What Twitter Says About Cloud Computing

For most people the holidays are a time to celebrate with family and friends, to wish each other good cheer, good health and prosperity in the new year. It's also a time to recharge and ready one's self for the long slog ahead. As for me, it's all these things and more. It's also a chance to disconnect (a bit) from Silicon Valley, as I head back east to escape my daily routine - reading, writing and talking about technology. Instead I visit with people who don't make their living off technology and are, therefore, not so instantly enamored of it. Moreover, it's a barometer for how the rest of the world (okay, a small sample size) looks at, thinks about, and/or uses technology.

The surprising thing was that, for possibly the first time in almost twenty years of traveling back home, most people got the general concept of what was emerging out of the Valley. Now, I know the Valley isn't the only technology hub in the world, so substitute your preferred locale because the story is transferable in this sense: technology people live in a cocoon just like everybody else. What we think of as important or interesting is little more than a curiosity to others. But, at least they're curious and the reason they are is that they see how technology can impact their lives directly. That is, when it works flawlessly and for a fair (or free) price. So yes, the computing industry is a little different than others industries because it can be hip and cool and useful. (And dominated by intriguing personalities like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.)

And that brings me to cloud computing. And to Twitter. As I mentioned earlier, the conversations I had were a little different this year. Whether business folk or consumers, people have had enough with packaged software, endless updates, tiresome integration, confusing licensing and all the rest. The idea that one can simply access applications and content over the web, pay-as-you-go, and be done with it easily resonates with most people. It just makes sense. And people are tired of the difficulty - again whether in their professional or personal lives - of trying to make things work and the expense of owning all the hardware and software to put it all together. The bottom line in this regard is that users crave simplicity and utility. Cloud computing is the evolution of computing towards that end.

So, what does Twitter have to do with this story? Well, that was one area that my family and friends simply couldn't quite figure out. Okay, they see the simplicity. "It's like texting without actually texting." Uhm yes, but it is so much more. Thus, it's the utility of Twitter that people don't understand.

I think most people start that way with it. I sure did. But, very quickly one can begin to see the utility. It is like a people power revolution. In some cases, as in Iran, this is literally true. Phil Wainewright's headline in his latest blog says it all: People-centric IT for a new decade. As he writes, "It’s an acknowledgment [sic] that people are both the commanding providers and the ultimate end consumers of any of the services in a computing architecture." There is utility in them thar 140 characters. There is utility because it is a both a container and conduit of information. But not just any information. And not just from any source. (Though it can be that too.) It is a place where the most important conversations can take place.

David Carr wrote an interesting piece - Why Twitter Will Endure - for the New York Times this past Sunday. He quotes Clay Shirky, the author of a book on social media titled "Here Comes Everbody." Shirky explains:

“Anything that is useful to both dissidents in Iran and Martha Stewart has a lot going for it; Twitter has more raw capability for users than anything since e-mail. It will be hard to wait out Twitter because it is lightweight, endlessly useful and gets better as more people use it. Brands are using it, institutions are using it, and it is becoming a place where a lot of important conversations are being held.”

Carr also quotes Steven Johnson of Time magazine.

“The history of the Internet suggests that there have been cool Web sites that go in and out of fashion and then there have been open standards that become plumbing,” said Steven Johnson, the author and technology observer who wrote a seminal piece about Twitter for Time last June. “Twitter is looking more and more like plumbing, and plumbing is eternal.”

Wow, plumbing? Twitter as infrastructure? Really?

Really.

And that brings us back to cloud computing. Twitter and cloud computing have not only crossed paths, they've also started to morph. Enter Salesforce Chatter, which is meant to bring social networking into the enterprise and "allows any company to collaborate in real time with a secure, private social network for their enterprise".

It is Marc Benioff and his cohorts at Salesforce.com that aim to lay a new foundation for the enterprise based on collaborative sharing of content with context on everything from the latest war room mega-deal to the company Christmas (oops, Holiday) party. It is another step towards a people-centric IT architecture. How many times have you heard or experienced the exasperation of two (or more) teams working on the same or similar project or deal, to the detriment of all involved because they were unaware or ill-informed of what the other was doing? (Hint: this just happened over the skies of Detroit.)

Social media like Twitter and Chatter are geared towards breaking down silos of information and putting the user in more control by giving them the tools to carry on the conversation. Look at it the other way and it gives consumers a conduit into the company.

Consider Steve Gillmor's article in TechCrunchIT, The Man Who Came to Dinner, where he starts out by stating "Chatter is likely to become a key differentiator in the contest for momentum in cloud computing". He goes on to explain:

For each civilian identity, Chatter offers an extended professional identity with tools to cross-index among enterprises and their internal taxonomies. It’s like taking Twitter lists and harnessing them across affinity groups inside and across companies, leaving Twitter and its clients to carving up the customer end of the transactions...Salesforce has consistently outperformed the expectations of its competitors, not so much by some magical formula as by understanding the principles of bootstrapping pioneered by an early group of engineers and standards politicos [sic]. Google’s success at decoupling Office from our private lives has now rendered the opportunity to remake the business relationships from the inside out. Chatter can instantiate customer relationships based on what gestures we send to signal streams of our willingness to sip and save.

What was the biggest technology news of the past year? The confluence of social networks and cloud computing. Twitter and Chatter. Plumbing. And it just might be built to last.