Lightweight Models & Cost-Effective Scalability - Twitter

The last pattern I am going to discuss is "Lightweight Models & Cost-Effective Scalability", and the application I have chosen as an example is Twitter!
The application is used to send short messages up to 140 characters out on the social network. It is also called a micro blogging service. We use Twitter now in our unit at QUT to communicate with each other and have discussions in class.

It was created back in 2006 by Jack Dorsey and several others at a podcasting company named Odeo, Inc. in South Park, San Francisco.
It has to date over 106 million accounts, and they are sending over 55 million tweets a day!

The amount of people using social networks are growing rapidly as each day goes by. Millions of people are using online services, from Facebook to Ebay. To handle the growth all these services has to have strategies and models to work out from. Here is where this weeks pattern comes in. “Doing more with less” is the new motto!

My Twitter Profile

Twitter is a lightweight model, and the first sign is the simple method Twitter are registering new users. All you need is a nickname and email-address, no need for private details as for example full name and picture. By making the users just exchanging information with 140 characters it is easy to add content and by that easy for the users to add value to the site. Twitter do not have to have large software, it is easy to scale and for re-usability.


Follow Your Interests. Discover Your World. Twitter.

Twitter is created on open-source software. This means that Twitter has opened their API to developers so they can create third part software that Twitter contributes to. Here is a list. By this Twitter is cost effective, and they have only 175 employees.
The application is written in Scala and Ruby on Rails. Twitter stated in this article from 2009 that they are changing from Ruby on Rails to Scala. They started in the back end since this is where Ruby had problem dealing with the amount of tweets that where pouring in. But it looks that in 2011 they still use Ruby On Rails for the web interface. Someone correct me if I am wrong. Scala is a shortening for “scalable language”, signifying that it is designed to grow with the demands of its users.

One issue with Twitter is the lack of advertisements on the site. People have been wondering how they are making money. But TeachRadar revealed in 2010 that they where going to start with sponsored tweets. I have not seen it yet but now I am not a large user of Twitter, maybe someone else have?

Leveraging the Long Tail – Spotify

Spotify was founded in 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is an online service that streams music to the users. The content has been free up until April 14 2011 when they had to put a limit on how many times and for how long the free users could listen to different songs. Airing advertisements supports the free version.
Spotify also have a premium service for paying customers that cost around 10$ each month. To that price the customers get unlimited access to the music and also can have the songs in offline modus. That means that they can listen to the music without having an Internet connection. They also get the opportunity to use the mobile application. Spotify have 10 000 000 free users and 1 000 000 paying users.

Spotify - The story

This weeks pattern is “Leveraging The Long Tail”, the phrase was made popular by Chris Anderson, and it describes the way internet sites now have made it possible to reach out to markets that was too small before. A great example is Amazon with their great variety of products in their store; they sell a little bit of everything and earn money. Do not just go after the trends, like Jason Watson said in his lecture about the pattern at QUT.

The long tail - The new marketplace

The web is not build up by just a few popular sites, now the niche markets also have has a place. It is worth to have a website when it is online and you can sell the products all over the globe, now companies can reach markets they could not before.

The best benefits from this pattern is:

• Ability to target and capture new micro-markets
• Content producers can reach a wider audience
• Opportunity for increased consumer choice

Spotify is a great example of this since it uses many of the best practices for the pattern:

1. Build on the driving forces of the Long Tail

- Three forces drive this practice.

1. More products – in Spotify this means more songs, by unknown and known artists. It is important for Spotify to have the best selection of songs so people go to their application to listen to music.
2. More customers – by making more people use the application, more people listen to songs and by that making the songs more popular and again making “the tail fatter”.
3. New market – with this Spotify is connecting supply and demand. This is made up by Spotify having for example a search function in their application that makes it easier for people to find the songs they want no matter how narrow the search term is

2. Use algorithmic data management to match supply and demand

This blends well in with point 3 of the first practice. This is used to help customers find products of similar interests.
The feature “Related artists” that the users get when they are on a page for an artists, helps the users maybe find some other music that they normally would not search up themselves.

Related artists

With the integration of Facebook as well in the application, makes it much easier to share music playlists and see what artists you have in common with other friends.

 Facebook integration

In the home screen of Spotify you also get a “news feed” that shows the latest posts from friends that they linked on Facebook from Spotify. Very cool!

News feed from Spotify and friends

3. Use architecture of participation to match supply and demand

By taking advantage by the huge number of users, the application uses the “wisdom of the crowds”. Spotify has song rankings, where people can give the songs stars, it also have “Top lists” that shows the most popular albums and songs in the world, or you can choose to just show for your country.

 Songs and albums ranking

Some issues with the pattern are that some markets benefit more than others. Spotify is one of those that do, since their products are digital and they do not pay so much money to develop and produce. But other stores can struggle more.

Spotify is only available in the following countries Finland, France, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom. So you cannot use it in Australia yet, and as late as this article from 11 May 2011, Spotify says that they have no immediate plans to launch here. So Australians still have to wait to get this great service.

Perpetual Beta - Evernote

“The ultimate goal of Evernote is to be an universal human memory extension."
Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote



Pitch by Phil Libin, explaining Evernote in 1 minute



Evernote is an application that makes it easier to archive notes, websites, pictures and audio. You can share and send notes on Facebook and Twitter. The application come in both a MAC and PC version with mobile versions for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre and Windows Mobile. As you can see the with all these different versions of the same application they are bound to have a lot of beta-versions in circulation.

Evernote web version was released for Windows in invitation only beta in February 21, 2008. March 11, 2008 the Mac client arrived in invitation only beta. June 24, 2008 they went public beta. 3 years and 3 months later they have over 5 million users!

The growth of people using Evernote

This week the Web 2.0 pattern is “Prepetual Beta”. Bill O’Reilly categorize the pattern like this :

Evernote is always on and always improving. There are so many benefits in choosing this pattern. Jason Watson's lecture in Perpetual Beta at QUT listed these benefits of using the pattern :

• Faster time to market
• Reduced risk
• Closer relationship with customers
• Real-time data to make quantifiable decisions
• Increased responsiveness

When Evernote first went out in an invitation only , the company's CEO talked directly with the users on Evernote's blog. This made Evernote much closer to the users and made it easier for the company to update the application and catch glitches in the software quickly. By releasing a beta version it has made it easier for Evernote to release more often updates of the application and not have the pressure of a finished and polished application.

Already in March 2008 Evernote wrote that they were going to concentrate much more on mobile devices and the connection between these devices and the desktop AND online application.

During 2008,2009 and 2010 they updated the different versions of the application regularly. Libin said in an interview to TUAW that they really did not announce when they faced out the beta period. This may mean that they felt that the updates that were released was stable and secure enough that the users did not really feel the difference between the application when it was beta and when it was not.

In the same interview he tells that the future looks bright with over 600 developers having the API key to the software. We can expect much more from Evernote in the future!



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Software Above the Level of a Single Device - MobileMe

MobileMe was first launched in January 2000 by Apple as a service called iTools and then relaunched in July 2008 by the name “MobileMe”.
The application provides “an easy way to keep your iPhone,iPad, Mac and PC in sync”.

The features are :

• Mail
• Calendar
• Contacts
• Find my iPhone
• Gallery
• iDisk (store and share your files online)
• Me.com (your own space on the web, access to all the features for Mobile Me online)

The most interesting feature I must say has to be “Find my iPhone”. You also can lock it and put it back to factory settings if someone has stolen it.

The pattern for today is “Software Above the Level of a Single Device“ and
Bill O’Reilly categorized the pattern this way :

Apple’s MobileMe is the perfect example and is in complete notion with the new era that has embraced ubiquitous computing to the fullest! More and more people are using their smart phones on the go and need the same information on hand as they had on their desktop computer or their laptop. With MobileMe people can update their email, contacts, pictures and calendars on every device they have synced MobileMe with. It is cloud computing put in motion. Every time you sync for example your calendar it will update on every single mobile or desktop device you have registered.

The advantage Apple has is that they have designed the different mobile devices MobileMe will be used on from the core. By controlling the progress all the way from the hardware to the operating system makes it far more reliable than many other services. They also market MobileMe as an application that the customers also can use if they have a PC.





A guided tour of the application

Since Apple take 99$ a year for the application it is safe to say that they have to make it extra special for people to pay that amount for it, but after reading some reviews online about the service it seems like people just as well can use various free services like DropBox instead of the service iDisk(that gives you storage space online) and Google's services such as mail and calendars.

One of the issues with MobileMe has to be the walled garden and the compatibility issue. With Apple controlling the development it can only be used with iTunes and you have to have an iPhone or iPad as your mobile device. This makes it impossible to use it if you do not have an Apple-product.

The application uses especially the practice “Extend Web 2.0 to devices” very well by making email, contacts, gallery and calendars sync with every device, but the problem is here is that the service is not free and the application is not good enough so people are willing to pay the price.

But no one can deny that Apple really knows how to make a simple and easy application to use.

Rich User Experiences - Wakoopa

Wouldn’t it be fun if you could see exactly what you are spending all your time on the computer for? How much time you use surfing the web, how many minutes you use doing your assignments? And maybe get a bad conscience when you see that the differences between the two of them are maybe too huge? Wakoopa was launched in May 2007 and it uses a discreet client side tracking software that logs what programs you are using and for how long. It sends this to your profile online and you can then get an overview on what programs you use the most, and get recommendations for new ones! It uses largely the Web 2.0 pattern "Rich User Experiences" to attract users.

The users can also write reviews of programs and give descriptions. All of this are syndicated with RSS. The content is dynamic and changes with time, in comparison with earlier days where the content was static and difficult to change. Now a whole new world is opening up, where online programs are just as powerful and also have a rich, graphical interface. We see now a transition from a desktop model to an online model.

My profile on Wakoopa


The site uses Ajax, Javascript and HTML, which makes it easy to use and fast. They have added a cool drop down menu to their profile where you can get an overlook over your features.

Your navigation bar with the drop down list


You can hover over the charts over your daily usage, and with that get a visual feedback on how much time you spend on the different areas.



An example of a chart of your weekly use



Wakoopa also uses a practice from the first Web 2.0 pattern “Harnessing Collective Intelligene, by rewarding the users by giving them points from the start. You get the first point by just starting the Wakoopa tracker, by doing that the user feel an instant reward and continue to use it to get one level up in the hierarchy. To get more points you can for example be the first to use a new application. A list of the rest you can find here.
The different levels are like this :



The different levels


The benefits with a rich user interface is that the sites always get more satisfied users and much lower website abandonment. It’s an easy application to use, and by having the advantage of knowing what applications you use, Wakoopa gives you a deep, adaptive personalization by for example showing you what other applications that may suit you and your online life, and that is maybe the applications greatest advantage.


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Innovation In Assembly – Photobucket

Photobucket is a website that was founded in 2003 as an image hosting site. Later on they have added video hosting, slideshow creating possibilities and photo sharing. These services have been added to the application by developers who has been given Photobucket’s open API. That means that everyone can get a hold of the framework of the website.




I have chosen Photobucket as an example for the third Web 2.0 Pattern “Innovation in Assembly” because it uses many of the best practices of the pattern.
They have an open API so other people can develop tools for the application. These tools can be everything from creative tools such as slideshow creations, photo products and image editor (edit colors, contrasts and add effects to the picture) to different uploading and mobile tools. By doing this Photobucket will continue to grow as an all rounder when it comes to people needs for storage online.

The users can decide for themselves which of the different APIs they want to follow, Photobucket has made all their APIs available at this link.



Different tools

There are a lot of other mashup’s as well that have been created. You can take a look at all of them here. One example is VoixPx. They have made it possible to create a slide show with narration. The pictures they take from Photobucket, Flickr, Myspace, Bebo or Facebook by using the different APIs, and the voice you add with your phone!

One issue I can think of with Photobucket is with one of the services they provide; users can search through other peoples pictures. When I started using the service you weren't able to see anyone's pictures. It was very closed and you needed a password and username. I see now that you can search for pictures, and I looked at my privacy settings to see what was the default, and to me it looked like I share my pictures with everyone else.


My privacy default settings

I really think that the default settings should be that your pictures are private, and you can share them if you want. If someone else have anything to add, or if I have misunderstood something just shout out :)

The success story of Photobucket has a lot do to with staying in touch with the emerging trends and giving developers the opportunity to create great applications that enhances the website as the years go by. The website continues to grow because people's needs for online storage and to show off their pictures will never disappear.

Data Is the Next “Intel Inside" - Memolane

“This is a whole new chapter for social media,”
- Eric Lagier

The quote comes from one of the founders of Memolane.
The application was created in April 2010, and has just gone from private beta to public beta.



Would you like to see your whole online-life compiled together in a time-line? The application gathers all your information from various sources.

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Flickr
• Picasa
• Foursquare
• Tripit
• Vimeo
• Youtube
• Last.fm
• MySpace
• Instagram
• and RSS Feeds

They are working on new services to add to the application aswell, and are asking other developers to get in contact with them to get their API so they can work on integrating their own application to Memoland!

I signed up just yesterday, and found out that I really didn’t have that many accounts. I have connected my Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts to the application.



When you have registered the various accounts you have, the timeline you’ll get would look something like this :



Without the data the application would be useless. People are saying that "Data Is the Next “Intel Inside”

Maybe the most interesting thing about Memolane is that it is actually using other Web 2.0 Applications to make their application valuable.
By doing this Memoland don’t have the “the cold-start problem”, since the data is generated from your previous online life the user feels rewarded from the beginning.
The problem with this application is that it can have different effect on the users. Maybe some will feel that their data is suddenly very visible to all the other people using the app, or maybe have the complete opposite effect and some want to use the various Web 2.0 applications even more to capture their online-life. I have looked at my timeline, and I will admit it is really fun to see what you have been doing since 2007!

The privacy issue does not need be explained. If someone hacks my account, they will get all my Internet activity the last 4 years. But Memolane have given you these choices:

• Private - which means that only you will be able to view the memos from that service
• Friends only - this allows your friends on Memolane to see these memos, but not anyone else
• Public - which means that anyone can see your memories at the URL of your memolane.

So you have full control over what you are sharing with the rest of the world, or maybe just your contacts you can add as friends to the application (They can also add stories to your different dates or entries) !

Follow the timeline for the Memoland story here to get a preview of your online-life would look like . Cool huh?