What did Craig Newmark say about the parrots?

The question has far deeper relevance than it might at first seem. OK, that's probably overstating it. How about: The seemingly silly question actually has relevance — for three reasons.

First off, Newmark is the "Craig" of craigslist.org, the free 'n simple online classifieds system that, if you believe the critics (I don't), single-handedly brought down the entire multi-billion dollar newspaper industry. So when Craig Newmark says something, you figure it's probably important, even if it is about parrots.

Second, Newmark referenced parrots on Twitter, the one-line e-blast Web site that is taking the online community by storm (his exact message was "Wild parrots!"). Ever the inquiring journalist, I wanted to know more. Could he be referring, for instance, to the parrots of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, where he makes his home? (He confirmed as much in subsequent tweets.)

So it goes with Twitter, the software with an infuriatingly vague raison d'etre. You can use Twitter and think you understand it, until someone asks you what it is. Then you've got a real mountain of Jello on your hands.

Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, found this out the other day when he called Twitter a "sort of poor man's e-mail." The context was a bunch of other communications systems that Schmidt was lumping together for ease of reference. Schmidt even got Twitter's famous message limit wrong, pegging it at 160 characters instead of the actual 140. (That's characters, not words — a mistake many have repeated as well.)

Schmidt meant nothing demeaning in the comment. He was just trying to place Twitter in a frame of reference that made sense for the Web's evolution, all the while denying that Google had any interest in buying Twitter. (Some feel the 160-character error was a tell that Google is developing its own system with a longer limit.) But all it got for him was misunderstanding.

The best way to characterize Twitter is to use a cocktail party analogy. At a cocktail party you're talking to a lot of people, usually in pretty short sentences, usually in a small group, back and forth. You segue from group to group, exchanging pleasantries.

If at the end of the evening all those comments were transcribed under their originators' names, it would look something like Twitter.

Now you may be wondering where all this is headed. Why would someone want to post cocktail party conversation on the Web?

The answer is that, like many new social-networking vehicles on the Web, Twitter represents a potential ecosystem, with a potential business model. To see how this might happen requires an understanding of the Web's (and social networking's) evolution toward more of an oral, rather than print, tradition.

Before the printing press, people shared information pretty much the way Twitter operates. You learned the news of the day in bits and pieces, as more information came via word-of-mouth and stories got embellished, corrected and refined.

That's the way "news" works with Twitter (and social networks). You find out things in dribs and drabs. Someone links to a URL. Someone else mentions seeing something on TV. When a snowstorm happens, everyone Twitters what's going on where they are.

---

Google exec: 'Twitter-like service' more interesting with more data.

How much is "suggested" worth?

The size of your Twitter makes me feel inadequate

Dave Winer explains further

Twitter has been called "micro-blogging" because people tweet the equivalent of miniature blog posts and links (using a Web "cruncher" that compresses a long URL into a few characters).

Perhaps this explains why you don't find many (already blogging-averse) journalists on Twitter. You do find columnists and pundits, who unfortunately tend to use the system as advertisements for themselves. But a conventional print journalist has little use for a system that would broadcast information he or she is saving for an article or newscast or whatever.

The problem is that inevitably instant, real-time communications (as in an oral tradition) render obsolete anything resembling a "news cycle." It becomes pointless to hold on to information (which, as we all know, wants to be free). Another old-school function of journalism is laid moot.

Of course, if there were a way to monetize twittering, the dynamic might change. Reporters would be happy to twitter updates in a story they were tracking if they could get paid for it. Right now, that day seems like a long ways away. The focus still seems to be on "saving" things — publications, newsrooms and a journalist's very salary — instead of experimenting with new business models for online journalism.

Still, Twitter already has profound "e-conomy" implications. One practice has ignited a simmering backlash against the system.

It has to do with a Twitter feature called "suggested users page." If you happen to be so fortunate to make the list, your followers (the circle of Twitter users who supposedly pay attention to your every tweet) could jump from merely hundreds or thousands to a staggering 200,000 or more.

Why should you care, other than for ego strokes? After all, you're not going to be spending much time in meaningful interaction with 200,000 twitterers.

Because real money is potentially at stake. If the feature evolved into something really focused and beneficial, driven by users like Netflix's movie-recommendation system, it could help us all find like-minded people a lot more easily than we can now. The implications are obvious for advertisers and marketers. For a reporter, it could mean a pool of sources as well as a reader base and a means of supporting journalism on the Web.

There's a potential downside. As uberblogger Dave Winer, who earned nearly 20,000 followers "the hard way," posted on Thursday, "the people who got the push have a problem if they are members of the press, because this gift they got from Twitter is worth money. It might be worth a lot of money. If one of them posts a pointer on a Twitter account it's going to get a lot of flow. And what if a reporter were critical of Twitter in a piece she wrote, would Twitter revoke her status?"

If the Twitter gods play favorites, it could just as easily cost reporters money out of pocket. It also ultimately turns Twitter into a celebrity board, vitiating its utility as a social network.

For now, Craig Newmark is probably happy no one can pay him to tweet. He doesn't need any more blood on his hands.

Oh yeah: The third reason Newmark's tweet on parrots is relevant? At some point, a noteworthy number of Craig's tweets took on literal meaning, having to do with birds. Bird feedings. Bird sightings. Bird behavior. You might call Craig's short, punchy posts ... bird droppings.

I think it's a little joke Newmark is sharing with his 8,614 followers. I have to admit, I grin every time I read one. Who could ask for more from 140 characters?

Paul Andrews, co-author of "Gates," is a former Seattle Times technology columnist now doing online journalism. Find him on Twitter (tweetPaul) and his personal blog, paulandrews.com. He also runs BikeIntelligencer.com. Read all of his TechFlash columns here.