Skip to content →

Twitter’s Stunted Growth: An Inference from Muybridge’s Photos

Eadweard Muybridge Camel

Eadweard Muybridge presaged a kind of moving picture with his use of multiple cameras to capture motion. The zoopraxiscope, also invented by Muybridge, brought the images to life in a primitive way. You can think of the web version of Twitter as a bit like a series of Muybridge’s still photos on a page.

The zooproxiscope is comparable to Twitter’s polling method of simulating a live flow of real-time movement. It’s movement done with mirrors.

Twitter (as in Kleenex) with a real-time XMPP flow is a genuine moving picture. It’s hardly surprising that looking at a series of still pictures, the users of Twitter deduce real-time flow of messages and a method of tracking one-to-one and one-to-many conversations. 

By choking off independent developer access to the XMPP flavor of Twitter and attempting to place monetization at this point in the network, Twitter faces a turning point. The service grew like a weed when it embraced the rhizomatic ethic. Now Twitter hesitates, and seems to turn to a classic arborescent play. They turn from the economics of abundance to the economics of scarcity– and scarcity must be created and enforced by contract. By stunting their own growth, Twitter gives Plan B the opportunity to grow like wildfire.

Published in zettel

12 Comments

  1. Oi. Philosophy. I don’t know from philosophy, but I’m impressed by people who do. rnrnKleenex, I think I get.rnrnThanks, Cliff, for continuing my education.

  2. Oi. Philosophy. I don’t know from philosophy, but I’m impressed by people who do. rnrnKleenex, I think I get.rnrnThanks, Cliff, for continuing my education.

  3. Oi. Philosophy. I don’t know from philosophy, but I’m impressed by people who do. rnrnKleenex, I think I get.rnrnThanks, Cliff, for continuing my education.

  4. Oi. Philosophy. I don’t know from philosophy, but I’m impressed by people who do. rnrnKleenex, I think I get.rnrnThanks, Cliff, for continuing my education.

  5. Michael, the references reference botany, but primarily come from philosophy. In particular, Deleuze’s idea of the rhizome as expressed in “A Thousand Plateaus.” rnrnhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thousand_PlateausrnrnAnd extended to understanding the Network by many others:rnrnhttp://rhizomatic.net/rnrnIt’s a contemporary metaphor for discussing the idea of the One and the Many.rnrnhttp://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/ONEMANY.HTMrnrnTwitter’s growth has depended on its openness to multiple end point clients via API. Twitter is a real-time medium, past was merely prelude. Openness at the level of XMPP feeds would lead to explosive growth and opportunity. Here’s where the failure of nerve and imagination comes in. Retreating to the economics of scarcity stunts the growth of the root system, and allows breathing room for the other weeds in the garden (friendfeed and identi.ca).

  6. Michael, the references reference botany, but primarily come from philosophy. In particular, Deleuze’s idea of the rhizome as expressed in “A Thousand Plateaus.” rnrnhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thousand_PlateausrnrnAnd extended to understanding the Network by many others:rnrnhttp://rhizomatic.net/rnrnIt’s a contemporary metaphor for discussing the idea of the One and the Many.rnrnhttp://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/ONEMANY.HTMrnrnTwitter’s growth has depended on its openness to multiple end point clients via API. Twitter is a real-time medium, past was merely prelude. Openness at the level of XMPP feeds would lead to explosive growth and opportunity. Here’s where the failure of nerve and imagination comes in. Retreating to the economics of scarcity stunts the growth of the root system, and allows breathing room for the other weeds in the garden (friendfeed and identi.ca).

  7. Michael, the references reference botany, but primarily come from philosophy. In particular, Deleuze’s idea of the rhizome as expressed in “A Thousand Plateaus.” rnrnhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thousand_PlateausrnrnAnd extended to understanding the Network by many others:rnrnhttp://rhizomatic.net/rnrnIt’s a contemporary metaphor for discussing the idea of the One and the Many.rnrnhttp://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/ONEMANY.HTMrnrnTwitter’s growth has depended on its openness to multiple end point clients via API. Twitter is a real-time medium, past was merely prelude. Openness at the level of XMPP feeds would lead to explosive growth and opportunity. Here’s where the failure of nerve and imagination comes in. Retreating to the economics of scarcity stunts the growth of the root system, and allows breathing room for the other weeds in the garden (friendfeed and identi.ca).

  8. Michael, the references reference botany, but primarily come from philosophy. In particular, Deleuze’s idea of the rhizome as expressed in “A Thousand Plateaus.” rnrnhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thousand_PlateausrnrnAnd extended to understanding the Network by many others:rnrnhttp://rhizomatic.net/rnrnIt’s a contemporary metaphor for discussing the idea of the One and the Many.rnrnhttp://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/ONEMANY.HTMrnrnTwitter’s growth has depended on its openness to multiple end point clients via API. Twitter is a real-time medium, past was merely prelude. Openness at the level of XMPP feeds would lead to explosive growth and opportunity. Here’s where the failure of nerve and imagination comes in. Retreating to the economics of scarcity stunts the growth of the root system, and allows breathing room for the other weeds in the garden (friendfeed and identi.ca).

  9. Oi. Philosophy. I don't know from philosophy, but I'm impressed by people who do.

    Kleenex, I think I get.

    Thanks, Cliff, for continuing my education.

  10. Michael, the references reference botany, but primarily come from philosophy. In particular, Deleuze's idea of the rhizome as expressed in “A Thousand Plateaus.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thousand_Plateaus

    And extended to understanding the Network by many others:

    http://rhizomatic.net/

    It's a contemporary metaphor for discussing the idea of the One and the Many.

    http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/ONEMANY.HTM

    Twitter's growth has depended on its openness to multiple end point clients via API. Twitter is a real-time medium, past was merely prelude. Openness at the level of XMPP feeds would lead to explosive growth and opportunity. Here's where the failure of nerve and imagination comes in. Retreating to the economics of scarcity stunts the growth of the root system, and allows breathing room for the other weeds in the garden (friendfeed and identi.ca).

  11. Oi, botany references. I dunno from plants. But I'm impressed by people who do.

Comments are closed.