"@RyanSeacrest What's it going to take to get you to answer me?!?!"

Is Twitter Fever Breaking?

It all depends on what you consider healthy body temperature. When Oprah joined on, just like when many other celebrities jumped in, Twitter Fever shot so high servers crashed.

The idea was that Twitter gave mortal man a voice. The idea was that Twitter gave the lowly fan access to the stars and maybe even gave him a chance at stardom too. I suppose to some degree, all of this is true. But the reason 60% of twitter users stop using Twitter soon after signup is disillusionment.

The stars don't write back. The CEOs don't name a product after you. Even Starbucks tells you to go fill out a form.

So what the hell is Twitter good for? For most, Twitter is just another way for the influencers to micro reach and micro influence you.For most, Twitter is nothing more than the last mile where advertisers, celebrities, and media can reach you right down to the sms cell phone in bed at 3am level.

"RT @starbucks : @jasoncalacanis Why don't you suggest sugarfree mocha at mystarbucksidea.com"

However, for the people who know how to duck dive (surfing term to describe finding the undercurrent underneath a peaking wave) under the wave of Oprah, Ashton Kutcher, and the like, Twitter is everything it seemed.

Executives, journalists, and even celebrities like @RyanSeacrest read their @replies more often than their email. I see them say so all the time. It takes them days to get to a 0 inbox count and only minutes to skim 100's of @replies. If you think this number is low, try a search.twitter.com for @ryanseacrest or even @aplusk. You'd be surprised to find that they, just like you, have a hard time getting any replies at all.

So why do so many quit Twitter? The answer is in the people who don't. The people who have used Twitter long before Oprah showed up will continue to use Twitter long after you're gone. They don't believe in get rich quick schemes. They don't do golden opportunities. They don't even measure their costs. They keep on plugging away til they get to a goal, take a week vacation, then get back on the horse.

Unless you are like them, you should have left a long time ago. If you are, you too will stay and keep chipping away at making meaningful impressions, connections, and friendships. You will succeed if you're body temp is cool. Next: http://journik.posterous.com/is-twitter-useless-drivel-ala-useless-for-bus iness?

So long does it take? Continued: Twitter A-list

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"If the mountain comes not, to Mohammed, Mohammed goes to the mountain!"

You've done everything. I know. You've even tried spam! (I know, I've seen it o_O)

I see you in Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Even Linked In. And you still only get a couple hundred clicks to your blog a day.

Well, there is just one principle to getting people to your site. Value. If your words deliver more value than the next guy, then his click will come to you. "But WAIT," you say. "I write better, am funnier, and post faster more detailed ummm, posts, and yet @ijustine gets all the clicks!" (You thought I was going to say @juliaallison)

Well, if this is the case, you are missing one genetic prerequisite. No, not boobs, CREDIBILITY.

THEY, argueably, have commerical credibility. They are already well known. You can build all the baseball fields of dreams you want but they won't come. So, for atleast one moment, become a Muslim. Do what Mohammed (PBUH) did, "If the mountain comes not, to Mohammed, Mohammed goes to the mountain!"

You know where that mountain is now? It's not Twitter. Twitter is more like Rome, where "all roads lead." That mountain is http://mahalo.com Go on. Take a look... there are thousands of questions in programming, design, photoshop, writing, science, etc with ZERO answers.

You know where that mountain is now? It's not Twitter. Twitter is more like Rome, where "all roads lead." That mountain is http://mahalo.com

Answer every single Mahalo question within your own realm of expertise and you will become the next domain expert. Answer every single Mahalo question within your own realm of expertise and all those millions @jasoncalacanis is wrangling from VCs will go directly to pushing your prophetic wisdom. (Was that anology wrong? Doing bows now.)

NEXT: How to know if any bigshots in your industry are secretly following you... or aren't =(

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Mercedes has Beemer. Pencil's have pens. Republicans have Democrats. Where one leaves the slightest variance from center, a yang develops for that yin.

Seesmic is good to me. The latest version has all the simplicity and elegance that my formerly beloved Tweetdeck had. But the fact that It allows me multiple accounts made me "Specter."

But this is not to say that Tweetdeck should follow suit and allow multiple accounts in the next rev. In fact, doing so would actually hurt Tweetdeck. It would send out the message that TD has no imagination. It would tell thousands of bloggers that TD leadership is actually just following @loic.

So, to get back it's mighty guilded upperhand, Tweetdeck should go the opposite direction. Tweetdeck should fill that gaping vortex @loic didn't even realize he was creating. By making @seesmic "suck less," @loic left @tweetdeck the opportunity to "suck more."

I know, I know, I sound like that guy in that Ben Stiller Movie. I'm really not trying to be that guy.

If @tweetdeck were to pay me to consult on how to apply the Yin-Yang Dao of the Daoist Art of War, I'd explain this paradigm reversal this way, "Grasshopper, @loic's vision of "less" is lateral.

If @tweetdeck were to pay me to consult on how to apply the Yin-Yang Dao of the Daoist Art of War, I'd explain this paradigm reversal this way, "Grasshopper, @loic's vision of "less" is lateral.

He is covering more surface area. So your "more" would be depth.

Let @seesmic fill as much of the lateral field over as many accounts as he wants. @seesmic will only ever be able to deliver what's happening NOW.

If you, grasshopper, offer depth instead, you can answer questions like, 'of all my followees, who had the most MEETINGS?' 'who made the most Tweets?' 'who produced the most original content?,' 'who traveled the most?' 'who made the most money this week?' 'who is the most popular person among my followees right now?'"

Think about it. @jasoncalacanis rarely tweets, "WITH @juliaallison." But @juliaallison always tweets, "WITH @kevinrose."

None of the questions above require more than a simple spreadsheet analysis of keywords searched ONLY within my followees. To find out who had the most meetings, @tweetdeck would only need to render an instance count of the word "meeting." To render who produced the most original content, @tweetdeck would only need to take each followees total tweet count over given time less the instance of "RT."

To find out who made the most money, @tweetdeck would only need to match tickers tweeted by each followee against wallstreet and "counterplot" against every instance of either of the words, 'bought' or 'sold.' An ever so simple equation would tell me that @joeinvestor bought $SPY high and sold $SPY low.

Maybe the simplest but most powerful feature would be the "Influence Meter." To find out who was the most influential in my followee group, all I'd have to do is render who all my followees were actually meeting WITH. Think about it. @jasoncalacanis rarely tweets, "WITH @juliaallison." But @juliaallison always tweets, "WITH @kevinrose."

img from: Google Images and Gawker

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As you can imagine, creating these pages by hand wasn’t cheap. Even by paying people only $10 an hour, it cost about $15 to assemble each page, now numbering 100,000. “It was taking too long and costing too much to build these pages,” says Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis.

The article goes on to explain the CEO's change in strategy,

Mahalo will assign people pages they volunteer to create and give them half the ad revenue the page generates. That’s still not a lot, generally—about $10 to $25 per page per month, though some pages, such as “2009 stimulus package,” are earning several thousand dollars a month. But Calacanis is betting—literally betting half the company’s revenue—that it will be enough to spur many more people to create pages.

What this means is that Jason is betting 1/2 of all the advertising revenues on the hopes that < 200% more content will be created per dollar. Makes sense right? Simple math.

And Jason is incentivizing with just that -- $1.

Sure. For us business types, if you offer me a buck for less than a buck's worth of work on my part, I'll take it (unless someone else offers me more than a buck for much less work than a buck's worth (think 8 minute abs)). But IMHO, ok, so it's not humble, and yes, it's not even an opinion. It's much closer to Gosphel, Jason SHOULD incentivise with much more than fair wage for fair work. He SHOULD promise the world to every one of Mahalo's users.

Let me explain how this is done. It's called the "lottery effect," aka "American Idol Effect."

Join Mahalo! Be a celebrity!

I'm constantly amazed by how this works. Billions of people would rather have a one in a trillion chance of winning one million dollars than a 100% chance at winning (spanish and french word for earning) $100 in exchange for $100 worth of labor. In fact, people spend money buying that lottery ticket. People spend money driving to an American Idol tryouts tent. Hell, I think people may even pay an entrance fee to have a 1/1000000000000000000 chance at being Adam Lambert.

What I'm saying is that offering 50% profit share has been done and played out by the shadiest likes of digitalassholes-or-something-similar.com. 50% just doesn't play into the rediculously pie-in-the-sky pitiful human instinct called hope. What this means is that Jason SHOULD keep taking VC funding and Jason SHOULD charge me money for me to answer my own question. This makes me think that there is a premium on establishing my own subject matter expertise. Then, the wimpy-phlemy colored, mucusy-needy emotion called "hope" kicks in. Couple that with megamaniacal entitlement and I begin to see that book deal, tour bus, and quite possibly a chance at seeing Bruno's bung hole and ball sack in one angelic fell swoop.

http://twitter.com/journik

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