow, Kevin Kelly, Senge, Anderson for AI et al.
It doesn't bode well for increasing collective intelligence --- which is the core motivation of SemWeb and any vision to make the Web respond and be more proactive to online consumer's needs --- if, practically, a company at its vanguard keeps repeating the most basic of mistakes on strategy, on implementation, on marketing, on communication, on user support.
The Power Users have done nothing but pragmatically and collaboratively move this vision to realization.
RN team is letting the side down if they continue along their own path and ignore these smart, capable and tolerant people.
David Scott "Lightman" Lewis differentiates Twain as being more a "visionary" whilst he is "strategic". The issues raised on this thread are not about personality differences.
As some points of fact:
(1.) Twain is a trained corporate strategist. Trained by senior McKinsey, Booz Allen, Accenture people and she worked on a consultancy basis within a big investment bank on tech investments and systems.
(2.) Nova sent her his SemTech 2008 strategy presentation to sanity-check and within 60 seconds she spotted Candice Nobles was using 2002 market analysis to project Twine's consumer base.
BIG mistake since even the most junior business grads would tell you the only acceptable data reference is from Q3 2007 and, preferably from Q1 2008 if you're going to try and segment customer bases for targeting, attraction and RETENTION.
(3.) Twain had to re-position Twine's competitive Porter matrix because it was clear whoever was doing it had NO clues.
(4.) Twain did not approve of the s*** video or any of Twine's marketing tactics, including a user marketing survey which was pointless.
(5.) Along with the other Power Users Twain created and collaborated on all kinds of commercially-oriented twines which were specifically targeted towards the consumer segment and which advertisers would have found appealing and easy to work with.
The DSL versus Twain, Nova versus DSL, Twain versus Nova debate is peripheral to the ISSUES.
The issue is about spam, strategy, servicing and communicating with user members appropriately and implementable solutions.
People can be different and they can disagree --- providing the process involves open and transparent debate, and the end result is that the Power Users and all other user members get the service they want, deserve and need.
Strength of debate opinion should not be interpreted or dismissed as "aggressive". It may be conviction, passion and commitment to a modus of better practice which is informed by direct experiences and lessons learnt.
Let's see... here are some of the features she's directly responsible for getting for users:
* user guides
* "Report This" functionality so they can flag inappropriate content
* User Feedback OPEN so people can have their say
Notably, within a few hours of Twain pointing out spam is contributing to traffic and fake new user accounts on Twine (here on VB), every single item Twain flagged was removed.
Other users flagged spam for months and RN did no more than cursory manual removals of 1 or 2. Twain speaks up and Nova takes near immediate action to remove reams of it. Twain speaks up and Nova even agrees to explaining things to Greg Boutin who had, otherwise, gone for days if not weeks on end without a reply from RN team.
Nova takes Twain very seriously indeed --- don't be fooled by his nonsense digs when he writes as "anti-spam" or any other incarnation.
RN will now take getting their spam filters, user support + communications as well as traffic counts right extremely seriously.
Ultimately, this benefits all user members.
*************************************
Twain does not like to have to repeat herself, have to defend her reputation against nonsense or to exercise her brainpower or time in this way. Twain is more than bored, angry, disappointed, exasperated etc. with RN than everyone reading this VB thread added together.
She put in 10 MONTHS towards making Twine work well.
The fact is if Nova + RN bothered to listen properly to their core users in the first place and did not keep repeating their mistakes they would not be in this ridiculous situation.
Now, SERIOUSLY, let’s all try to focus on the issues raised and not the personalities.
We (the company + its core users) set out to build towards a SemWeb star not towards s***, spam, spin, Error 404s or stuff that doesn’t serve users’ needs.
Nova would do well to remember his own posting, “Why Twine Interests Me” and “What is a twine.”
Twine is supposed to be a symbiosis of company, of consumers, of content, of quality performance and of increasing collective intelligence.
The personalities aspect is immaterial. The issues on spam, systems crashing and servicing user members properly and professionally are what matter.
Twine's core users are certainly exercised by it. They care deeply about the service working and their content and interactions being quality and of substantial conversations rather than spam or SEO spin.
So far there have been 100+ comments on that Twine thread about the matter. The last time there were so many comments was during beta and that was when the Power Users all bandied together to think out how refactoring would affect discussion splintering and at the same time offer a Darwinian "survival of the fittest".
Collectively, the Power Users have great insights on how Twine SHOULD work and, make no mistake, none of them like the s***, spam or spin.
"David Scott Lewis has always been correct about Twain Luu. All the things he posted about her were true. But Twain Luu actually made more of a lasting contribution to Twine. Now it doesn't really matter."
So..............it was also true when he posted "Twain, I don't know whether we should fight or make mad, passionate love. Are you coming to SemTech 2008" and compared her favorably with his first wife --- a very smart woman --- which was not only inappropriate, it was completely off-topic and not remotely witty since Twain's posting was about NLP systems and how to correlate people's interests with their personality types (of the kind developed in Myers-Briggs and other psychometric tools).
The fact is DSL's behavior got a formal warning from Nova, DSL had to issue a public apology to everyone on that twine for his behavior and the result was the "Report this" tool got made and implemented.
Twain has no issues with DSL. Whatever differences of opinion became redundant when they stopped interacting on Twine. If his renewable energy ventures are succeeding good luck to him.
As for Twain's "lasting contributions" to Twine and whether they matter. Let's see.......
(1.) Twain was the first one to do a "show+tell" of what a 3D-looking interface to Twine could look like. SHE CODED THE APP.
This was a good 9 months before Apple's Safari 4.0 appeared and, presumably, you've seen their 3D wall, hmmn...
Twain's 3D app showed the extensibility that may be possible with an API and what she did was a strategic and pragmatic response to user complaints about the unattractive Twine UX.
(2.) Twain was the person who proposed genuine user customization and controls such as the ability to drag+drop features and tools, and choice over UX color schemes and embeds. She even directed RN team to specific examples of those (netvibes, BBC, Wordpress, more).
(3.) Twain was the person who provided "proof of concept" of Twine as a collaboration tool by working with 5 other people on a Google pitch there.
(4.) Twain is the one who pushed for visual user guides instead of what RN had been doing: text and text and more uninformative text.
(5.) Twain was the person who pointed out the inadequacies of Twine's IM system since her background includes experience in Web 1.0 with a P2P chat channel that's technically superior to Skype and that her team did the incubation financing for.
So.....Twain not only provided McKinsey-esque strategy......SHE ALSO CODED APPS and did visual "show+tells" on system improvements.
Evidently, Twain's words and knowhow do carry serious weight and her contributions do have a lasting impact.
The proof is here: has anyone seen Nova move so quickly to action (remove spam that Twain flags) when he chooses to ignore flags from others.
Do you seriously think anyone will believe your claim that David Scott Lewis made sexual comments and advances towards you? David Scott Lewis is married as you know. No way he would ever make advances to you. You wish. You are delusional. David Scott Lewis had more twines and more content than you ever did. All you ever did was write posts in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS and rant about meaningless techie bullsh*t. You did not work for Twine. You were just some random person. Meanwhile David Scott Lewis added news and content that people actually CARED ABOUT. Sorry, Twain, but DSL was never attracted to you. DSL was too busy adding VALUE to Twine to think about the likes of you.
You go, girl!
Anytime anyone starts accusing someone of being loony's often when that loony person is telling some home truths people're scared of.
Interesting you and David Scott "Lightman" Lewis seemed to have been powerusers, you both did stuff for Twine (got a bit lost there, a lot of info), completely different takes on it but now you BOTH ain't Twine or Nova fans!
Then there's this twine - a vision lost by some other guy whose a poweruser and this thing about the system crashing and p%ss%ng off other people.
Whoa the makers of Twine must be doing something wrong!
You're better way out of it, imo.
People who call you loony's not worth it. Walk away with your head high. You did good.
Let it go now.
You go girl!!!!!!!!
YOU TOTALLY OUTCLASS ALL OF THESE LOSERS.
Bad DSL.
Twain's 3D app showed the extensibility that may be possible with an API and what she did was a strategic and pragmatic response to user complaints about the unattractive Twine UX.
(2.) Twain was the person who proposed genuine user customization and controls such as the ability to drag+drop features and tools, and choice over UX color schemes and embeds. She even directed RN team to specific examples of those (netvibes, BBC, Wordpress, more).
(3.) Twain was the person who provided "proof of concept" of Twine as a collaboration tool by working with 5 other people on a Google pitch there.
(4.) Twain is the one who pushed for visual user guides instead of what RN had been doing: text and text and more uninformative text.
(5.) Twain was the person who pointed out the inadequacies of Twine's IM system since her background includes experience in Web 1.0 with a P2P chat channel that's technically superior to Skype and that her team did the incubation financing for.
As a former so-called "Power User" and part of the "Power User" inner circle (along with Nova and Hrafn), here's my biggest complaint about Twine: The process of adding items is simply too slow. Maybe it's because I'm in China and go through a VPN based in the States, but regardless of the reason, it's too slow for me. I seem to get the fastest "adds" by using Google Bookmarks, although Foxmarks/Xmarks is pretty good, too. Other options like del.icio.us and Furl are OK, but still not fast enough. (I want to bookmark an item, not sit around thinking about what I'm bookmarking while the process is happening.)
Also, I didn't discover very much from Twine. I was hoping to see semweb magic, but never did. For the thousands (yes, thousands) of items that I added, I may have come across a couple/few dozen that I didn't know about that I truly enjoyed. But I don't believe that I ever discovered a truly useful item (link, report) via Twine. No semweb magic that I could see.
And, maybe all the comments are from me -- or from someone impersonating me. Alas, we'll never know for sure.
After Nova’s two-faced backstabbing of Twain and his continuing bullshit about Twine’s spam, traffic and system crashes when user members know the truth about UX, non-functionality etc. no one is ever going to volunteer their goodwill or benefit of doubt to Radar Networks ever again.
It's interesting how you try to twist it Twain's contributions into something of no value and point out she was not an employee. If so, maybe you should have stopped spamming her with pathetic emails, "Please stay....Please help.....Maybe you can make a user guide...." when she emailed you and pointed out she was not your employee and therefore payable in consultancy fees.
Moreover, RN team shows a total lack of graciousness by the fact they ARE your employees, you're not directing them to do their jobs properly (provide user guides, user support, systems stability and security, sanity check strategy etc.), some outsider has to step in and now you have the absolutely despicable lack of honor to say that what she did was of no use except to her and a few of her friends?
Oh but of course RN doesn't place value on showing users how to use the system.
RN doesn't place value on user support.
RN doesn't place value on stability and security.
RN doesn't place value on sanity-checking its strategy.
Lack of honor and respect for the goodwill of Twain who DID place a value on those items and either provided them or moved Twine towards them may be worse than the BS you have plenty of.
Anyway, I now remember that Twain did indeed do some coding on behalf of Twine. I don't recall what it was for, though. She also created a tutorial, although so did I. Hrafn created the first tutorial, I created a tutorial primarily aimed at our local Chamber of Commerce, Twain created another tutorial, then a high school student produced some very good videos, one funny video based on the song, "Radar Love" (this is the one I used on behalf of Radar Networks at the Semantic Technology Conference), another that was a more traditional tutorial video.
Let me rephrase my "strategic" comment. I was looking at things as a user of competitive products. That was my only focus -- and my only concern. My bottom line: Is Twine an effective substitution technology for other services that I was then using.? Twain looked at things very differently, e.g., demographics. (Twain and I agreed on this point.) My comments were more along the lines of, "Furl can do this, Zotero can do that, Zemanta has this angle." Pretty straightforward stuff. Her comments were pretty much like what you've read in this thread.
The "mad passionate love" statement was just a joke. I was simply noting that I admired her. (This is before things got nasty between us, before she started pissing off a lot of other Twinerians.) In fact, Twain is rather homely -- and I'm being generous when I say this. And I never made a public apology as she has suggested; there was NOTHING to apologize for. She totally lost it when this whole issue was brought up on "Power Users," making absurd claims that she must be attractive because she was evidently asked to be in someone's Executive Office, showing pictures of a party where she got totally wasted, showing a photo of an ex-boyfriend, all sorts of things. It was VERY sad. She obviously has a lot of insecurities about her appearance ... and this was obvious to everyone who read her response. (I talked about this with several Power Users at the Semantic Technology Conference, even with several Radarians at the same conference. 100% agreement on this point.)
So, let me add some context to what happened. Nova sent out a question to "Power Users" and to "Product somethingoranother" ("Product Community"?). Two guys gave their opinion and then Twain pounced on them. I came to their defense. Well, things got out of control from there.
This seems to be her MO: She likes to attack people with differing opinions, believing that only her opinion is valid. (OK, that may be too strong. But if she doesn't like you, then she'll simply attack you, regardless what you may say.) People who know me -- know me very well -- came to my defense in the various threads. (A couple were other so-called "Power Users.) She had some admirers, like JDL (I think that's who it was). Kurt even suggested that they should get a bed together. (He was joking, too.) What can I say: Different strokes.
In retrospect, the whole thing was silly and a waste of time, both Twain and Twine.
P.S.--Anybody who used my name and did NOT link to my blog is not me. Also, I'm now using an unknown email address that can be used for tracking back to see if a comment was really made by me.
I wish the best for Twine. Unlike some former/current "Power Users" who wish ill for Twine, I don't. For one thing, if Twine/Radar Networks sinks, it may spell trouble for other semweb start-ups, may make it more difficult for them to receive funding. But this issue aside, Nova and Jim had -- and still have -- a good idea ... and good ideas need a chance. One of the earlier comments in this typical "Power Users" thread noted that many other services morphed way beyond their equivalent to "Power Users" on Twine, and Twine is likely doing the same. Hey, if Twine moves beyond "Power Users" and becomes a mainstream service, GREAT for Twine!! That's a win in my book. It may have little utility for me, but why should it? Anyway, I'll likely wait another two/few years before giving another semweb service a try. No harm, no foul. I volunteered for the private beta, I wasn't drafted.
One thing that bothers me, though, is that Lew Tucker seems to have left Radar Networks. He was third in command, but is no longer listed on their management page. Jim is their semweb guru, Chris is their UX guy, but Lew was their infrastructure guy. Looking at their management team page, I don't see an infrastructure guru -- and they evidently need one from what I gather in some of the aforementioned comments.
Sad to see Lew Tucker leave. He was a great catch for Radar Networks, proved himself at Sun and Salesforce. His departure is a HUGE gap on RN's management team.
Last words to Radar Networks: Mazel tov. And I mean this.
==========================================
Nova would be advised to look here:
http://www.twine.com/search?type=Member&text=no...
Radar Networks had better DELETE these entries with immediate effect:
* http://www.twine.com/search?text=twain+luu&star...
Hopefully, people will understand why I'm going public with my comments about the unacceptable amount of s*** and porn spam on Twine.
If spambots are circumventing the Twine sign-up and generating inappropriate, defamatory and wholly misrepresentative information about members (existing and former) and Radar Networks is doing nothing about this.....then.....
THESE ARE LAWSUITS AGAINST RADAR NETWORKS WAITING TO HAPPEN.
I'd advise all members of Twine search for themselves, including with spelling mistakes and see what kind of porn spam their good names are being associated with.
RADAR NETWORKS HAD BETTER DELETE THOSE PORN SPAMS RELATING TO THE MEMBER SEARCH FOR ME WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT.
I am not joking with you, Nova.
That's all the proof that people need that Twine is NOT the service users want and that if Radar Networks is allowing that type of nonsense to be associated with me, it's more than a "cheap shot".
It is downright despicable.
http://www.twine.com/search?type=Member&text=fa...
You'll find there are about 260 members of this family. You can all work out for yourselves how many of their extended family are contributing to Twine's uniques traffic.
For the record, I was very disappointed to see Twine's first spam sign-up and flagged the Power Users. They told me about Family Buy, Family Sell and others. They told me they'd flagged this to Radar Networks which was the right thing to do.
That was last month. Last month, Family Buy only had about 50 members in its family.
I have no idea whether Radar Networks took any action against what is clearly spam and a violation of the site policy and disrupting users' enjoyment of the service.
Family Buy is clearly breeding. Today alone there's 260 members of them.
There has been a recent upgrade to the Twine bookmarklet and other features which are actually opening the door even more to this s*** and spam.
*********************************************************
I'm sorry that Greg Boutin wrongly supposes I am whatever.
Greg should read the small print of whatever Nova promises to do with him extremely carefully. he should certainly ask to be remunerated up front for any work (strategic advice, PR etc.) he does.
Otherwise, one day he too may find himself regretting asking those legitimate questions, trying to shape Twine's strategy positively and Radar Networks and their people under the guise of "anti-spam", "poweruser" etc falsely painting him as a "nutter" etc.
The fact is that Nova CANNOT respond because he knows that all of the points aforementioned carry the greater concentration of truth, reality and credibility of what actually happened and what Twine's reality is more than any of Radar Network's spin about uniques.
His biggest mistake was to, as "anti-spam" provoke a flame war with "someone who" by calling them a spammer.
The only spammer is Twine. Look at the links on its own site.
* http://www.twine.com/search?type=Member&text=no...
* http://www.twine.com/search?type=Member&text=fa...
* http://www.twine.com/search?type=Member&text=tw...
Fake members. Ramping Twine's metrics much?
Or are users, VCs and the tech community going to get more spin on how internal Omniture figures are more reliable than compete.com?
We should all wonder how those internal Twine counts are conducted.......
We should also wonder about the credibility of Nova's comments above that:
"No the growth is not due to bots. And we have automated spam detection algorithms and processes now."
Is that sincere and mature too? Or vacuous spin?
http://www.semanticsincorporated.com/2009/02/as...