Thanks to those of you who chimed in, via email, Twitter, Facebook, and comments, on our first interview at Web 2 next month with Brian Roberts.
Next up on day one is Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter. I’ve had the pleasure before (at FM’s CM Summit), and posted on it here. But much has changed in the past year. Twitter has become a mainstream brand, grown to tens of millions of active users, and raised a lot more money (and speculation continues that it has raised even more, at a billion dollar valuation, no less).
And while questions remain about “how will Twitter make money,” there’s been no shortage of ideas – including from Twitter – addressing that particular concern over the past few months.
Not to mention, the past year has seen Facebook pretty much re-furbish its user interface to be more Twitter like, and Twitter has added or promised to add a slew of new features to make the service more robust.
But readers of this site don’t need me prattling on about what the best questions are for Evan. You guys have them in your heads. Do me a favor and help me have a smart conversation with Evan next month! Thanks in advance….
Ask him: “Would your previous experience working at Google, and Google’s mixed product development record, make it unlikely you’d sell Twitter to Google?”
Also: “Is Google Wave overhyped or a threat to Twitter?”
Have you or your co-founders thought about the potential of Twitter to become THE next communication platform after rss, email, internet protocol, telephone, fax, paper mail, … ? And what was the pivotal point in the young history of Twitter where you internal realised, ‘we are on to something here’?
Question:
“There was a study recently that found that 40% of Tweets are ‘pointless babble’. People can of course use Twitter in a variety of ways, but do you have any concerns about the impact it is having on the culture? Do you ever look at the community Twitter stream and think, ‘Man, some of these people really need to get a life? Or do you mainly see the positive impacts, like how it is democratizing news?'”
How do you balance being Ev and Biz’s Twitter (this is just a side project mode and thank you for paying attention to us) with pressure from your investors and the expectations of the media, users, etc. who look at you as the next Google/Fb etc?
What is your vision around Twitter search? Will the domain of Twitter search be tweets, users, and/or web pages? Will the emphasis of Twitter search be on fact finding or discovering? And how core will search be to Twitter’s offering?
1. It seems like you don’t value the requests of your users (e.g. #fixreplies) — why should anyone continue to use your service?
2. What makes you think your recommendations are worth anything?
3. What, exactly, does “verified account” mean — and why should I care about that?
1. Is there any strategy to reduce the % of autobot submissions to twitter?
2. There’s been a lot of hacking and security attacks done via Twitter recently. Do you see any innovations for antivirus/firewall protection coming in the future?
1. Did he watch the film “Dogville” by Lars Von Trier?
2. If he did, can he comment on his similarity with Tom Edison personage?
Found this post on Ev’s blog (not sure what year it was written) –
‘Starting a company is like landing on a deserted island…’
http://evhead.com/2008/10/starting-company-is-like-landing-on.html
Which sparked these questions –
As the successful founder of two industry-shifting companies – can he share some stories of the struggles and challenges? What was one comical yet poignant event that helped him keep building? What were some of the evolutionary steps at Twitter that marked significant change?
Just questions of curiosity.
This will be a great interview. Looking forward to it.
~ Janetti
Question:
1. Are you going to bring in a CEO like google did with Schmidt? Someone who has been with a big company who is also innovative. Or are you thinking “if the pimply kid at Facebook can do it, heck any of us can do it?”
2. If you were single (or uncommitted) right now as Twitter is hot would you be getting a lot more nooky compared to where you were a five years ago?