Jackson Miller

I just read Charlie O’donnell’s prediction that Twitter SMS ads are on their way. Hopefully you are having the same reaction I am. “Oh shit!”

Twitter is not just another Shiny Object. For me, and many other people using Twitter, microblogging is a new and vital communication method. It is a near-real-time, asynchronous, many-to-many medium where dynamic groups of people are able to self form or even stay un-formed and only track certain topics. Microblogging is building and deepening relationships. The potential for this communication channel isn’t even close to realized. I can think of huge uses for e-learning, community organizing, and the most common un-tapped example of emergency communication.

Microblogging is too important to let a single company control it. Currently, Twitter is a walled in garden like CompuServ or early AOL. Twitter and Pownce are like having an arpanet mail address and a darpanet mail address. Just like in the past, time will prove that these disconnected messaging platforms will not work. What is ironic here is that Twitter is all about joining disconnected communication platforms (SMS, IM, web, and email through the API and twittermail).

We need for microblogging to be based on a protocol, not a service. I don’t have any experience drafting a standard or protocol. Maybe someone with more experience can jump in and help. Basically I am thinking a microblogging protocol would look something like this:

• A domain based microblogging username. i.e. like email: jaxn@twitter.com or even more like a namespace: jaxn.twitter.com (since subdomain account are popular with many webservices)
• A DNS record-type for identifying the microblogging server(s) for a domain. This could be like MX or SRV records including priority for backup spools and load balanced servers.
• A protocol for transmitting and receiving microblog messages over TCP / UDP.
• An open source software package that provides a daemon implements the microblogging protocol.

In addition to send and receive methods, the protocol would also need methods for “follow” and “leave” at the bare minimum. The “follow” method should receive a complete address (i.e. jaxn@twitter.com) as well as a nickname (i.e. jaxn). This would preserve the shorthand while allowing for direct messaging to non-followed addresses.

The microblogging daemon would be responsible for bridgins whatever external communication protocols it wanted (for delivering messages to the accounts on that server. All server-server communications would happen with the microblogging protocol). For instance, if I wrote one it might support IM, SMS, IMAP, and speech-to-text / text-to-speech.

This would also allow for the creation of microblogging servers that allowed for “private” communications. For instance, IBM might write a microblogging daemon that integrated with the Notes IM and required approval for all “follow” requests. Universities may create microblogging daemons that delivered emergency messages to every available device regardless of user preference.

Last, but not least, a microblogging protocol would allow us to ensure that the 140 messages stay a valuable communication medium regardless of any company’s need to make a service profitable.

I would really love comments and feedback on this idea. If others think it is useful I would love to be a part of a group to create a standard protocol for this stuff.