Rumour: Twitter business pages

Both Twitter and Facebook operate on the fiercely contested battlefield of the social web. But they do so using vastly different tactics. Where Twitter is simple and short, Facebook is complicated and elaborate.

Another difference between the two is their commercial views. Facebook made its commercial intent very clear almost from the start. Advertisements, micro-transactions in games, business pages where a corporation can describe its business, all geared towards creating a flow of money with the ultimate goal of making Facebook a profitable company. Twitter however only presented a business plan in 2010 while the service had started in 2006. In the early years there was hardly a sign that Twitter had a commercial heart. That is now changing.

In October last year, Twitter CEO Evan Williams resigned and handed the helm to Dick Costollo, the man behind the business plan and the "promoted tweets, trends and accounts". A clear indication that Twitter is changing course. And now there is a new rumour: Twitter may offer companies the possibility of corporate pages where they can profile themselves and garner interest for there products. These pages can then be used to generate followers.

Although this construction does not necessarily change Twitter's basic model of simplicity, it does worry me a little. The charm of Twitter is its simplicity and openness. This allows you to be creative and use it as you wish to use it. This is something which is a lot harder to do on closed, highly regulated systems like Facebook. Might this be the first step to be-Facebooking Twitter?

Of course Twitter Inc needs to think commercially. Just paying the monthly bandwidth bills must be a nightmare. But lets hope that this commercial thinking does not ruin the simple beauty that sets Twitter apart in a busy social network market.

I pay my taxes, so let me watch YouTube in peace

About five years ago I stopped watching public and commercial television. We still had our cable connection but I just could no longer stand the garbage it delivered to our home. Either the quality of television had become worse or my tastes had changed, either way I stopped watching. Less than a year later we cut the cord completely and cancelled our cable subscription. We switched to Internet content completely. A Mac mini was bought, connected to our television and the mouse and keyboard became our remote. The bliss of self chosen TV content was ours.

Over the years the content became better and better. Video podcasts became more professionally produced - thanks to the efforts of such people as Leo Laporte and the guys and gals at Revision 3 - and YouTube came of age with better video quality and better content.

Much of the content on YouTube these days is contested as being illegal. Many a BBC programme or other public television content has been 'archived' at YouTube much to the chagrin of those that originally aired them.

However I feel justified to watch these programmes. Why? Because I pay my taxes. In the old days the situation in the Netherlands was such that one paid a fee as soon as one had a TV or radio in the house. This fee was used to finance public television and radio. In 2000 this fee was abolished and incorporated into the income tax. Income tax was raised by one point something percent and thus everyone pays that fee. Whether you watch public television or not. This used to be a fine system because everyone has a TV and/or radio and everyone used to watch public TV or listened to public radio.

But the situation has changed and our household is an example of the forerunners of that change (I'm tempted to shout 'Viva la revolucion!' but it is 4 AM so I'd better not...). We no longer watch public TV or listen to public radio. We can't because there is no longer a cable in our house delivering that content and picking up the stuff out of the ether is ancient history. So we watch public content - and yes BBC programmes were syndicated to our public broadcast channels - through YouTube and I feel no guilt doing so as I pay my taxes and thus pay into the public broadcast system of which I make no use.

I think this system should be more widely implemented. Instead of fighting illegal downloads, would it be an idea to embrace them. Charge a nominal fee for instance - either through taxes or otherwise - that reflects the content public television airs, i.e. feature films, syndicated programmes and bilge like the bloody X-factor and let people choose their own poison through channels such as YouTube or other Internet tubes (like Bittorrent or Usenet). In effect: illegal downloading would no longer exist, it'd be paid for. Those that do not watch Internet TV or do not listen to Internet audio content can go cry in a corner: I paid for all the filth they watched ever since I cut the cord with public broadcasting, now let them suffer for a while.

An Introduction

Today sees the start of a new blog. Not a remarkable occurrence in a blog-flooded world. After a self-derogatory sentence like that, you expect a sentence starting with "But..." or "However...". That sentence will not appear. There is no excuse for launching a new blog. There is no redeeming reason. There is just the unadulterated, relentless lust to write and publish. Call it editorial vomiting.

To give the blog a slight reason to exist it will try and make you - if not laugh out loud - at least chuckle. Or that may even be too bold an objective. It will try and make the left corner of your mouth lift just a teensy-weensy bit. It may even make that same corner of your mouth quiver, just for a second. If this blog achieves that, it has done its job.

Heaven forbid any lofty goals for this blog. After all it is a one in many million blog. In a bid to make its existence a little more worthy though, it will have to make an effort at something resembling profundity. To achieve that it will look behind the hypes that rule the Internet - from world news hypes to YouTube-cat-video hypes - and try and have a second opinion about them. Usually this blog will try and make you see the ridiculousness of the hype. That is as lofty as it gets.

Lets raise our glasses to the launch of a new blog! Hurray and three cheers. And onwards to sweet oblivion!

- Henk