Twitter’s Internal Strategy Laid Bare: To Be “The Pulse Of The Planet” | Hacker News Reader

Twitter’s Internal Strategy Laid Bare: To Be “The Pulse Of The Planet”

techcrunch.com

114 pointsGVRV153 comments

Oh, look! Here's how "newsworthy" the content TechCrunch got from Twitter was: so newsworthy that they're going to trickle it out one-per-day to maximize page views.

Again. I hate to be a killjoy. But last time I suggested this, it worked, so maybe it'll work this time too:

What happened to TechCrunch could happen to any YC company, or any company with HN contributors at it.

We can't make TechCrunch manage their publication differently, but we can refuse to promote what they're doing here. Just hit the "flag" button on these stories.

That's what I just did.

Do not use the flag button for things like this. That's not what it's for. This is not spam or off-topic.

If you don't want to support the story, don't vote for it.

It seems like this might be the 'high tide mark' for both of these companies.. Techcrunch has definitely jumped the shark, and Twitter just might be close as well.

Twitter was on Oprah. Google is the new bad. Facebook is parentized. Myspace is still 13. Blogs are overtagged. Digg is all CAPS. Reddit is overtaken with athiesm.

When are we going to start laughing at the social media sharefest frenzy of this decade? It started with blogging, and it's going to end with twitter.

We're going to end up just like 1995, making our own websites with funky counters.

"Reddit is overtaken with athiesm."

Eh?! There are many things one could say it's been overtaken by, but atheism is pretty low on the list.

A bigger question for me is "What's next?"

After all, you can't make money off last decade's hot idea. Gotta predict next decade's...

"Nevertheless, the publication of stolen documents is irresponsible and we absolutely did not give permission for these documents to be shared. Out of context, rudimentary notes of internal discussions will be misinterpreted by current and future partners jeopardizing our business relationships."

-http://blog.twitter.com/2009/07/someone-call-security.html

Sounds like the beginnings of a law suit.

I'll admit that the info is somewhat interesting. But I have absolutely no respect for Techcrunch anymore. For a company/blog that garnered a ton of respect over the last few years for helping to promote interesting new startups, they have strayed far from that ideal. That they would accept information that was obtained illegally and then proceed to broadcast that to the world is dishonorable. They can't be trusted to be responsible any more.

For any number of upcoming and existing startups whose founders and employees read HN, I can't imagine that they would want any kind of ties to Techcrunch after this. I know that I sure as hell don't.

The law is very clear that receiving and publishing stolen trade secret information is in itself a culpable act unless the publication is somehow protected by the first amendment.

There is generally no first amendment protection for publishing confidential information about products, partnering relationships, strategy meetings, and the like.

My guess, though, is that the first-amendment angle made it just murky enough to cause Twitter to make a judgment call to "work with" TechCrunch to limit damage and try to be done with this.

I see it as basically extortion, however, with Twitter being coerced into giving grudging permission to let this stuff come out.

What a massive embarrassment for Twitter. I have worked with literally thousands of founders and entrepreneurs over the years, and I don't know one that would not be thoroughly red-faced at watching this sort of stuff being splashed about the web (not because the information is damaging in itself but in having allowed this to happen).

@ev denied that they gave TC the "green light"

'@TechCrunch @arrington "we have been given the green light by Twitter to post this information" What?! By whom? That's not our understanding'

http://twitter.com/ev/status/2676203744

Some of the information in that piece is definitely damaging for the relationships between twitter and 3rd parties, notably their attitude towards P. Diddy and the Google employees. Techcrunch must know that it is damaging, and that alone might be a reason for legal action. I know for sure that if I were in twitters position the long knives would be out if techcrunch would cross the line.

For now, crime does seem to pay: http://alexa.com/siteinfo/techcrunch.com

The First Amendment doesn't apply here. The First Amendment Right to Free Speech only applies to the Federal Government, whereby it cannot restrict free speech. It applies to the states through the 14th Amendment due process clause.

Publishing these materials are not protected in any way by the First Amendment.

If Twitter's trade secrets are enforced, it will either be via A: Federal or B: State law. If free speech gets abridged as a side effect of enforcing trade secrets, then the legality of that aspect/interpretation of trade secrets laws is a constitutional question.

You may be thinking of something like contract law, where someone can enter in to e.g. a non-disclosure agreement, and federal or state governments can enforce it. Such enforcement has been ruled legal, since the party to the contract had to voluntarily agree in exchange for something. Barring Twitter's EULA, Tech Crunch isn't a party to any contract with Twitter.

It is not a Constitutional question, and I am not thinking of something in contract law. To be a First Amendment issue, there MUST be involvement by the Federal Government, or a State Government (via the 14th Amendment), or by a State Actor (a person or entity that appears to be the State Government).

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

There is nothing in there that says companies (ex. TechCrunch) have a right to print whatever they want, whether by free speech or by free press. It only says the government cannot pass a law that prevents the printing of free speech.

>There is nothing in there that says companies (ex. TechCrunch) have a right to print whatever they want, whether by free speech or by free press.

Right, there are narrow restrictions for e.g. libel. In that example those restrictions apply to congress's ability to regulate libel, and it has been in the past been a constitutional question.

How would you hypothesize that Twitter could go after TechCrunch without invoking a law at either the federal or state level?

Think of free speech as a noun. Perhaps it should be written as free-speech. What this means is that 1st Amendment protections don't apply to all forms of speech, only free-speech. Examples of things that are not considered free-speech are trade secrets, hate speech, and libelous/slanderous speech. Congress and the States can regulate and pass statutes on those as they wish. They are not afforded Constitutional protection.

The 1st Amendment doesn't grant me the right to write what I want on this forum, even if it would fit in the free-speech classification. Paul Graham can take down whatever he wants, whenever he wants. If Paul Graham became governor of California, he couldn't pass a statute that banned talking about Twitter and TC in online forums. That would run afoul of the 1st Amendment.

I am not sure that I understand your question on how Twitter could go after TC. How would anyone go after another entity without Federal or State law? I doubt there is a local ordinance about this wherever those two companies are located, and I doubt International Law would apply.

If Twitter wanted some sort of non-legal recourse, they could 1) talk it out with TC, 2) reach an out of court settlement, or 3) start the first SMS-organized boycott of a web site.

> They are not afforded Constitutional protection.

That isn't the case. Courts may, for instance, decide that a trade secret law that punishes leakers who were party to a contract or who obtained information through illegal means (such as via trespass) can be punished, but that such a law can't punish third parties who broke no law nor violated a contractual agreement in obtaining the secrets (such as is the case when they are mailed to you without solicitation).

All of the examples you cited (trade secrets, hate speech, and libelous/slanderous speech) have numerous caveats (trade secrets are limited by to what degree they have become public, hate speech is only exempted narrowly through title VII ( http://www.aclu.org/studentsrights/expression/12808pub199412... ), truth is an absolute defense against libel (that is in no way a tautology; it isn't an absolute defense in say, England)) that have been settled upon over time via drumroll answers to constitutional questions rendered by courts.

And yet - it is important that they be published. This is newsworthy. Every paper in America would have printed this, if their audience would find it relevant. Does nobody care about journalism anymore? A free and independent press is vital to a functioning democracy. Techcrunch showed enormous restraint in their publishing of this data. They acted properly.

All the outrage is misplaced. Be outraged at the cracker or disgruntled employee that stole the documents, assuming that is what happened.

There are no trade secrets here, there are strategy secrets.

I am shocked that such a smart group of people fail to understand the basic underpinnings of our society: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_St...

Your definition of trade secrets is different than most court's definition. The definition used by most jurisdictions is:

1. Not generally known or ascertainable by legal methods (TechCrunch violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to get the info.)

2. Must provide competitive value (Strategy plans provide competitive value)

3. Must be subject to reasonable efforts to maintain secrecy (the password, while weak, probably does constitute a reasonable effort)

edit: I see that you edited your post to include the New York Times case. The facts of that case are different than the one with TechCrunch. In NYT, the Federal Government tried to abridge the freedom of press. That triggered the 1st Amendment protections. Here, with TechCrunch, neither the Federal Government or any State Government are trying to prevent TC from printing the information. Therefore, the 1st Amendment does not apply.

You seem to have zero respect for the press. By your standard, Tobacco cancer data should never have been leaked and printed.

1. I have tremendous respect for the press and the work they do. I am separating personal values from what the law is. But I do believe that this is a case where the law and ethics are on the same side.

2. This isn't my standard. It is the standard that courts across the country use. The majority of states (including California) adopted a less stringent version call the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. Only 4 states, including my Massachusetts, whose version you see above, haven't adopted the act and instead employee their own versions.

3. Tobacco cancer data might be distinguished. First, it is a stretch to find that it has competitive value. Therefore it would not be classified under trade secret. Second, it probably isn't even covered under copyright because facts are not copyrightable, no matter how much effort was undertook to find them.

But I don't really know the facts of the leaked cancer data. I would have to read them in order to determine whether it was legal for it to be leaked to the press.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_St...

If the President of the United States can't block secrets from being published... you think Twitter can? I would submit your knowledge of the practices of Journalism and the law in this area are lacking. Publishing secrets is the business of newspapers. It happens every day. Its their job.

I am very surprised that so many people here fail to understand this. Just because you like Twitter does not mean its not appropriate to publish their extremely newsworthy secrets.

Yes, because that is exactly how the 1st Amendment works. In NYT, the Federal Government tried to abridge the freedom of press. That triggered the 1st Amendment protections. Here, with TechCrunch, neither the Federal Government or any State Government are trying to prevent TC from printing the information. Therefore, the 1st Amendment does not apply.

I admit that I have zero knowledge of journalism practices. But my legal knowledge is much greater; I am just over one semester away from graduating from law school.

I am neutral on Twitter. They are a company that I neither like nor dislike and I do not use their product.

But, if I understand rjurney correctly, wouldn't any case brought up in a court that ruled against TC be in fact the government, through the courts, preventing free speech? I.e. if this went to court TC would have to win due to the 1st Amendment?

Just because the court rules in favor of the victorious party does not mean that it is the victorious party.

For the 1st amendment to be invoked, the federal/state/local government has to be on one side of the "vs." in the case name. Otherwise, it's a normal civil case between two private parties, and the appropriate laws apply.

How does that stop the government using a third party to violate the first amendment by the way?

Because the government has no way of forcing the third party to do its bidding. If the government were to pass a law saying "Newspapers should not print any op-eds critical of the government", for example, then it becomes a first amendment issue and the newspaper can sue for the right to print such things. (Which has happened, BTW.) But if the newspaper decides on its own not to print such op-eds, it's perfectly within its rights and there's no first amendment issue.

Similarly, the government can pass a law allowing copyright holders to protect their intellectual property - say, the DMCA. But it's then up to the copyright holders to bring lawsuits against people who publish their work - the government can't force them to do so, and they're completely within their rights to release their work under the GPL or Creative Commons. No free speech issue - it's a property issue.

IANAL, but listen to the law student above. His comments basically square with my understanding from lawyer friends and civics classes and occasional reading of court cases.

From a political philosophy perspective, you could look at it as libertarianism vs. anarchy. The libertarian POV is "You can do anything you want, as long as it hurts no-one." The anarchist POV is "You can do anything you want." The Bill of Rights is intended to protect libertarian ideals, not anarchist ones. It does not give you license to say anything you want, it prevents the government from arbitrarily restricting what you can say. The government can and should still make laws preventing your speech from hurting others.

courts != government.

Thanks. Here in Australia I would assume it does because being based on the Westminster system a lot of legislation is based on court rulings rather than the law. For instance, Australia doesn't have freedom of speech through the law, but the high court has ruled that we have an implicit freedom to all speech not outlawed.

Newspapers are in the business of publishing secrets. They do not get sued out of business. Ask a professor.

Trade secret law is more complex than you make it out to be (and depends on which state has jurisdiction), but assuming any of the documents they disclosed meet the legal qualifications for a trade secret, you may well be right.

none of us know all the facts so it's hard to pass judgement.

i think it really sucks for Twitter that TechCrunch published all that stuff. however, obviously someone without ethics has the complete set of 300 documents and is willing to send them around. maybe this soft release will make the blow easier to bear for Twitter--the lesser of two evils.

it's a terrible situation and i hope they catch and prosecute the hacker.

Is it dishonorable if it helps Twitter more than it harms them? None of the stuff they've published is terribly damaging to Twitter, and the publicity helps them.

Remember, Twitter and TechCrunch are pretty friendly. Till now TechCrunch tended to be attacked for being too nice to Twitter, not too harsh. So while you boil with indignation, Evan and Michael are probably still on cordial terms.

> Is it dishonorable if it helps Twitter more than it harms them?

Yes, it is. TC's breach of conduct consists of publishing stolen confidential information, and then, apparently (see above thread), lying about having permission to do so. Whether this will ultimately reflect well or badly on Twitter is a complete non-sequitir to the question of honor.

Unrelated Life Lesson: Never say "above" or "below" on HN

"Is it dishonorable if it helps Twitter more than it harms them?"

Yes.

Publishing leaked or stolen documents when they contain information relevant to vital public issues is widely considered to be ethically acceptable, and there are even some legal precedents.

But publishing leaked or stolen documents absent compelling public interest is not.

In this case, I don't see an argument for Twitter's internal memoranda and such being relevant to some compelling public interest. What I do see is an information theft being milked for every last pageview it can be made to generate. That's not just unethical journalism, it's sleazy exploitation of another's misfortune.

I agree. Just take a look at every Twitter-related TC post up until this debacle. The first few commenters are always complaining about the excessive reporting on Twitter. Now randoms are coming out of the woodwork to thrash TC over this. Even HN seems to have a more positive outlook on Twitter now (namely because TC is the bad guy). Seems like a win for Twitter to me...

Either way, I don't think these leaks can be considered trade secrets. What would a competitor really have to gain that would outweigh the massive amount of attention Twitter is getting right now? Notes from Twitter strategy meetings sound like they wouldn't be useful for much more than rough drafts of Gossip Girl scripts anyway. From everyone's reaction, you would think TC published the President's security detail's shift schedule and itinerary...

You can read a sensible viewpoint by Chris O'Brien of the Mercury News about the ethics of TC here: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2009/07/15/techcrunch-ethics-and-...

You may be surprised by his conclusion (I was).

I have a hard time accepting that documents about Twitter were mentioned in an analogy to the Pentagon Papers. And after that I have an even harder time agreeing with the conclusion that this is somehow newsworthy information which needed to get out.

(in other words, even if we grant that there was no breach of relevant law in publishing the documents, we come back to one of my favorite phrases from my philosophy days: having the right to do a thing does not make it right to do that thing)

So in other words, if documents have "news value" (i.e. someone wants to read them) and they have been leaked (the only examples he cites are Pentagon Papers and peanut butter memo), then publishing them is A-OK.

Both of those predicates are highly questionable in this case. In the first and most important instance, these are STOLEN documents, not leaked. By taking commercial advantage of these stolen documents TechCrunch is effectively profiting from theft.

And that someone (perhaps even many people) would like to read a document, i.e. it has news value, is not a valid ethical reason (forget legality) to breach privacy, much less profit from theft.

In my eyes, TechCrunch is little more than theft-condoning scum at this point.

Exactly. Why would someone make a conscious decision of exposing confidential information EVEN if it was going to make it out with or without them. Selling stolen information is unethical/illegal/immoral.

There's a kind of company that does this. They're called newspapers, they've been around for 100s of years, and they're part of the foundation of a free society.

Did you read the article?

This sentence is in the first paragraph:

"... we’ve spent much of the last 36 hours talking directly to Twitter about the right way to go about doing that."

For what it's worth:

ev: "@TechCrunch @arrington "we have been given the green light by Twitter to post this information" What?! By whom? That's not our understanding"

(http://twitter.com/ev/status/2676203744)

Alright, that's pretty damning. As of now, I'm jumping on the "let's ban Techcrunch links from HN" bandwagon.

As much as I'd love to see this happen (more power to VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb and, hell, even Mashable), Paul and Mike are friends so it's not happening. As much as I get my hopes up every month when this debate comes up, the guy who controls the bans has been pretty consistent on his position here.

Wow had no idea personal relationships were the factor overriding community pressure.

TechCrunch also gives YCombinator sites tons of write-ups. It's not anything underhanded, just a relationship that both sides benefit from - at the cost of the people who think Hacker News would be better without Arrington's peculiar brand of self-righteous yellow journalism.

If people stop voting them up, then there's no need to ban them.

Banning the domain smacks of censorship. If people at HN want to discuss a TC article, lets give them a place to do it. The answer to ugly speech is more speech, not censorship.

That's true in the public square. It's not true when you're trying to build and maintain a specialized community. The opposite of censorship is 4chan.

Hey, it's a democratic site. People vote up the articles.

If the problem is that not enough people know that TechCrunch stinks, then you should add a post about how they stink. I'd vote for that.

You basically have to trust that a majority (or at least plurality) of the people here are the sorts of hackers you want to hang out with. If that stops being the case, you've got bigger problems than TC stories.

Well, a democratic site doesn't imply that there's no censorship; a true democracy would permit the majority to censor the minority. But anyway, even without any editors stepping in to ban certain links, the site doesn't really function according to the wishes of the majority because there's no down arrow on stories. Getting to the top of the front page doesn't require majority support, but just enthusiastic minority support.

I think this is probably something that looks worse than it is. I can't see them flat out lying. I suspect they've been talking to marketing who said something like "we really wish you wouldn't publish this but if you're going to please..." followed by some requests as to how the information is presented. They then expressed that sentiment as "Twitter has given us the green light".

(Still a bit of misrepresentation but not the flat out lie it appears to be)

I could be wrong. But in a world where the CEO of Twitter can so quickly call B#S* I can't envision a scenario where TechCrunch doesn't have some explanation

I'm not sure how this could look a lot worse than it already is. If they asked really nicely and just annoyed Twitter into allowing this to be published, TechCrunch's actions are still appalling.

There's no way around it: what TechCrunch is doing is incentivizing the kinds of attacks Twitter is dealing with. Twitter will survive this, but a lot of the kinds of companies represented on Hacker News won't.

Well, I would say that does change things significantly. That's what I get for trusting what TC says in their articles.

But still, it's like when I would steal your own belongings, then contact you and "talking to you directly" that I will return some of them back to you, and use others for my own benefit, even if it might do harm to you. We are still talking about publishing stolen documents, whether they contacted twitter or not.

The information is out. It was sent to other people than TechCrunch, and those people will publish it. However, those people probably won't be as visible as TechCrunch. Thus, TechCrunch has decided to act as Twitter's PR department and publish, of the information they got, exactly the right subset of that information to make Twitter look good, hoping that once everyone hears the TechCrunch PR version, they won't be so interested in hearing the rest. If Twitter said "publish nothing", that's exactly what TechCrunch would do—but in this case that's not the best idea.

To claim that someone else would have done it anyway is not a very good defense. It also totally ignores the ethics of the situation.

Yes, it does ignore the ethics of the situation, because when information leaks to the public you no longer have an ethical decision to make, but a strategic decision of damage control. It becomes an exercise in pure game theory, as you can't assume that any given individual in the public will cooperate with you or be convinced by your arguments toward sympathy.

TechCrunch will only publish what Twitter lets them. In practice, in terms of who gets to make the decisions, this is the same situation as if Twitter found out they had been exploited and contacted TechCrunch to "leak" some PR for them. If Twitter wanted to do their damage control through some other outlet at this point, they could just tell TechCrunch to publish nothing, and then pick another news site and send the documents they choose to them. If Twitter wanted to do nothing, they could tell TechCrunch to do nothing, and then do nothing themselves. However, in both of these situations, once the information was published (and it would be—news is one of the most competitive businesses in the world, and one of the most cut-throat), TechCrunch would pick it up, because it would then be public and already available. The only difference, in this case, is that TechCrunch can publish the information "first." But that doesn't matter, really; as long as the information gets out, does it matter who did it first?

Agreed - it's a crap and immoral defence (sic).

It's unfortunate bloggers don't have their own Geneva Convention (and no, that's not a tech conference in Europe)

If Twitter said "publish nothing", that's exactly what TechCrunch would do

This claim is not supported by any statements from TechChrunch or Twitter, and contradicts Ev's claim, quoted above, that they haven't given TechChrunch a green light to publish anything.

I think you're just spreading misinformation to defend TechChrunch's quite indefensible actions. I call bullshit on your claim that TechChrunch would have published nothing if Twitter asked them that.

they haven't given TechChrunch a green light to publish anything

That's what they want the thief to believe. He needs to be satisfied that he's done the damage to Twitter that he set out to do.

That's a ridiculous strawman argument.

Yeah, quick translation: "We know we're in the wrong, and we're going to blackmail Twitter into saying our release is OK."

One thing that wasn't clear to me until Arrington started talking about working with Twitter on this release, is that Twitter does have some non-legal leverage. I'm pretty sure they regularly give TechCrunch early or insider access to Twitter news. They could just as easily move that preferential treatment over to Mashable or GigaOm. At this point, the "news" organization that probably matters most to Twitter is CNN, not TC.

As other people have noted, the actual documents released haven't amounted to more than a gigantic press release for Twitter. Now we know that they dream big and care about their employees. I'm sure that's killing them.

The documents are not so positive.

They diss a large number of celebs, call GOOG and MSFT 'distractions' and really go to town on Marissa Mayer.

What's wrong with calling GOOG and MSFT distractions? I think almost every new company immediately gets hit by the biz dev people who want to start talking about deals. For the most part you just have to focus on yourself and your customers, so these advances can be really distracting. I guess the Kanye West stuff is a little harsh, I'll grant you that.

There is no right way to go about doing that.

The 'right' as in 'my right'? Where's Twitter on that?

Let me say, I think what they did was immoral. So I'm not defending them per se.

But there is a reality to this situation that at least mitigates things. In some situations morality only brings a result if everyone in the world acts morally. Like here, TechCrunch knows someone else will publish these papers if they don't. Given the hits they'd be worth it's an absolute given. So in judging the scale of their guilt you have to consider a subset of morality.

Because if you're TechCrunch and you are deciding what to do with these documents you have to accept an immoral thing is going to happen. So the question for them becomes: Is it immoral to cheat your employees out of the revenue this information would generate because you want to stick to a moral code that you know will have no consequence?

That doesn't excuse what they did but it's a mitigating factor. So while I'm not saying they're right in doing what they did I think saying things like "I have no respect for TechCrunch" might be a slight over reaction.

Let me second that.

With some regularity confidential stuff passes my desk or inbox, and once or twice by accident I have come into the possession of things that were not intended for me.

Do not treat others like you would not want to be treated is very much the motto in cases like this. Techcrunch is setting themselves up for a very big fall. Not only will nobody ever trust them again, if anybody will ever have a chance to give them a taste of their own medicine I'm quite sure it will be done if only to spite them.

Talking to the person whose stuff you obtained illegally is not a reason to publish and saying 'but then somebody else would do it' is not an excuse either.

"They aren’t happy about it, but they are able to live with it, they say"

They may have given the green light, but it seems like the alternative wouldn't have been any better.

No one mentioned the Tipjoy part?! What is wrong with you people??

Twitter likes Tipjoy "has good vision" but Tipjoy is missing the "real banking" part.

Thanks for pointing that out, I missed it the first time. See it here: http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/73.png

I refuse to follow links to techcrunch.com (see 'ethics')

Added: techcrunch is making profit from a crime of privacy violation. this should be simply condemned. nothing else.

When the storm fades away you will go back to the site. TC knows this.

No I won't. I've been refusing to follow any links to TC for a while now and other than the occasional tinyurl'd link on twitter I've managed to avoid that cesspool entirely. If news.yc would stop voting up every article they write to the front page I wouldn't even have to read their linkbait headlines either.

I stand corrected then. Respect.

If only you refused to comment on them in a self-righteous manner (see 'annoying').

I thought it was self-explanatory. I revised my comment to provide context.

   user = unique individual having a conscious twitter experience in a given week

and they want a billion users like that? Will never happen

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

Why stop at a billion, then? Why not a trillion?

I think the point is that a billion users who log in once a week is not unrealistic, it's virtually impossible.

Over 2 Billion cellphones in the world - according to WolframAlpha (http://www06.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cellphones+worldwide)

never say never.

not in a 5 year time frame at least

Heh. Bill Gates said something similar about 640k of RAM once. There's certainly enough users to fill up that capacity. Why wouldn't it be possible?

What Bill Gates said was "I have a processor with a 20-bit physical address space and I have to divide it into a portion for software and a portion for hardware devices like video ROM. 640k seems like a reasonable place to make that division."

Really? Crap. My high school yearbook quote was "The computer will never need more than 640kb. -Bill Gates". Oops. All that being made fun of for nothing.

The most common quote I see is: "640k should be enough for anybody. - Bill Gates" and it bugs me every time. Thanks to the grandparent for setting the record straight.

Citation needed. Google picked you up nearly instantaneously though.

There's barely 1 billion people online worldwide. Granted, there are more than that who have mobile phones and could use Twitter via SMS, and the number of people online by 2014 will probably be much higher (2 billion?), but they don't want 1 billion user accounts in their database, they want 1 billion active users who interact with Twitter at least once a week. Supposedly something like 80% of people who sign up for Twitter never return, so they'll need 5 billion signups to get 1 billion active users.

Does Google even have 1 billion users who interact with them at least once a week?

Twitter is useless for anyone who isn't a marketer/promoter. Regular people would rather use facebook.

Facebook can reach 1 billion users, twitter cannot.

so most of twitter's 20m users are marketers & promoters? I don't consider myself a marketer and yet I'm on twitter. I'm on there because my friends are on there.

If you have a job, career or business, you ARE in marketing. Products and "services" include your own self and skills.

I'm not sure I want any closed technology owned and operated by one company to become "the pulse of the internet".

Agreed, it was bad enough when IM was stuck in various closed networks, but at least then no single network had a monopoly. We need to think about how to build a distributed/federated Twitter alternative. Anyone want to get together to brainstorm how this could work?

There have been myriad Twitter alternatives since long before Twitter existed, most of them having vastly superior functionality. The masses have made it crystal clear that they will accept none but the most crippled and proprietary offering in this domain.

Already done. http://laconi.ca/

If one company can be called the pulse of the internet, it's Google.

TechCrunch's Faustian dilemma: to sell or not to sell its moral soul (or what's left of it) for an astronomical number of page views?

Gee, that was hard - now where's the damn 'post' button?

It's interesting how difficult it seems to be for people -- in this situation in particular -- to formulate an opinion independent of their emotional bias(es) with respect to the parties here. It seems like the people who are fond of Twitter (and let's just say 'not-so-fond' of TC), are playing the 'ethics of journalism' card a bit hastily.

The other side has taken to simplifying the circumstances involved in a way that's willfully reductive. The details matter.

The info was stolen. It's out there. It's really unfortunate that it happened. It would have been a kind gesture for TC not to publish the info, but then again, kindness pays minimum wage. Anyone who claims that they're somehow offended or appalled that TC published in this case is being intellectually inconsistent -- every major news outlet gets their hands dirty on a daily basis to get headlines.

TC displayed some ambiguous ethics, to be sure -- it's just a bit childish to claim that the scenario is somehow unique when the other party happens to be popular.

I don't get the Marissa Mayer thread. She asked for stats on Twitter's growth but there is already Google Analytics code on all Twitter pages.

Google employees spying on Google Analytics accounts would definitely be considered "evil."

Yes, but also remember that Twitter has a lot of non-web activity that would be completely invisible to Analytics

A truely paranoid individual would see this as proof that google is just pretending not to know...

This is very interesting then that Google gave up urge of cheating, and actually follows the rules.

Imagine what Techcrunch, the fence of the internet, would do.

Perhaps they could send some sort of harmless-seeming emissary to ask for the information they're already stealing, so Twitter will be more certain they don't have it.

The GA code doesn't track the stuff that happens via API - clients, etc.

I remember a company (FuckedCompany) during the first bubble that all they did was publish private memos, conversations, and documents. I was disappointed to see TC deciding not only prolong the story for days, but also publish some of these documents. What will they do next for traffic?

Twitter's best shot at making money is to sue TechCrunch. Other than that it sounds like they don't have many ideas but need to make $68m by 2010. Good luck!

+1 for humor

They can monetize relationships, connecting people who express desires with others that can provide.

This is really cool, gives a sense for how these discussions happen at other startups. Some similarities with our startup's discussions too, makes me feel... normal.

The big story here, and what's circulating on quite a few of the google news reports about this incident, is the apparent "insecurity" of the cloud. If these documents were on an internal network, it would have been much, much harder for the hacker to grab them since most internal networks are firewalled.

This is a huge blow to all of us web app developers looking to sell apps since things like this will make corporations untrustworthy of our defacto security system (username/password + forgot password).

Google Docs needs a "high security" option that removes these easy access points (forgot password), and other web app developers handling sensitive data need to follow suit.

We can fill in that role through some kind of manual process of confirming a person's identity via other means (not entirely sure how, but i'm sure there's a way).

One option for "higher security" could be to have forgot-password services dial a pre-registered phone number to confirm your identity. Probably harder to intercept than an email account's password.

This is how Google Voice asks you to confirm your phone number: an automated system dials your number and gives you a random numeric code which you have to enter on the website.

Just add an optional access limit by IP address.

That actually sounds like a great solution for some companies. Wonder if Google Docs will add this anytime soon.

It'll make the cloud app much less useful (mobile access issues, etc). However I think its worth it in certain cases, like if you're a high profile startup or a bank.

If it's available as a per file option it balances the usefulness. For documents that need high security you can choose it. Mobile devices should still be able to connect in through a VPN right?

Seeing all these internal meeting notes published makes me want to never write anything down.

Why? Are you embarrassed by how crappy your note-taking skills are? :P

Very interesting read. They seem pretty savvy.

It's got to be a concern to them that Facebook has done all of the things they brainstormed in the "how would Facebook kill us" meeting. I wonder what their "how would Facebook kill us" meetings since then have gone?

There's no doubt the content is fascinating - but they're private documents. TC had no right to publish them, and we should all feel a little guilty for in part legitimizing TC's decision to publish them.

There are a lot of stories that were based on leaked documents.

Stories on watergate, Abu Ghraib, etc. were published because somebody leaked something private.

I have to admit though that they have more significance than Twitter.

The documents weren't leaked. They were stolen.

And I can't believe you effectively equated future business plans with torture as public interest stories, with the grudging ("have to admit") qualifier that one has "more significance" than the other.

This whole TC/Twitter episode has disturbed my faith in humanity, to be frank.

In those cases, there was a legitimate public interest in having them leaked and published. Very different.

So who decides what is public interest or not?

Twitter has millions of users. We provide some private data to them. Shouldn't we know what is being discussed privately on how they will use it?

When it has to do with the government, the public has a right to expect transparency. With a private organization, its different.

Torture? Business plans? Are you seriously suggesting that people can't tell the difference?

Yes, if the documents only related to how twitter intends to treat UGC, then you would have a point.

The was a public interest element there. The public has a right to know about those situations.

We may may interested, but we have no underlying right to know everything about a private company's operations and strategy.

It would be wrong for Techcrunch to NOT publish this info, because by not publishing, it would simply circulate within the elite by other means. Techcrunch's friends, and any of the many companies with a stake in this, would find a way to get the info.

Its the little guy who is disadvantaged by this not coming out.

Whatever damage this leak has caused is not from TC publishing this, but from their negotiating partners getting this info. Which would happen no matter what TC did.

What value is this information to the "little guy"? If the only value is "that's interesting" then essentially nothing.

Interesting = value

interesting != value. Consider the most boring class you took and how you later discovered it was all applicable.

I never said it works in reverse. not interesting != not valuable

Hoever... something thats interesting is valuable. Always. If you can capture mindshare, you can convert it to dollars. Plain and simple

I'm not sure where you're coming from with the position that "interesting = value." Just look at the top stories on Reddit and Digg (or MSM, for that matter).

What tweaks the interesting receptors is often formulaic, sensationalistic, base, pablum.

Sure, they did it to help the 'little guy'. Page views never entered the equation.

Has anyone thought of the possibility that Twitter leaked those documents intentionally? Do we have a statement from them dealing with the whole affair?

http://blog.twitter.com/2009/07/twitter-even-more-open-than-...

could the whole thing be a stunt?

I hope this story doesn't get killed, because the actual details are pretty interesting.

If I'm reading this right, they predicted 25m users by the end of 2009?

As of July, they apparently have 40m. Cool.

They seem to want 25 million active, living people using Twitter. 40 million accounts is not the same thing. See this post about the difference between active and total users.

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/07/the-difference-between-total...

Oh, so I wasn't reading it right :P

it does look like another twitter astroturf, they really haven't reported anything negative about twitter. All the things they posted, could be used as a promotion to pitch twitter to investors.

Like the part where they call Google and Microsoft a 'distraction'

Or diss Marissa Mayer?

Upon reading the diss of Marissa Mayer I found myself liking Twitter a little more. But then, that's a very geeky reaction coming from somebody whose friends imitate the Marissa Mayer laugh for fun.

This is a perfect case study in the importance of choosing a good password and ensuring that everyone in your organisation thinks about security.

This is an advertorial.

Mike did not just post this.

The first person to guess Michael Arrington's email password, grab all his secret docs about his upcoming tablet computer and publish them, wins. Let's see TC swallow that poison pill.

cynical view here: it is possible twitter is using techcrunch to push disinformation to confuse its competitors.

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