What Do You Think of Twitter?

I've been out at Web 2.0 this week and all the buzz is about Twitter. I'm starting to have some ideas for new businesses around it, but I'm not sure whether it's a good place to play. I'm particularly concerned about Twitter's caginess about developer relationships and it's path toward monetization.

What do you think? What are the killer opportunities?

Something Big Just Happened in Search

Every once in a while, you see a technology that has the potential to change everything. This is one of those. One side of me asks why I spent 15 years learning how to draw crazy freehand 3 point perspectives. The other side says holy $##*$%*%$



While I'm not sure that this idea can really scale, it points to an interesting future where we are able to search for nonlinguistic content. As digital imaging devices (cameras, sonar, etc) start to incorporate 3D data mapping into their capture files (like the 3D mapping seen in Microsoft Natal), this sort of search will become much moe feasible...and it will change more than how we Google. It will change:
1. How we generate content (think 3D games without the cost of modelling and texturing)
2. How we manage copyright (Will Google license it and pay us in micropayments?)
3. In doing so, it will change the net economy.

This isn't science fiction. Microsoft, Google and likely Linden Labs are already exploring these ideas.

Funai's Projector with Built in Touch Hardware

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Using Auras to Maintain User Orientation

The UIST conference is this week...In many ways, the conference has become Microsoft's Research's show and tell session, so expect to see more goodness as I find it. Dan Wigdor, the Surface team and Hvroje Benko and company wrote a great paper on using Auras (outlines around the fingers) and motion trails to keep users oriented.

Thanks to Josh Blake for hunting this down.

Multitouch Mouse Prototypes from Microsoft

Video of Bumptop Multitouch

Here's a bit of tasty goodness to start your weekend.

Bump Top Getting Multitouch Support

Hmmm. I continue to be unclear about Bump Top's concept. It's definitely a better way to do desktops, but I wonder how it works inside of applications. It seems like this is the sort of business that wants to get acquired, but by who?

At Apple or MS, it would wither from the Not Invented Here virus.

What do you think?