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Twitter and the Rise of Data Platforms
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister sees Twitter's latest move — to develop 'analytical products' based on Twitter data and to encourage third-party developers to do the same — as part of a growing trend toward a new kind of software platform. 'In the past, tool vendors have offered developers languages and code libraries that gave them access to computing functions in simple, standardized ways. In this new paradigm, however, a platform consists of more than just frameworks and APIs. It also comes prepackaged with a complete, rich data set, and often that data is the platform's most valuable aspect. These new "data platforms" are creating exciting new opportunities for developers, though they are not without their challenges.' Chief among these issues are privacy and security, as evidenced by a recent letter to Google from government regulators and activist tools such as PleaseRobMe. But for developers, the challenges also include livelihood. 'Even more than mobile platforms such as Apple's iPhone, a data platform like Twitter's is a walled garden. If Twitter cuts off a developer's access to its data sources for any reason, that developer's business is sunk.' Even those who develop 'cloud middleware' around such data platforms stand to gain little from their efforts, as doing so pits them in competition with their data platform vendors, which are in a far better position to reach potential customers."
There is nothing "exciting" or "new" about advertising. It's just a mechanism for siphoning wealth from the middle and working classes and giving it to the top 1%.
The speed with which people welcome the tools of their own demise is stunning.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Interesting, but I don't think our only options are nuclear war or socialism.
Guns don't kill people, "with glowing hearts" kills people.
All extremists should be shot, LOL.
Seriously, Communism was just a reaction to the first great wave of technology known as "the industrial revolution".
We need original thought, not re-hashed 20th century failed solutions that arose out of 19th century excess.
As an American I hate to say it, but it seems like the French have the right idea. Instead of using the excess productivity gained by technology to drive useless things like war and Facebook, we should just take more vacations.
That's not to say the French have it perfect--I wager their beurocracy consumes a lot of time. How about just shorter work weeks instead? One of the great ironies in this is that Utah, a state not considered "progressive" instituted shorter work weeks for state employees.
In other words, technology really did reduce the need for labor. We just need to find a constructive outlet for the excess labor. Neither violent revolution, nor wage slavery in a neoindustrial cubefarm/factory is a constructive outlet.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
If I don't buy anything they advertise -- in fact, I block the advertisements themselves -- exactly how is it hurting me to use services supported by advertising?
I see nothing wrong with parting a fool from their money. If people as a whole aren't smart enough to move past the mental abilities of a ferret (ooh, shiney, must have it), well, then they're bringing it on themselves, and I don't feel sorry for them at all.
Go ahead, call me cold hearted, but I learned from my mistakes. It took me the better part of 10 years to learn and recover from those mistakes, but I did it without going begging for help. People need to suck it up, reduce their expenses to the bare essentials, work multiple menial jobs if that's what it takes, sell possessions if they have to. It takes work, and a willingness to do without, but it can be done without needing handouts.
In the end it all boils down to using this data for advertising (what else could you use this data for to make money as a company?). I don't think it's an exciting development at all, rather it's a pretty boring topic to me: finding out whom to best sell different products to. I just cannot get excited about a problem that doesn't really do anything productive / create anything of true value. Personally I don't have any problems figuring out how to spend my money and actually dislike the idea of being advertised to specifically. In the end we have to realize that no wealth is created by these technologies: there is only so much money to go around for people to buy products. All these advertisement datasets help is finding new ways to get people to spend their money on the "right" thing for them but it doesn't actually create cool new products or give people more money to buy products. Maybe I'm overlooking some exciting key aspect to these datasets (social analysis maybe?) but Im not yet convinced that this is not yet another bubble.
What we're seeing with these "data platforms" is that you can do some restricted things with the data, but you can't just get the data and work on it yourself. Compare, say, Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The entire data set is downloadable for free. (I have an application downloading the updates every night.. So do many Wall Street services.) Don't expect that kind of access from Twitter.
Companies hate to make that data freely available. Even most WHOIS access is throttled, and that's supposed to be public data. It's not about data volume any more, now that terabyte drives are in the bargain bin at the computer store. It's about control.
"Data platforms" with such restrictive access are really just another form of "digital rights management".
I didn't know Karl Marx was into the dot-com boom and IPO's, but if you say so...
What, you never read Marx's book, Dot.Kapital?
This ain't rocket surgery.
Advertising is stronger than you are. You may believe that you have superpowers that make you impervious to marketing, but some very thorough research done since the 1920's has shown that sooner or later, advertising sinks in. Maybe you can block an ad in a website, but the whole idea of ubiquitous messaging is that if the right don't get ya, the left will.
I know people who say they have completely shut out all marketing, and then you count the brand names they know and buy. Or even better, the brand names they know even though they don't buy them. See if you can sing the first few bars of a jingle and if they can finish it. And it's not just about getting you to buy particular products, but to be slightly dissatisfied with your life so that you can only find fulfillment in consumer goods. And there's not 5 out of 100 in the US who have managed to avoid that.
The story of the 20th century is that corporations got into our heads so completely that most of us aren't even aware of the amount of our gray matter that has been completely co-opted.
You are welcome on my lawn.
All of which is predicated on the theory that I buy excess stuff. I pretty much buy necessities only, and if I'm buying a name brand of any of them it's because a)it was cheaper / unit when I was at the store, or b) past personal experience with it has proven it to be of sufficient quality that it is worth seeking out again. Hell, half the time I'm in the store, I don't know if something is a "name brand" or if it's the "store brand". Mostly because I avoid advertising, and partly because I simply don't go shopping very often.
You'd be surprised how little you need to live a satisfying life. Maybe more people should refuse to be mindless consumers and give a simple life a try.