Why Didn't Early Bird Work Out for Twitter?

Maybe the deals simply weren't targeted well enough and not interesting to Twitter's users. Or maybe those who followed the account didn't like the constant repetition and retweeting of the same deal. With just about 225,000 followers, Early Bird was definitely not a huge success for Twitter and probably didn't bring in enough revenue to continue the program. Earlier today, a Twitter spokesperson told Mashable that the company is "taking the learnings from @earlybird, including feedback from users and businesses, and investing that knowledge into our Promoted Products platform to help businesses grow their audience and provide great offers and information to users."

Why do you think Early Bird didn't catch on with Twitter's users? What could Twitter do to make it better? Let us know in the comments.

Layar has quickly become of the most popular mobile AR browsing applications across the globe thanks to its impressive set of features, but the company's choice to provide an open API may have been the decision which fueled them to success. Companies that wish to jump on the augmented reality bandwagon have several choices for getting their content on Layar quickly and easily. Layar provides documentation on its website for how to use and interpret their API, but those looking for an easier method of geo-data input can use any of a number of third party tools. Thanks in no small part to tools like buildAR, Muzar and Winvolve, Layar's database of geo-data has rapidly expanded to include over 300 content layers including anything from restaurants to Twitter results, to even the locations of nearby heart defibrillators.

On the opposite end the spectrum, the accrossair browser, a similar mobile AR browser available on the iPhone, has decided to keep its API private and helps with the input of geo-data themselves for companies that wish to participate on their platform. Instead of allowing anyone to upload location data onto their platform, acrossair has reached out to corporations like McDonalds and FedEx to provide them with their own POIs in their browser. The one disadvantage this places on their product is a significantly lower number of POI sets that a user can access. With just over a dozen different options, acrossair has a fraction of the curated POI sets that Layar does. Founder Chetan Damani says that while their closed API certainly limits the amount of data on their browser, it enhances the overall stability of the browser - a factor which may play heavily for the company as they expand beyond the iPhone to Android and Symbian devices.

"We are keeping [the API] closed right now because we will be in a period of evolution and multiple iteration," Damani told ReadWriteWeb. "We want to move to Android, and we want to make sure that the APIs are the right APIs and that they won't limit our development. We only get one opportunity to get this right."

Damani and acrossair are playing it safe until they are able to expand their presence to more platforms before opening their API - a step Damani says they do plan on taking. When acrossair moves their browser to Android, Symbian and possibly even Windows Mobile devices, having a closed API will make the transition much smoother. Opening the API after they set up shop on each mobile OS will be a lot easier without loads of independently developed geo-data on their system.

So is it better to limit one's API early on for the sake of stability while simultaneously hampering the possible reach of one's product? The acrossair browser seems to be taking that chance, while Layar, on the other hand, is welcoming third party developers with open arms. However, acrossair has one thing going for them that Layar currently doesn't - a working iPhone application.

How much of a role Layar's open API played in the demise of their iPhone application is unknown, but all that could be moot when Layar relaunches on the iPhone "by the end of February". However, if augmented reality is the supposed "future of web browsing" as some believe it to be, having closed browsing platforms is not a viable long-term solution.

Was MemoryUp a "Rogue" Application?

Whether or not MemoryUp actually destroyed personal data and spammed people's contacts, as it was said to have done, is unknown. However, it would have been difficult for it to have accomplished those things. The app required no special privileges to install, so it's hard to imagine how it could have accessed the data and email addresses or how it could have sent out the spam. Also, for what it's worth, the company behind the app adamantly denies the claims. Says Robert Lee, chief technical associate for eMobiStudio, "We are very disturbed by these reports. Whatever damage is out there has not been done by our product."

...Or a Victim of Community Backlash?

The truth about this application may be that it just wasn't very good, not that it was dangerous malware. Many comments about the app in the Android store (prior to the app's removal) and in the forums weren't about losing data but about how the app wasn't worth installing because it provided no real value to the user.

What's even more apparent, though, in reading through the posts and comments about MemoryUp, is that many members of the Android community seemed to have a grudge against the app's creator, Peter Liu, whose drive-by advertising in forum postings got under people's skin. "How many times are you going to advertise this on here?" wrote one user. Later, others bragged and joked about running the "Memory folks out of town." "Peter needs to get a life," said yet another user.

It stands to reason that a handful of Android community members decided to disparage the application to get back at the app's developer...but something like that could never be proven, only suspected.

Yet, if that was the case, those people inadvertently ended up hurting Android in the process. By raising questions about the safety and security of Android platform, they helped to spread "FUD" (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about this new mobile OS. Even worse, these rumors make the iPhone's closed and "by approval only" model look like the safer, smarter choice when it comes to phones. But as anyone involved in the open movement will tell you, that is not necessarily the case.

Now, a little over four months after Lively's launch, Google has decided to turn the lights out on the alternate reality, announcing that they are discontinuing Lively at the end of this year.

"Since Lively's launch, we have been delighted to see the creative ways you've used the product. We enjoyed hanging out in Jen's coffee house, and checking out the Brasil Party room. We got a kick out of the YouTube videos in a variety of languages telling stories about your avatars. And we've been awed by the elaborate rooms that you've constructed, using mosaic tiles and photo gadgets in novel ways."

But ultimately, it decided to shut the whole thing down. Why?

There will be all varieties of speculation as to why Lively failed to remain a viable application for Google. Perhaps the traffic Google expected never materialized? Maybe it was going to be too distracting to take on a well-entrenched Linden Labs and its faithful user base? Was the "Windows only" format a problem? Could it be that, in today's economic conditions, Google simply couldn't afford to fund it?

I think we can take Ockham's Razor to this one. Because I think the answer is quite simple: It seemed like a good idea at the time. But, in actuality, Lively didn't offer Google any relevant data. And that, ultimately, is what killed Lively.

The world of Google - everything on which Google focuses its time and effort - is built on relevant data. A portion of that world involves making that data searchable. But the far more lucrative portion of that world involves analyzing how users are accessing that data and finding ways to monetize those behaviors.

Example? Think of the silliest Google app that you can. I'll pick Google Mail Goggles, a Gmail Labs feature that makes you answer math questions before you're allowed to send an email to prevent you from drunk-emailing your friends. But you could take Gmail emoticons, because - honestly - that's pretty silly too. Even those seemingly ridiculous apps provide thousands of data points through their use: Which users deem themselves "at risk" for sending unwarranted emails? How good are inebriated people at math? What's the trend of sad emoticons now that the economy has turned? How many people opt for traditional emoticons versus graphic ones? You could go on and on with the potential data points.

But those examples only make sense because of one thing: users. It's much more difficult to make that leap with Lively - which didn't boast anywhere near the traffic of Gmail - and as such, it just simply didn't fit in to Google's larger plan. And when traffic started to tank, it wasn't worth additional investment, because Google likely wasn't seeing any relevant application for the data as part of its core structure.

Yes, I'm sure other factors came into play, and I'm sure it wasn't easy to pull the plug on a splashy product that launched mere months earlier. But it's an important reminder that Google has a larger goal in mind and you're a big part of it. If you're not playing, nobody's paying.