Twitter's 'Cyber Ghetto'
Without a clear reason for being, Twitter is about to flail its way into a "cyber-ghetto" for the aimless, alongside second-tier social network MySpace. At least that's the argument of a provocative post from Cody Brown, NYU's new-media wunderkind.
Young Brown should take a look at 37-year-old Evan Williams' biography. The Twitter co-founder worked at Google for a year and a half, witnessing first-hand how a total lack of focus — Google branched out wildly from search— is no barrier to massive profits. Then Twitter happened only because Williams was aimless enough to abandon the original startup from which it sprang, Odeo, just as he had abandoned the original plan of the company behind his last smash hit, Blogger.
Williams is the perfect embodiment of the Silicon Valley ethos that business plans are oppressive things, to be deferred as long as possible.
