FIXZR

Google recently ‘hi-jacked’ a Microsoft Outlook protocol (OWA) to make it’s new Google Sync App work for the iPhone. Clever and a bit sneeky. Now you can sync Google with your native iPhone Apps (for calendar, contacts, mail) using OWA - and not a hint of Outlook anywhere to be seen. It is a nice example of a de-facto standard becoming an ‘open’ standard. Now lets turn a similar thought to the webs latest darling middleware /communications platform - Twitter.

Twitter is as much social phenomenon as tech innovation. That said, lets just focus on the tech for a moment. Twitter usernames are like a lazy, somewhat jumbled email address, the @ is in the wrong place and the domain name is missing (e.g. gmail.com). Essentially all usernames currently are assumed to be tied to a single provider of identities (i.e. Twitter Corp itself). But what if the protocol were to be extended a little, to break this assumption and enable multiple providers to issue usernames, just the way email works (you could be truly radical and just use the email address as the username if you liked). Could Twitter function if multipe providers were involved, and would Twitter Corp need to consent, or would the co-operation of the leading 5-15 Twitter Client providers be enough?

Lets break this down into some more detail (please comment to help develop this further). Twitter provides a few functions:

1) Free hosting of people’s ‘micro’-blog posts (no issue here with multiple providers, this is how ‘macro’-blogging works already)

2) Easy maintenance of who you are following (no issue here, RSS already enables you to ‘follow’ across multiple blog hosts)

3) The ability to message a user / blogger publicly (no issue here either, this just requires you to ‘post’ your own ‘comments’)

4) The ability to message a user / blogger privately (this is basically email forwarding and isn’t an issue)

5) The ability to search all posts by all users - in real time (I’m sure Google would be willing to offer this if pushed!)

Is this thought so radical or could Twitter be opened-up, without Twitter Corp driving it? It could help drive innovation, share the server bill around, and keep the service true to its add free roots. The value would then truly be in the ’social momentum’ behind the idea (and not the tech platform), and that value would be retained by those who’ve created it. The idea may not only appeal to the rebel forces, but also the big incumbents who’d like to neutralise a new threat, and stay hip with the kids.

* I’ve deliberatly not addressed the model where by all Tweets are private and need constent for people to follow.