IGNITER

Threading Twitter, Weaving the Web.

It’s been an exciting year in the development of the Social Venture Commons and Shouldless Inc. We’ve learned a lot and believe what we contributing to the emergence of public micro-messages as a new foundation for distributed collaboration and collective intelligence.

Twitter has been experiencing extraordinary growth and the the use of #hashtags has enabled a new dimension. As we tag, we build threads. These threads weave throughout the Twittersphere, linking interests, communities and conversations. As we tag we’re collectively weaving a tapestry that both describes our world and crafts the edges of what creates it. Over time I’m fascinated by the potential reach threads can have and see them as a launch-pad for new collaborations. And as these things happen, I can only imagine what these threads will be able to tell us about our selves and where the world is going. Only time will tell.

For those who have followed this blog and our exploration of this concept and the way we can peer-produce organizations it may have looked messy.  In a way it was. It’s also been incredibly efficient.  Putting everything out there has attracted great feedback and new collaborators and has resulted in the launch of our core platform thread.io.

My hope is that this is just the beginning. Everything in me says we’re on to something. What matters though is what you think and what your experiences tell you. We hope you give it a try and let us know what you think.

In this world where web apps can be built, launched and iterated quickly we’re seeing more and more of the perpetual beta. Even most of googles apps carry the ‘beta’ tag long past when my usage experience seems to be bug free.

One side of me says, forget the distinction… of course it’s always beta… if it’s not it’s not evolving. Another side, says it’s about managing expectations, as in “Don’t throw things at your computer (or me) if this doesn’t work as you want it to.”

As we work onBy launching thread.io I’ve been pushed to figure out some sort of rationale for our ‘readiness status’. In trying to balance our desire to iterate rapidly in public and at the same time indicate what users can expect from the service, here’s what I think we’re going to go with:

• Public Alpha: We’re got some minimum basics but are still working on our core tech and interface. We prefer ‘public’ so we’re opening it for experimentation by anyone who wants. Expect frequent #fail.
• Beta: Here we’ll have developed our core tech and features and will be  working hard on scalability and prioritizing new features. Expect the occaisional #fail.

For sure we’ll be going live early. Earlier than I’ll probably be comfortable with but I keep finding that every time I push something to the public I get benefits that outweigh the costs. I wonder what’s ‘too early’ – I just hope we don’t find out.

I’ve been unsubscribing from email subscriptions like crazy lately and have just been prompted to review my online profiles in prep for the launch of http://thread.IO.

I used to want product/org updates to come to me… ones that I had requested. That seems to be changing though. I’m shifting to reliance on curation and synchronicity like never before. That means relying on Twitter, Friendfeed, Tumblr and direct notices from real people who know me to find out what’s going on. It marks my trust that what needs to, will find me. This is big. And I think it’s a reflection of how the social web is fundamentally changing us. I don’t want new destinations I want humanly pre-filtered inputs.

In terms of profiles, I’m also finding myself less drawn to define myself by the companies/projects I’m affiliated. I seem to be trying to express who I am and am more comfortable letting the companies/projects just surface in the content. My sense is that this also relates to the gig economy where we are increasingly people who do stuff rather than people being a part of stuff that happens.

Which leads me to my final ramble… how I use this blog is changing. I will be doing more unfinished thoughts and posts as they happen. I have also been more actively on my tumblog which is more about sharing what I encounter throughout my day (my curated content).  And finally if you want a firehose of my content you can check out my FriendFeed which grabs all the contributions I make in this social web. As I play with these things, and can find the time or help, I’ll be updating this blog to bring it together in a cleaner way.

Feels like this is a transition to a new way of being. Something that’s been coming, but has just become more practical. The transition will be messy but it’s a great time for ideas and experimentation too.