Up until now the Twitter developer ecosystem has been very closed. Sure the Twitter APIs are as open as possible, but all the clients out there are largely closed platforms. There are a few exceptions, including Spaz and Tweenky (my client) which are open-source. It is great to have a starting point (aside from raw libraries) that gives developers a place to start with when building a Twitter application. With Seesmic Desktop invading Windows with a programmable version that you can write plugins for, this is a huge step that hopefully will push other developers/companies towards the same model.

When I launched Tweenky about 18 months ago, I hadn’t event thought about making it programmable, but pretty quickly afterwards I realized the potential it could have if it were programmable, and so I began a rewrite, and coded it in 99% JavaScript with two plugins out of the box, Twitter and Identi.ca. I had plans for other plugins (Facebook), but the problem with developing a platform, and not just an application, is that it takes a loooot of time. For one guy working in his spare time, it just wasn’t going to be possible to abstract out a platform and develop a community around it. So, I started with another rewrite and only focused support for Twitter. I still think it was the right move given the limited amount of time I can spend developing it.

What I’m really waiting for is an easy way for Twitter developers to monetize their applications. We’ve all seen what the Apple has accomplished with the App Store and the ecosystem they created overnight. While most iPhone developers have made very little, others have won the lottery and struck it rich. While Twitter (the company) has been very supportive of the developer community, they should really look at giving it a push and figuring out a way to monetarily reward Twitter developers. Nothing gets developers going like a big, fat, diamond crusted carrot dangling in front of their noses. Afterall, Twitter wouldn’t be Twitter if it weren’t for the developers. The various clients are what made the service usable for the hard-core Twitter users that create most of the valuable content.

P.S. You can still view the programmable version at beta.tweenky.com.

Via RWW: Google’s Eric Schmidt on What the Web Will Look Like in 5 Years

• Five years from now the internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content.
• Today’s teenagers are the model of how the web will work in five years – they jump from app to app to app seamlessly.
• Five years is a factor of ten in Moore’s Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today.
• Within five years there will be broadband well above 100MB in performance – and distribution distinctions between TV, radio and the web will go away.
• “We’re starting to make significant money off of Youtube”, content will move towards more video.
• “Real time information is just as valuable as all the other information, we want it included in our search results.”
• There are many companies beyond Twitter and Facebook doing real time.
• “We can index real-time info now – but how do we rank it?”
• It’s because of this fundamental shift towards user-generated information that people will listen more to other people than to traditional sources. Learning how to rank that “is the great challenge of the age.” Schmidt believes Google can solve that problem.

It’s hard to argue with any of those, really. The one I’m looking forward to most of all is the convergence of media platforms as the lines between TV, Radio, and Web become more and more blurry. As those lines become blurred, more innovation will occur between the gaps and the old-time revenue models based mostly on distribution begin to fall apart.

Link: Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew.

One of the first things I thought about while watching Gabe’s video was whether this would be yet another take-down viral video because of copyright infringement? But, a group like Grizzly Bear (or their record label) would be crazy to complain about the soundtrack because of the attention it generates for the song.

You could either be a band that removes the soundtrack from someone’s artistic work, infuriating them and accomplishing nothing. Or, you could capitalize off it, much like Chris Brown’s (or his record label’s) decision to not remove the soundtrack from the “JK Wedding Dance” video that ended up boosting him to #4 on the iTunes charts and possibly saved his career.

Another recent example is the use of Barcelona’s “Please Don’t Go” song in a tranquil aquarium video that has been 1.8 million views at the times of this posting. The band was so pleased that they posted a video response to introduce themselves to their new fans and credited the video towards increased albums sales and concert attendance. Instead of saving a career (as in Brown’s case), this very well could make a career for these guys, and all because they lucked out and had a passionate, artistic fan that wanted to showcase both their works, together.

Gabe’s video is yet another great example of how music artists (and any celebrities) for that matter can use their fans to crowdsource ideas and content. Instead of spending thousands or millions to produce a video, you can get really high quality content for next to nothing, all because your fans are passionate about your work and want to be more involved. So get them involved, they want to be, and they’ll reward you for the opportunity.

As a final example, here’s a video from Tilly & The Wall which was completely crowdsourced by their fans. All they did was ask users to send in clips of them singing their song “Rainbows in the Dark” and spliced them all together, making an awesome, fun, and cheap video. Imagine a progressive band like Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead saying they weren’t going going to make a video for their latest single and instead were holding a contest for a fan to make an “official video” for that song and awarding $20k? Contests like that can become a breeding crowd for viral videos, something all musicians are dying for nowdays.

Related reading:

• ‘Pirated’ Youtube Clip Boosts Band’s Album Sales
• Could Viral Wedding Dance Video Save Chris Brown’s Career?
• Interview with Gabe Askew

Twhirl is a relatively new Twitter client that packs just about everything you need for twittering into one Adobe Air based application.  While Twhirl of course handles all the basic things you need out of a Twitter client, I feel it really shines when you start using the additional features and usability enhancements.

Some of these features include:

• Runs on Windows (200/XP/Vista) and Mac OSX
• Ability to connect to multiple Twitter accounts
• Ability to simultaneously post to Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
• Extremely easy to install and configure
• Embedded services include Tweetscan, is.dg, Snurl, TwitPic, and Terraminds
• Timeline filtering
• Automatically checks for new version
• New tweet notification windows
• Localized to English, German, Italian, and Spanish

Installation

To install Twhirl, visit Twhirl’s website and on the right side you’ll see links to download Adobe AIR and Twhirl.  If you don’t yet have Adobe’s integrated runtime environment (AIR) installed, follow the instructions you see to install it.  Once AIR is installed, click the download/”install now” link and you should see the AIR application installer begin to download and install the Twhirl application.  Follow the on screen instructions to complete.

Configuration

When you load the application for the first time, you’ll need to set up your Twitter account(s).  Enter your screen name, and another box will prompt you for your password.  You will also see a few additional tabs.  The first being “Colors” which allows you to modify Twhirl’s visual theme.  The second is “Language” where you can select between English, German, Italian, and Spanish.  And the final tab being “Update” where you can check if a newer version exists.

Sending Tweets

99% of your time using Twhirl will be spent looking at the main Twhirl screen after you successfully connect.  From this screen you will see the “river” of new tweets rolling down as they arrive.  You can also post tweets by typing your message in the input box.  Please make not of the TwitPic and “Shorten URL” icons on the right of the input box for a couple very useful tools.

Additionally, you have 9 view types that you can choose from in the drop-down.  These views range from the standard “Timeline” view with is the tweets from those you are following, viewing the archive of your own tweets, viewing your followers’ bios, searching tweetscan.com, and a few more very useful views.

Gripes & Suggestions

I’ve already covered many of the upsides to using Twhirl, but I do have a few gripes and suggestions that I hope the developer can address in future releases:

• When you lookup profiles inside Twhirl, you should be able to at a minimum, click a link that takes you to the user’s Twitter account.  Optimally, I’d like to have the information on how many followers the user has, and how many people they are following.
• When starting up the application, only notify me of direct/reply tweets I haven’t yet read, not all of them.
• Add TweetBurner.com to the list of short URLs.
• Add a Quotably link to each tweet.

Conclusion

Twhirl is my 5th Twitter client over the past 4-5 months, and really, the majority of that time has been spent on Twhirl because it has been my favorite, by far.  I have stuck with it because it offers all the essential functionality I need out of a twitter client, and then some.  It also happens to be the first Adobe AIR application I have actually had a good experience with and it gives me hope for the future for this platform.

Also, check out these reviews for other Twitter clients

• Twitterfox: A Twitterfox Review
• Twitterific: A Review of Twitterific
• TwitterBerry: TwitterBerry, combining BlackBerry and Twitter
• Twitterfeed: A review of Twitterfeed
• Twitbin: Twitter and TwitBin – Microblogging Made Easy
• The Guide to Being a Drunken, Debaucherous Twit
• Netvibes: Using Netvibes for SMO

• About 70 new Twitter followers.  With each of his two tweets directed at me, I instantly gained about 15 new followers, and then the rest scattered in throughout the rest of the day.
• 910 new visits to my blog with 1.36 pages/visit
• The viddler video now has 650+ views from my blog, and another 600+ views on the viddler site.

Any other statistics people were wondering?

I’ve always thought the “life-stream” concept first pioneered by Twitter and now used by Jaiku was pretty cool even though I haven’t used Twitter as much as I should. Now that Google owns Jaiku, I’m sure it’s going to turn into a very cool product and be pretty integral to the GPhone OS someday.