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Can the D.C. Tech Community Unite? Posted: 08 Jul 2008 11:00 AM CDT Last week there was an article in the Post which highlighted the division of technology networking groups in the D.C. area. There was “a more formal event, with many silver-haired executives running their second or third technology company.” Then there was the D.C. bash that we helped put together. The result was two divergent crowds. The reason for all of this? I would suggest that one of the reasons is that some have adopted the “social technology” and others haven’t. Many that read this blog read their RSS Feeds daily, find out about events on Facebook and are happy to jump on the latest micro-blogging platform. The other group is still stuck in the ways they have learned over more than a decade and are perfectly fine reading the latest edition of their favorite email newsletter. Try telling somebody that receives 100 emails a day and has their Google Reader packed with over 1,000 unread items that they have another email newsletter to read. It just won’t happen. So aside from what may appear to be technology snobbery, there is an opportunity to further what hasn’t been done already: connect these two technology groups. Currently, the attendees that have registered are largely part of the social media crowd but there are some unfamiliar names popping up and sure hope that continues. So next week, Thursday July 17th, the first mixer of the NVTC crowd and the D.C. social media community will take place at Local 16 on U Street. I will be blasting out an email to the attendees of the past event in hopes that they attend and hopefully NVTC does the same. It will hopefully be an event to remember and maybe, we will finally see the barriers between the two groups disappear. I’ve definitely been hoping this would take place for a long time. So next week, come show your support at the Twin Tech Party. Oh and if you needed another reason to show up, as usual there will be free drinks. I look forward to seeing you there!

If a Thought Leader Told You to Jump Off a Cliff … Posted: 08 Jul 2008 09:54 AM CDT Over the past few months, Twitter has been plagued with downtime. They even went so far as to turn of their replies feature, turn off their API and turn off IM integration. The result was that some of the most vocal community members started running elsewhere. Whether it was Plurk, Identi.ca or FriendFeed, there was immediately conversations going on all over the place. Last night new numbers came out showing that Twitter wasn’t on the decline though and instead it was actually rising in traffic. Those numbers were provided by Quantcast. I’m not so sure about Quantcast numbers though and will be waiting to see what the Compete stats show when they are released in the next couple days. What is important here is that there appears to be a vocal community which is now active across a ton of sites. How do they maintain their activity? Well, managing their social media identities has become a full-time gig. There is no possible way to be active on all these sites and also have another full-time job. At this point I would say that the social media evangelists and thought leaders have over evangelized the products out there. I have been evangelizing Plurk, but with FriendFeed and the multiple other sites, I no longer know how to maintain my micro-blogging livelihood. Will the evangelists kill Twitter by running to another site? Probably not. As MG Siegler puts it, “the only thing Twitter has to fear is Twitter itself.” I think sometimes we get a little too carried away with the next shiny object. If Twitter can manage to continue running and can get their act together, I think they’ll continue to be the leading micro-blogging service. In the meantime, you can figure out if you want to follow the thought leaders off the cliff into micro-blogging bankruptcy. I took the jump. Will you?

Twitter Acquisition of Summize Highly Unlikely Posted: 08 Jul 2008 08:26 AM CDT Want a good way to build a popular blog? Make up a story! According to “the sources” of what appears to be a high school student, Summize is being acquired by Twitter. Mike Arrington’s verification model for this source? Why a FriendFeed post from Jason Calacanis of course! Mike Arrington has confirmation that the two companies were talking but no acquisition confirmation. While it makes sense for Twitter to acquire Summize, I just don’t understand why a high school student that has three friends on Facebook and three feed readers would get this scoop. Does the acquisition of Summize by Twitter make sense? Sure but so does Facebook or LinkedIn eventually going public as well as a number of eventual certainties which have yet to be released. In the blogging world, all you need is a hint of a rumor followed by a disconnected confirmation to ensure that the article is worth writing. Today, the article still sits toward the top of Techmeme and still has absolutely no confirmation. Do I have confirmation of the negative, that Twitter did not buy Summize? Not at all but this is the world of blogging and to confirm the negative is absolutely ludicrous! Update Apparently the unlikely source was in fact true. Om Malik has dug up a source to confirm the rumor. Apparently an announcement will come next week. Looks like Josh Chandler is on his way to becoming a journalist!

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