Odeo Releases Twttr

I do not understand the utility of adding the SMS messages to a public webpage or making messages from my network public. I would have to pass on that type of offering. The ability to make messages private should be added asap.

i do not want to be woken up at 4 a.m. because my friend got drunk and decided to text Twttr with “asdl im at barasdf sooo drunksalkfjs”…i find it interesting such an annoying feature is supposedly causing viral growth…i’m done developing social software if the key to success is to be intrusive

Facebook has had an cellphone updateable status in profiles for a while now, this is a bit more full featured though.

It’s a similar concept to the ‘blogHUD’ system (in development) for Second Life at http://bloghud.com

I like the term ‘present tense blogging’.

Just you wait til they map the locations Now we’re cookin’

So is it pronounced twitter or twatter?

I think its cool. Digg story here:

http://digg.com/tech_news/Odeo.....lled_Twttr

I think this is the dumbest thing ever! Who would want all their personal text messages on a public website for anyone to read and track?

Looks interesting. Any word on how it might tie into Odeo? The privacy options are key. I’d never want any of my text messages public… especially the drunken ones. Nick over at valleywag, might have a new gossip and scoop source. Overall though, cool site, with lots of room to grow if it can fix a few things.

-JLB

whoever came up with the name needs to learn to google:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twat

Proof that podcasting is making no money for anyone.

Glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks Odeo is O-dead-o. You know, if you combine the names it spells TwoDotter… Not sure what that means, but I think there’s something deeper going on here.

Nah, that’s crazy talk.

I’m a little disappointed at the lack of attention they’ve been paying to design since the first launch of Odeo. The design there was great and made the site much more appealing, this new stuff lacks that visual strength.

Its a pity that such services are never launched outside the US.

“But the fact that this is coming from Odeo makes me wonder - what is this company doing to make their core offering compelling? How do their shareholders feel about side projects like Twttr when their primary product line is, besides the excellent design, a total snoozer?”

I’m sure they’re perfectly happy. It’s not like Blogger was Pyra’s first product or anything…

Obivously I’m not the only person who reads that as “twatter”

no numlock you aren’t. i personally would greatly enjoy a twatter service.

don’t most phones have a group SMS send function anyway? i have lists set up on my phone. admittedly, at around 8p a text, it ain’t cheap. maybe advertising supported model would work, but personally i wouldn’t use it.

and the public viewing thing - easily removed, but i would not use it at all on that basis.

is this spate of amusing names deliberate, i wonder? they are certainly generating more than the average levels of buzz on less than the average levels of innovation.

james

The most recent public text right now is “I hope she’s okay. god damn birth control. I should’ve known better”!!

As odd as it sounds that users’ SMS messages will be on display for the entire world to see, I doubt that this will stop the “MySpace generation” from using this type of service. I’ve seen users on Myspace communicating messages that I would think are private by leaving public comments on each other’s pages (for example I witnessed a couple breaking up with each other publicly by leaving messages on each others pages, even though it should have been a private thing). This is a natural outgrowth of that trend and I think the privacy matter won’t be much of a consideration for people that use Myspace and other similar social networks.

this should be a total hit with the myspacers

There was a reference somewhere where somebody from Odeo said ‘consider this a 20% time project’, I don’t think that a company which hasn’t yet finished its core product should be worrying about 20% time, especially when it is a one product startup. I do really wonder what the investors/advisors/etc. think of this, I know what I would think.

“I’m sure they’re perfectly happy. It’s not like Blogger was Pyra’s first product or anything…”

The case may be that they gave these guys some money to come up with something, but the more plausible scenario would be that they raised the money so that they could go out and create the world largest podcast site/directory. Though if it is the case that they were just given money to do whatever, and it wasn’t actually Odeo that was backed, that would be very cool and a show of high confidence in the team..

I agree, the Odeo site hasn’t improved much at all since its launch. There are other people in the podcasting space, e.g., PLUGGD - http://www.pluggd.com, that seem to be more focused and innovating more.

I wouldn’t be happy if I was an investor in Odeo. If you are a start-up struggling to gain market traction, you shouldn’t have 20% projects that are completely unrelated to your core business.

I recently (about a month ago) launched something similiar: http://www.supcast.com - Check it out

No way I would want to have people see my text messages from the site. I think they should make that optional on the account…..or better allow me to select a group of people in the service that can see them.

Josh
http://windowsconnected.com

Considering the team at Odeo and their product history I wouldn’t consider that Twttr is really too far removed from their focus.

Odeo was conceived by rolling together ideas from audioblogger, which Biz Stone created and ideas about podcasting which Evan William’s had. Audioblogger enabled people to leave voicemails from normal phones which were retrievable from the web.

Twttr is simply a lightweight moblogging tool with a social element but is within the scope of Odeo’s thinking about different types of media as forms of self expression. This is exactly what Blogger became, what audioblogger is and what twttr is. A form of self expression.

In addition the viral element is a useful way to pull in traffic to Odeo. Also, if people are concerned about their privacy a small subscription could be used to make messages private; which could be a possible revenue stream (note “premium features coming”)

Give these guys a break for really trying to innovate. I’m sure the team and their investors know exactly where this falls in their product plan. With odeo mobile also recently launched its understandable that they’ve been thinking about these type of applications anyway.

Although twttr does a good job of creating a solution to a problem many face (group txt messaging), the larger question is - why isn’t this built into the phone’s interface? Each new SMS solution just exposes another hole that should be filled by something far richer than a text message..

Although I think the logo is way cool, I don’t get how this fits in with Odeo’s core product. It just seems like these guys got distracted and went off into left field. Innovation is good, but focus is good too.

With the reports of PodShow on track to do $2-3m in revenue this year, you’d think there would be some desire on Odeo’s part to turn this into a business. I guess they figure Google will come and bail them out like what happened with Blogger. Who needs to build a business, let’s build cool stuff, tell girls at parties we’re web 2.0 start-up guys, etc.

First, Odeo was all about creating a way for people to discover and listen to podcasts. Then Apple launched iTunes…Odeo got scared…and was all about recording ‘casual conversations.’ This idea was that instead of emailing your mom or leaving your mom voicemail, you’d record an odeo message and share it with her. Uh?

Then, after is becomes clear that Apple’s iTunes directory blogs. Odeo un-hides the links to their directory and is all about discovering podcasts again, er, audio.

Now, after several more months of Odeo doing virtually nothing with their site, they launch ‘Twatter.’

It reminds me of the bubble. These guys are just screwing around. I knew it was a bad sign when I listened to one of their core guys on a podcast brag about the $7,000 machines duel proc PowerMacs they bought for everyone.

Lame…

NY Times: For a Start-Up, Visions of Profit in Podcasting…

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02.....mp;ei=5088

Oh Deo!

This is a strange review. While it reads as if you like Twttr, it also sounds like you have something personal against the Odeo team.

Odeo was the first to develop a good web-based podcasting directory. They’ve been copied ad naseum (Yahoo Podcasting, Made in Japan, Podomatic… the list goes on), and their podcasting directory and publishing tools may not turn out to be defensible. But a total snoozer? Hardly. What do you have against these guys?

I hope there’s some killer app out there for this. Otherwise I’ll be sure to look them up next time I need to tell everyone I know I’m hungry.

Alan, you’re making a common mistake, one that many people who are challenged by complicated logical situations stumble on.

Mike might have nothing against Odeo. He might just feel that their main product, the one they sold investors, is a “snoozer.”

Also you might work for Odeo because you aren’t using your full name!

My last name is Petrovsky. I’m a student. I met Evan Williams in England and he seemed like a nice guy.

Thanks for correcting me on the mistake Doc. I hope you’ll forgive my stumble - after all, it is a complicated logical situation.

In line with Alan’s question, who do you favor instead? This sounds like another TechHunch tear-down to promote a personal favorite.

Check out Upoc.com, a company I founded in 1999. Upoc was the first mobile community in North America and continues to generate abbout 4% of all non MIN:MIN sms, as well as a pretty significant chunk of WAP.

Mobile group messaging is a great application though I think they will find that it is better to focus on affinity groups and not pre-existing groups of friends. There are fewer social complications about who should/should not get messages when the group is not focused on real-world relationships where who is in/out of the loop can change all the time. Affinity groups tend to be much more stable for this sort of group communications.

Frank: it is a logical phallusy to assume that Mike has a favorite, he might think they are all be snoozers, and his point would still have merit. The investors might wonder what they’re getting, assuming their original business paln was about pdocastine. And Evan Williams is certainly a very nice guy-just look at the way he does his heir. There’s something I like very much about a person who wears his heir the way Mr. Williams does.

Meh. I dont know. I think that you can draw the exact parallels between pc and mobile social networking quite yet. there is a very hard UI restriction that makes the dynamics of each type of SNetworking different. This is an arrow that has hit the target, but it is a good distance from the bulls eye.

an old friend runs a company in Japan that has been doing exactly this on iMode for at least 4 years … imahima means “are you free now?” And it was quite a hit, and having used the service living in a city like Tokyo, it was indeed quite useful. So for those of you who have not yet embraced the fully mobile lifestyle, this is not as silly as it may first seem ; ) To Mike’s point, when Imahima started in Japan it was indeed a very small startup. Also, the public pages thing was not a feature and that part does seem weird. Lastly, there was an unofficial version of Imahima where the announcements, and one guesses the subsequent liaisons were, umm, more intimate.

http://www.imahima.com/ihcorpv.....?stlang=EN

“Phallusy”?

Is that a noun or an adjective?

Maybe something changed, but the default behavior is to *not* share SMSs on the public web. You can turn that feature on though. You can also set who you want to be updated on and who you don’t. You can also check on everyone yourself by pinging TWTTR a message. Seems neat, but only gets useful if you can convince your crew to use it.

Odeo was a failure from the get go. No revenue model. I asked their VC - CRV - what the revenue model was a year ago and he said “to sell to someone bigger.” Okay, that was a web 1.0 answer, and now we get Twttr - an even dumber idea with no revenue model, but a 2.0 concept. Why doesn’t CRV (Charles River Ventures) just burn the money in a big BBQ party on Sand Hill Road. More people would attend than visitors to Odeo.

Agree w/ George re Odeo site - hasn’t improved much at all since its launch. Thanks for the tip on PLUGGD - http://www.pluggd.com, v. cool! Highly rec it.

Finally somebody is figuring out how to navigate this - I don’t want to spend/waste my time watching/listening if its not relevant since I’m listening to things for my industry.

Interesting. You should check out pluggd.com another interesting site built around a social concept.

“to sell to someone bigger”? Hmm.. VC 101 says that selling out is an exit strategy (out of only 3 possible exists), not a revenue model. I’m a bit surprised a VC firm would give that kind of answer.

Not innovative and not focused. Twttr sounds like a disaster in the making…I see other posts mentioning pluggd (http://www.pluggd.com) a personal favorite of mine. Watch out for this one in the podcasting space…integrated interface and the most effective search engine in this area.

I would like to add my vote to Pluggd as well. Very clean interface … very fast … widest selection of podcasts and great search/navigation. These guys get it! Pluggd clearly has figured this out and I expect to see many more cool features here in the future.

– brian

Thanks for the pluggd tip - their site is SO easy to navigate. No flood of text messages coming your way either!

Have you all seen they’re giving away an iPod?
http://www.pluggd.com/user/invitations/

I agree with some of the other posts: http://www.pluggd.com has replaced odeo as my podcast search engine/directory of choice. It’s easier to use, looks better, is faster!, and these guys seem comitted to innovating in this space. I discovered all sorts of new podcasts that I listen to regularly now (e.g. TimesTalk by the New York Times). Pluggd rocks!

After using twttr I think it’s something that MySpace should have created and would be an awesome buy for Murdoch. It’s a perfect extension of MySpace type friend networking off browser. You wouldn’t even need to know eachother’s cell phone numbers, handle it all through the web interface (here’s the list of friends allowed to ping my mobile).

I find it a very interesting service.
Very interactive, and probably useful if you manage to organize contacts.

one could easily draw the missing dots between audio blogging & twttr

Seems like an interesting service, but there are true and valid concerns with regards to privacy…

This will be a good service to utilise when trying to send a mass SMS to people when I need to notify them of sales. However, I’m not sure if this service can work reliably in Asia…

It will also be useful to send out mass invitations to people, like wedding invitations. But those who don’t get invited to your wedding might get annoyed when they see your message listed in the public space and they know they didn’t get one… :p