October 2008: The Semantic Web Gang discusses the launch of Twine
In October’s edition of the Semantic Web Gang, a full complement of regulars is joined by Radar Networks‘ CEO Nova Spivack and Chief Architect Jim Wissner in a discussion of Twine.
Unveiled at the Web 2.0 Summit in November 2007 and released in beta earlier this year, version 1.0 of Twine was opened to the world toward the end of October, and widely reported (see my coverage on ZDNet here, for example.)
In this discussion we touch upon the purpose of Twine, review the first few days of live operation, and then focus upon the team’s plans for the future.
When originally announced, Twine was closely associated with the Semantic Web, although the company’s current marketing is less quick to make that link. In conversation we discover more about priorities for the 1.0 release and dig into some of the ways in which semantic technologies will play an increasingly important role moving forward.
During the conversation, we refer to the following resources;
- Calais
- compete.com
- Freebase
- Glue
- ISWC
- Metaweb
- Movable Type
- OWL
- Powerset
- Quantum Computer
- Radar Networks
- RDF
- ReadWriteWeb
- Semantic Web Challenge
- SIOC
- Siri
- SPARQL
- Twine
- Web 3.0 Conference
This conversation was recorded on Friday 31 October, 2008.
November 4th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
[…] October’s episode of the Semantic Web Gang features a discussion with Nova Spivack and Jim Wissner of Radar Networks, talking about their company’s recent public launch of ’semantic web’ site Twine. Share This Comment (RSS) | Trackback […]
November 4th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
[…] was released today. It’s available on the The Semantic Web Gang blog as a post titled “October 2008: The Semantic Web Gang discusses the launch of Twine“. It is in fact about the recent public release of the Twine.com system by Radar […]
November 4th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Paul, I thought your cuddly questions were good and useful, so keep it up!
November 4th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
[…] Web Gang Following the public launch of Radar Networks’ Twine toward the end of last month, October’s episode of the Semantic Web Gang features a conversation with Radar’s Nova Spivack and Jim Wissner. The […]
November 8th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
[…] jours Nova Spivack (CEO de Twine) et Jim Wissner son chief architect (le sien, à lui). Durant cette interview de 1h Nova fait le point sur le chemin parcouru, le récent lancement de Twine et les défis de […]
December 4th, 2008 at 3:34 am
[…] love listening to podcasts when I fly. As I type this, am listening to October’s Semantic Web Gang, where they are talking about Twine. My feelings about Twine are mixed. The concept and, at least […]
January 1st, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Twine’s October launch was a classic case study on how NOT to position a brand commercially and how NOT to represent your core audience:
Here are some interesting facts on whether Candice Noble (Twine’s Director of Marketing’s) ‘We organize that s***’ video
* http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/21/twine-we-organize-that-shit/
and Twine’s other marketing material is successful or smart, and what’s happened in the month I’ve been off-Twine.
According to compete.com, in November 2008 the average stay for users on Twine DROPPED —47.4% from October’s 5:56 minutes to 3:08 minutes and the average number of pages visited / clicked through also FELL —29.5% from 9 to 7 pages.
Notably, during its beta peak in August, the average stay was 15 to 16 minutes and the average number of viewed pages was 12 in May, which are gold mine metrics for prospective advertisers.
Alas, at 3:08 minutes and only 7 pages how likely will Twine attract advertisers and therefore revenue in this tough climate? Why would an advertiser / marketing company go to Twine when there are social networks / tech sites with 1 million page impressions per month and average stay of 6+ minutes that are themselves struggling to attract advertising?
Moreover, Nova insists he wants to “build a Global Brain” and “increase connective intelligence” with semantic technologies and now proffers Twine as some sort of enterprise CMS. I have news for Nova.
I created and ran e-Intelligence in a Tier 1 bank. It had a daily feed service, original authorship, audience share, an integrated P2P IM that rivaled Skype’s, was synched with eRooms and other third-party tools for all my transactions work (including document shares with other banks) and my MS Office. That was Web 1.0. Twine is supposed to be Web 3.0 and it is not even as well set-up functionally as my e-Intelligence service.
Furthermore, what’s the likelihood of Twine being allowed behind the firewalls and passing due diligence when it still has unresolved bugs, privacy breach and technical issues as well as lack of comprehensive user support?
It’s all very well everyone supporting the Semantic Web movement; I happen to agree with it.
Nonetheless, companies at the forefront of SemWeb have a RESPONSIBILITY to suitably respect their smart audiences, deliver on the technical goodies which genuinely differentiate Semantic from statistical methodologies and to strategize appropriately.
That does NOT entail stupid marketing or disrespecting the online consumer’s intelligence.
Otherwise, said SemWeb co underperforms / attracts negative press / fails and make it easier for naysayers to say, “See? SemWeb doesn’t work.”
Technically, the emerging standards do offer the potential to evolve the Web’s smarts at an accelerated level. There are limitations as explicated in my Global Brain article:
* http://knol.google.com/k/twain/the-global-brain-singularity-and-360/31fjy9fjsu1×2/19
Most importantly, it would help if each and every single SemWeb co makes EXTREMELY SERIOUS CONSIDERATIONS about the semantics of its own brand associations.
Videos tying users’ content and its own system to the word s*** in search engines is probably not a smart move — as evidenced by Twine’s lastest compete.com stats.
YES, I did try to steer Twine clear of s***, icebergs and strategic no-no’s. I produced user guides, handheld newbies and did (( (show+tells ))) with fellow Power Users to contribute to showcasing Twine as a smart system with smart folk engaging on it.
I did NOT spend 10 months of beta providing quality strategic support to then see Twine launch with “We organize that s***” which debases the platform and disrespects the community.
Nova now has his answers as to who was right on that issue too.
He can go and look at compete.com.
January 1st, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Incidentally, Nova can explain that the “We organize that s***” video was “accidentally leaked” and a prank on him until he’s blue in the face.
There are a few golden Marketing 101 as formulated by the management greats like Kotler, Peters, Maslow, Taylor etc. AND HIS OWN ESTEEMED GRANDFATHER, Peter Drucker:
• Know your customers.
• The customer is always right.
• Keep open communication channels.
• Customer feedback contributes to the value chain.
• Be thankful you have customers who care enough to provide input.
Nowhere does it say to do what Twine marketing did:
* Close user feedback without consultation
* Make a joke out of Twine with “We Organize that Shit!”
* Conduct a misinformed user survey to base your strategy on
* more
It’s just as well he has a better sense of humor about s*** and Twine marketing’s numerous mistakes than me because that’s what’s going to unravel his vision and Twine’s future more and faster than the underlying semantic engine or the conducive features like the bookmarklet, post by email and the share facilities.
Twine’s under-performance (it did not make R/RW’s Top 10 Semantic apps or win any awards in 2008) is a genuine shame and surprise because it’s benefited from some of the best technical and business model advice from its supporters, including me.
I hope in 2009 they have the sense to appoint two smart people:
* Head of Strategy + Innovation
* new Director of Marketing who has experience marketing quality content and best practice branding along the lines of Google, Apple and Virgin rather than s*** videos.
Only then will Twine’s compete.com stats actually reflect its technical capabilities and user interest.