John Battelle's Searchblog

From Biz' post on Twitter's shift:

Twitter helps you share and discover what's happening now among all the things, people, and events you care about. "What are you doing?" isn't the right question anymore—starting today, we've shortened it by two characters. Twitter now asks, "What's happening?"

Well, regardless of spin, this is a major shift, to my mind. Semantics matter, *a lot*, when your entire business is, well, semantics. Language is how we encode that which is essential to who we are. And there is a world of difference between "What are YOU doing" (emphasis mine) and "What's happening".

For starters, it's a rather subtle leapfrog of Facebook, which has recently mimicked Twitter with its status updates. Facebook is stuck (but there are upsides to this stuck-ness) in a personal framework. Twitter, by moving past the YOU, is declaring Facebook's imitation moot.

Will that stick? We'll see. But I love to see the evolution of the space. It's such good narrative...

You imagine something out loud in a book, and then it starts to happen....

I am sure many of you have heard of RedLaser, but I hadn't until today. I love it!

Here's the text from my blog post, written in 2004 (pre iPhone, so I used a Treo...) which I rewrote into the book:

What to do? Not to worry, you’ve got Google Mobile Shop installed on your phone. You whip out your Treo 950, the one with the infrared UPC reader installed, and you wand it over that bottle of 2001 Clos Du Val now lovingly cradled in your arms. In less than a second a set of options is presented on the phone’s screen ....

Here's the video on the app:

Today I had quite an experience with United Airlines. It has very little to do with much of anything I usually write about here, save one key element: I have posited that to succeed in what I've been calling the Conversation Economy, companies must learn to have conversations with their customers at scale. (And to do so, they will need to leverage open platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc. and, of course, change the way they instrument their business. But more on that later).

Well, here's a tale of one company failing miserably at doing just that, even while, in the end, due to my own insistence (and most likely, the rising level of anger in my voice), it kind of, sort of, managed to not totally fail.

But first, the backstory.

I am a United flyer, in the main. I'm not saying I'm a proud, loyal, or passionate United flyer, but a United flyer I am. I like their "PS" service between NY and SF, and I fly that route a lot - to the point of knowing the flight attendants and picking exactly which seats I settle into each trip. I tend to fly United where ever else I go (and anyone who follows me on Twitter knows I go to a lot of places). I've been an Executive Premier there for a long, long time (though I think it dropped at some point during the bad years of 2001-02) - which means I fly a ton with United. At some point or other this year, in fact, a gate agent at United let me know that I'm a million mile flyer - however, most of their agents on the phone have no idea what I'm talking about when I recite this nugget back to them.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying, I know the airline really, really well. And when I fly, even with my family, I tend to fly with United, even though I've had my share of travel and customer service disasters (and you all know, regardless of what airline you fly, what I mean by that).

But does the airline know me? No. Not at all. And today was a remarkable example of that in action.

So today my wife and I decide that we're going to fly to Arizona for Thanksgiving - all five of us. Her family is there, and we've decided to join them. Since this is not a work trip, I use Expedia to check flights between the Bay area and Tucson - I've been there many times in the past, and I know direct flights are very hard to come by. Turns out, there is a direct flight, and it's on United, and - double luck! - it's just at the times (departure and return) that I want to fly. Economy seats are priced, roundtrip, on Expedia at about $440 each. Pricey, but it's not like I have a lot of choice. It's a week away, and there are no other direct flights. And yeah, it's true, I'm willing to pay the extra hundred bucks to not have to connect through Vegas, LA, or Phoenix when traveling with three kids. Anyway.

Experience told me that the kind of reservation I wanted to make would require human interaction - five seats, three kids, possible upgrades, etc. - so armed with the flight numbers and times, I called United directly.

Now, it's Sunday afternoon around 1 pm. After running a gauntlet of voice recognition driven commands, and finally asking, five times in a row, for an "Agent! Agent! AGENT! .... yes....AGENT!" I get...an agent.

Now United, like many large companies who must handle a large volume of customer service, has a preponderance of customer service agents based in India. They are almost universally pleasant, professional, and courteous, but, I have found, they are also not very good at coloring outside the lines. So when I call in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, with three kids in the background, asking whether there's a good business fare for my wife and I, and whether we might get an upgrade from economy, and oh by the way is there any chance the flight leaving at 7 pm is relatively empty, and if so, might we get seats in economy near the front, etc. - well, it's been my experience that nine times out of ten, the call will devolve to the point where neither I nor the still-professional but clearly flummoxed customer service agent are having any fun. At all.

Which is exactly what happened. However, this call took a turn for the worse not based on a lack of communication, but on the real time usury of United's pricing system. Herewith an edited transcript of my conversation with the agent:

ME: So how much would it be if my wife and I flew in Business, and my kids flew in Economy?

AGENT: There is no Business class on this plane.

ME: OK, so that means there are two classes of service?

AGENT: Yes.

ME: OK, great, so let me ask it another way...how much would it be if my wife flew in the more expensive class, and my kids flew in economy? I just want to know in case it's a good deal. Otherwise, maybe I'll try to get upgraded....

AGENT: So you want two First Class tickets?

ME: Erhm...well, no, I want to know how much a First Class ticket would cost?

AGENT: OK hold on....(45 second delay)...OK, that would be $1633.20.

ME: EACH?!

AGENT: Yes.

ME: But it's a 90 minute flight!

AGENT: Yes.

ME: (Recalling the Expedia fares of around $440). And how much are the economy seats?

AGENT: For three?

ME: Erhm....well, I just want to know how much an Economy class fare is.

AGENT: Let me check. (90 seconds go by.....) OK. Economy class fare for three would come out to $447 for each, round trip.

ME: (Relieved) That's great. Let's just do five Economy fares then. No way am I going to pay nearly four times the Economy rate to sit in First!

AGENT: Erhm....(30 second delay)....well sir, just a minute.

ME: Is there a problem?

AGENT: Well, no. Can I put you on hold?

ME: (Fearing the Interminable Purgatory Of Hold) NO! Please don't put me on hold. What's the problem?

AGENT: Well, it's just that the system is now giving me a new price for each Economy fare roundtrip.

ME: (Fearing the system). Why?

AGENT: Well, before, I asked for just three seats. Now you want five.

ME: ....and?...

AGENT: And well, there are only six left on that flight.

ME: So....what is the system saying to you now?

AGENT: Sir, the price is now $2011.

ME: Holy sh*t.

AGENT: Sir....

ME: Really?

AGENT: Yes, so can I put you on hold and see what is going on?

ME: Yes, please do. Please.

For the next five or so minutes, I am put on hold, which for no additional fee includes a very peppy rendition of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, a tune I never, ever thought I'd dislike. But over the years, United has put that faith to the test.

About a minute in, I start to twitch. I'm not one to hold well, and my wife is now hovering over my computer, asking what is going on. So I fire up Twitter and post this plea:

Of course, nothing happens immediately (and as of this post, still nothing...8 hours later). So back in the moment, I have a revelation - I think I have a special phone number for Super Premium United Customers, one that I got at about the same time I was told about the Million Mile thingy.

I look it up in my contacts and yes, there it is. So I call it on my cel, even as I'm on hold with United.

Same voice recognition tree. Same result - I'm screaming "AGENT" about 30 seconds or so in.

And after some reconciliation between me and the computer, an agent does indeed come on. A very nice Indian gentleman who asks how he might help me.

ME: Er, hello. Forgive me if my voice sound strained but so far I've had a rather rough time of it with United's pricing system. I have a complicated fare I'm hoping you might help me with. (Secretly, I'm hoping I can find a backdoor into United pricing heaven, of course...)

AGENT: How can I help you?

ME: Well, I'd like it if you can price for me five economy seats on (this) flight on (that date)?

AGENT: Certainly.

ME: (A bit sheepishly) Uhm, and...can I ask you something?

AGENT: Certainly sir.

ME: Is this the super special line?

AGENT: Sir?

ME: Well, it's just that I called a number that I thought was for premium customers, but the voice mail tree was the same and you didn't seem to know who I was....

AGENT: I am a reservation agent.

ME: Oh yes, I know. I was just wondering if you...

AGENT: How can I help you?

ME: OK. Well, tell you what. Can I give you my mileage number? Would that help?

AGENT: Certainly sir.

ME: (Gives number).

AGENT: Thank you. Now, how can I help you.

ME: Well, again, I'd like it if you can price for me five economy seats on (this) flight on (that date)? It's just that I tried this already, and I got a really, really high price on the seats, higher even than the price for First Class, and the agent told me it was because there were only six seats left, and I wanted more than three, and...anyway, I don't think it's fair to pay that much for seats that were quoted to me at $447 during the same phone call, is it?

AGENT: I don't know, sir.

ME: But really, I mean, well, it's usury, isn't it? It's not fair?! When I asked for just three seats, I got a quote of $447 each!

AGENT: Sir, it's just how the system works.

ME: But ... (resisting the urge to scream "DON'T YOU KNOW I'M A GOOD CUSTOMER WHO SHOULDN'T BE TREATED THIS WAY?!!")

At this point, the other agent came back on my other line. I told the agent on my cel phone that I'd call back and returned to my original call.

(ORIGINAL) AGENT: Sir?

ME: Yes, I'm here.

AGENT: Sir, I've checked the system, and that's the price.

ME: So you are telling me the "system" is now saying that instead of paying two times $1633 for First and three times $447 for Economy, if I want to pay for only Economy seats, I have to pay five times $2011?

AGENT: I am afraid so sir.

ME: That's more than $10,000 to fly my family 90 minutes!

AGENT: (silence)

ME: OK. Look, I understand this is not your fault. Can I speak to a supervisor?

AGENT: Certainly. Can I put you on hold?

Look, it's late, and I have a long day tomorrow, so I won't bother you with the resultant blow by blow. Suffice to say, after about another thirty minutes on the phone, I managed to get five economy class seats on the flight, at an average of about $550 each. It took a lot of wheedling, patience, arguing, anger and resolution, not to mention delivery of information I had already delivered more than once. The fellow, who was a supervisor, even tossed out the $25 per ticket "ticketing fee" that he was supposed to tack on (not that I knew about that till he told me he was waiving it, sensing he'd lose me entirely if he forced another $125 in fees on me. He was right, and I do appreciate the gesture).

So in the end, we're on the damn flight.

I got off and I told my wife, in so many words, that we're going to see f*cking Grandpa for f*cking Thanksgiving in f*cking Tucson after all.

So thanks United, for making it that much more special! As you might imagine, I can't wait for Virgin, Southwest, or Jet Blue to start direct service between SF and Tucson. Because when they do, I won't think twice about switching.

Until then, however, you've got my business. But if I were in your shoes, I'd be very, very nervous about the future of yours.

Look. Sure, it's a mobile ad platform, and sure, Google wants to play there, more than they already are. OK. Fine. But really. What's the play?

Droid.

Data.

Droid.

Iphone App Data.

Droid.

K?

Data. Just to be clear. Data. About what works, on iPhone apps, so they can leverage it...for Droid.

K.

Sheesh. Just give Google summary text and headlines to index (like the WSJ does now). Then do your best to convert would be readers to your paid model. That's it. What's the big deal?

The rest is bluster.

Saw this greeting me whilst on Twitter.com today (gotta love WiFi on a plane):

Nice to see Twitter rolling out so many new things, like Lists, which seems to be taking off (though I find the lack of a discovery interface vexing, for now).

Retweeting is integrated in an elegant way, tweets that have been retweeted have a little cycled arrow icon, which identifies tweets that folks you've followed have retweeted. Another signal (as are Lists) that Twitter will be able to use as core data to drive its unique value. Watch that space, it's where Twitter will win (or lose).

Twitter also added the ability to retweet any tweet from within Twitter.com, as you can see in the bottom left of the pic below. No doubt this is all already in the API, as Lists was when it rolled out.

Now, why does all this matter? Well, it helps Twitter, as I already said, by providing the company with very valuable core data about what people find worthy of attention. And signals of attention are gold in a data driven platform like Twitter. Secondly, it addresses the continuing problem of discovery - seeing what has been retweeted helps people find others who might be worth following.

Danny was kind enough to ping me about this story, which breaks the news about Google's new "Dashboard," which is, in essence, a first start toward realizing the "privacy dashboard" I asked for so long ago (and again here), back when I was posting ideas like a madman (I'm going to be doing that again shortly, so watch out...).

It's a big deal I think, even if most of us never use it. And it's very smart of Google to lead here. It really had no choice, when you think about it. And it's kind of cool to see stuff I wrote about here over three years ago happen in the real world.

The sphere is abuzz with today's news that AT&T is suing Verizon over those apparently quite effective ads which borrow heavily from Apple's tagline - "There's an App for that..." Verizon has created a map that compares AT&T 3G coverage to Verizon's, and then uses the tagline "there's a map for that." (Above is the commercial, here's the map.)

Well, I've been ranting about a real carrier mapping application (executed as a marketing campaign, natch), for nearly three years, and while I've told just about everyone I can about it, so far it's still not done (I know, I know, we should make it ourselves, right? Well, maybe we will!).

Meanwhile, here's the idea. If any of you brilliant coder/UX/marketing geniuses want to go do it, just credit FM and I, ok?

The main value of the program? It provides a place where anyone can put a pin on a map and annotate (with four part ranting harmony if they'd like) where their calls are dropped. A service like this exists - deadcellzones.com - but it's not quite what I had in mind. It's got the guts of what I've suggested, but not the scale, interface, community feel, conversational dialog, or program backing. And by program, I mean a major carrier practicing the true principles of conversational marketing, and owning the dialog - listening, responding, and acting upon the input.

I imagine the program working something like this. A major carrier - let's say AT&T, since it's in the news today - decides to build this app. It then announces the app in a major marketing program via a traditional marketing platform (web, TV, etc.). Say you're on Boing Boing, and you see a STAMP execution that announces the new service - perhaps the ad itself is a widget that allows you to push a pin into the map based on a zip code, or whatever. One thing I know, everyone I've ever talked to has a story about how frustrated they are about dropped calls, and everyone has a list of places that are always dropping calls (for me, it's the tunnels around the GGBridge, Sand Hill Road area, and on and on...). So give them a platform to vent about it.

But wait, there's more! Venting is nice, but what'd be nicer is if your venting actually created change in the world! Imagine that! Well, if you're a major carrier, you *can* do something about it. In fact, folks are always giving carriers grief for not putting up more cel sites, but in many cases, the real reasons they can't have nothing to do with profits, and everything to do with the local city council, or geography, or other factors.

So, here's the play: As the pins pile up, those areas which have the most pins start to get "hotter" in a visual way on the map. And then comes the key part: The carrier promises, in its marketing, to address the top ten "hot spots" each quarter (or month, or whatever period of time makes sense). Note I said "address" and not "fix." Why? Because in some cases, there is no fix. For example, coverage at the North end of the Golden Gate Bridge is permanently bad, because, I am told by folks who know, it's very hard to get permission to place cel sites in the right places (the area is a national park *and* part of Sausalito, a notoriously unfriendly place when it comes to outside companies like cel carriers).

So in a case like the North end of the Golden Gate, AT&T "addresses" the problem by responding on the map itself, providing an explanation of why the company can't fix the problem, and suggesting that if consumers are upset, they might write a note to the Sausalito city councilmembers and/or the supervisors of the national park (and provide links, of course!).

The application is a mashup of sorts, blending Google Maps, crowdsourcing, geolocation, and commenting systems.

The plane is about to land, so I have to post and run. I'll revise this when I get back on terra firma. But I believe that whichever carrier actually executes on that map will, in my mind, really win the game. More on why as I update this.

There's much to say about Twitter's slow to roll out but much discussed Lists feature. I'm a fan of it, in short, for many reasons. Lists is a pretty simple idea - it lets anyone make and share a list of folks on Twitter. But it's also a powerful new signal that will help Twitter solve two of its most vexing problems - first, that of discovery, and second, that of authority. Not to mention it gives everyone a chance to add value above the level of a single "follower", more on that later.

In short, if done right, Lists will provide the Twitter ecosystem a third dimension that might just propel it beyond the hype curve and into a long term platform play. Combined (intelligently) with the new traffic coming from Google and Bing, and this could mean Very Big Things for  Twitter.

All this bears further discussion. And I promise to to that, soon. I just wanted to leave a note here that I think this is important, and hopefully, when I stop traveling and start thinking a bit more, I'll dig in here.

Last week was big for Twitter. After years of speculation about whether the company was going to have a business model, Twitter announced two deals at our Web2 conference - first with Microsoft's Bing, and second with Google. Details of the deals were not disclosed, but as Google's Marissa Mayers admitted onstage, there were indeed financial terms.  

What those terms might be strike me as secondary to the fact the deals got done in the first place. Sure, they probably consist of some combination of data services fees and revenue sharing, but the fact remains that monetizing a real time search result remains an elusive art, and one that honestly, Twitter does not want to cede to either Google or Microsoft. So while the two battling search giants may toss a not-insignificant amount of Adwords or AdCenter revenue into Twitters' coffers, what really matters is the the traffic these deals potentially represent, and the validation of Twitter's role in the real time universe. That, I'd argue, is priceless.

Now, did Microsoft and Google do these deals simply to lay claim to a hot new service, or were their actions driven by the time-honored principle of "embrace and extend"? More on that in a future post, because I think the question begs consideration in light of where the culture of search and communication is headed.

The fact that both giants have validated Twitter's role in search led me to reflect on the role that Twitter plays in our culture. "To Tweet" is a verb in the process of becoming - not unlike "To Google" in 2002-3, or "to Xerox" in the 1960s. So what does "tweet" mean, really? Or perhaps more to the point, what *should* it mean?

At the moment, "to tweet" means something along the lines of "to broadcast a thought, in real time, using 140 characters of text or less." And while confining tweets to this creative box has been seminal to the service's early success, I'd argue that continuing to do so will most likely consign Twitter to the status of a verbal footnote in our ongoing cultural conversation.

What I'm struggling to say is that definitions matter. Words matter. My anthropological spidey senses are tingling right now, because we're in a cultural moment where we are redefining how we share a moment. Facebook knows this. Google and Microsoft know it as well. And we all know it - explicitly or implicitly, as a culture we are learning to share our moments in real time, irrespective of geography or traditional social boundaries.

So allow me to suggest what I believe the definition of the verb "to tweet" should become: "To share a moment."

In other words, to truly scale, "Tweet" - the verb-in-process-of-becoming, or, alternatively, the verb-that-could-have-been-but-became-instead-a-footnote-in-history - needs to be defined by more than 140 characters of text.

If you abstract what we're really trying to do with the creative box Twitter has imposed upon us, it's this: We want to share a meaningful moment in time. Sure, we don't all manage to do that so well, but I think the essence of what we're trying to do - "share," "meaningful," and "moment" - can easily be abstracted from the creative box in which Twitter is currently confined.

If you've used a tool like Brizzly, Power Twitter, or any of the many other services that unpack and contextualize your Twitter stream, it's clear that a tweet is much more than text. It can be an image, a video, an overheard snippet of speech. In short, it's a moment, captured, imbued with meaning, and shared.

As long as it remains those things, it's a tweet. And as much as I love the SMS-inspired roots of Twitter's origin, it's time for the service to branch out and embrace its essence, and not get stuck in its own creation myth. If it fails to do so, I think any number of its competitors - Google, Microsoft, Facebook, or an unborn startup - will recognize and exploit that failure.

So live in the moment, Twitter, and move outside the text box.

PS - I think the same applies to the interface of search - breaking out of keyboard-driven text and more into a conversational interface. I'll have a lot more to say about this in the coming months, as I think it's starting to come together in my head - "The Moment" is a good organizing principle for where I believe things are going in search, culture, technology.

The interview with Qi Lu and Microsoft's Bing - Twitter deal announced at Web 2 last week. I'm working on a wrap post coming soon.

Big week last week for Twitter, two deals with two search powerhouses, new revenue, and new traffic will flow due to both. I asked about the pending search deals deep into the interview but Evan plays coy, the announcements come the following day.

Sergey made a surprise visit to Web 2 last week, just as he did six years ago for the first one.

Literally some of the best work I've ever been involved with, yet again, six years in. Many of you asked for the playlist I used for the show (coverage best seen at #w2s, lots of news happened at the event, including Sergey Brin stopping by).

Here's a screen shot of my playlist. I'll make it live soon. (And yes, btw, the songs and their timing with sessions often mean something. But I can't really get into what and why right now.)

Most of you probably know I'm at Web 2 this week, hence no posting. But follow the news on the #w2s hashtag, there's already been a ton, as this WSJ roundup shows....

Every month I look at Twitter's traffic, and for September, the trend continues to be flat to down. Has Twitter peaked, or is it time for the company to start showing us traffic through its API and via SMS, so we can really understand the service's growth?

Here are Quantcast and Compete's data.

The embedded chart is from Compete.

While it's fair to argue they only capture traffic to Twitter.com, it's still instructive to see that traffic to that particular domain has flattened or fallen off.

Earnings are coming in that make for happy year over year comps, and hence, a happy time in tech land. Intel, Google, IBM all

beating expectations - welcome news for an economy that has felt pretty damn terrible lately. And now the Dow has touched 10K and stayed there - something we haven't seen for a year.  

But I still worry - do you? I worry we'll over correct, and lose the perspective we've all earned over the last year of pain. I sure hope we don't. That said, I sure am happy to see the gloom lifting. We're going into winter, but it sort of feels like Spring right now....

More here.

Tim Armstrong didn't need the job, but he decided to accept Time Warner's offer to become the CEO of AOL anyway. Why?

That's the first question I have for Tim when he joins us at Web 2 next week. What do you want me to ask him?

As you most likely know, Tim came to AOL from Google, where he ran North American ad sales for years. Clearly, Tim relishes a challenge, and sees an opportunity. And, while Tim probably is too politic to discuss it, AOL will be spun out soon, and either go public or become an independent entity (unwinding the most disastrous new/old media merger in recent history).

So...what do you want to know from Tim? I've got my own list - which I've discussed with Tim already - but you all will have even better ideas, as usual...

Others we'll be interviewing (and I've asked for your help):

Shantanu Narayen

Carly Fiorina

Jon Miller

Sheryl Sandberg

Qi Lu

Carol Bartz

Evan Williams

Brian Roberts

Jeff Immelt

To come: Aneesh Chopra, Austan Goolsbee, Paul Otellini, Tim Berners Lee, and more. An amazing lineup and less than one week away!

Also, remember to tweet your questions for any of the folks above with the #w2s hashtag for a chance to win a free Web 2 Summit pass - we'll be picking three at random to win...

I'm so focused on Web 2 and FM right now I can't grok this. But you guys can - Aardvark, which I have written about in the past and will present at Web 2 next week, has launched a social search function based on their growing people-powered network. What do you all think?