“Pull” Twitter apps aren’t very practical until a setting is added to each user account. Right now, if someone adds me as a friend — I still can’t receive any direct messages they send me, until I add them as my friend too. And even once I were to do that, I wouldn’t receive any direct messages they sent prior to me friending them.

(Note to Twitter team: You should notify a user if they send a direct message and the other party can’t receive it, because they aren’t a friend of that user. I’d just send a direct message back to the user from a ‘Twitter’ username that says, “You are not a friend of ‘[username]‘ and your direct message did not send.”)

Here’s what needs to happen — I have a request into the Twitter dev team:
Basically we’re talking Twitter bots now. But in order for a username to acknowledge a direct message from a user, the username must add the requesting user as a friend first — otherwise it doesn’t get the direct message.

Thus, I’m suggesting under ‘Settings’ there might be a new category called ‘Friends’, with only one option right now — “Automatically become friends with users requesting to be your friend” (default option is ‘no’ or unchecked).

Otherwise, as a bot owner, I’d have to login to the bot’s username account multiple times a day, approve the users as friends… and by that time, the requesting user might forget about the bot, and never come back to it.

Note to Techquila Shots readers: I promise to eventually get off my Twitter high, but this is just too exciting at the moment for me. Ignore these Twitter posts if you don’t care about the service

James just wrote in the following, which I like his thinking — I just quite honestly have no clue how this could/would work:

I love the idea for a massively transparent startup process, and i look forward to participating.

That having been said, I’m not donating because you don’t pass either of my investing filters:

1. Is RS (ringside startup…) going to help make me money?

No. Being listed on the contributor page doesn’t count.

2. Is RSS a worthy charity?

No. Much more worthy funds out there.

I think your idea would be much better if you did give equity, and gave higher equity to those involved earlier in the process.

Just like the real thing!

What about all this SEC nonsense?

I guarantee that there are ways around it. Your investors need to organize their own fund, and invest as essentially a single investor. Each time investors create a fund, you should negotiate with them an equity rate just like you would with any VC.

The big problem, of course, is setting up the crowdsourced VC fund. That’s not my business, but I would invest in such a fund. And I’d like to see your venture help in the development of these kind of crowdsourced funding projects.

$480 total raised. About 50 days left. I’m trying for $20,000 — but minimum is $10,000. Thus, I need to get $200 of contributions per day. I have an option that if a contributor puts up $150+, they get to post their logo and add additional descriptive text. I’m going to start randomly displaying these on the sidebar of every webpage — to encourage business sponsors (essentially buying ad placement). Would be great to find 75 of these type of sponsors (1.5 per day).

Spoke to Jay Parkhill (lawyer) — I have to stay away from giving up equity, promissory notes (if the business isn’t a success, then it would definitely have to be shut-down, and I obviously wouldn’t be held personally responsible for getting money back into people’s hands — but anyhow, I don’t want to think about people putting up money and expecting anything more than some lessons learned from the community and advisors I have lined up. If the business actually launches, and isn’t a success — I think we’d all come out of it with some lessons learned that were worth a $10 contribution).

Still hopeful. Please help spread the word by emailing colleagues, posting on your blog, or better yet — reaching out to any businesses that you think might be interested in (essentially buying) ad/logo placement on the site.

I don’t know what will blow up and be used more on Twitter — content push plays, or pull plays. Push would be having ‘NFL’ as a friend and getting all the latest NFL news pushed to you as it happens. Pull would be service apps like users requesting stock quotes, sports scores, yellow page phone numbers, etc.

There’s monetization capabilities in either — I’m sure the twitters sent out to the users won’t use the full 140-character limit. Thus, you can add some ad text — “Brought to you by Pepsi”.

Right now, the “pull” apps are a bit clunky — until Twitter resolves usage of “direct messages” as not being in the following format “d [username] [message]“. I see a day when companies have built apps using Twitter and are telling users in their ads, “Text to 40404: @Starbucks [zip code], to get the closest Starbucks address and phone number!”

I’ve been on a Twitter high since last Friday night — I’ve had Twitter application ideas flowing through my body ever since (along with way too much adrenaline).

I’m holding my ideas in, and if I blogged them, I’d be doing the original purpose of my Techquila Shots blog (getting original ideas out there to talk about) — and I’d feel a hell of a lot better by getting them out there. I can’t stand holding them in; and I can’t stand knowing I can’t get them worked on. Since Friday, I’ve been a wreck — staying up too late, can’t concentrate on anything — it’s all been a massive blur.

Final Thoughts Before Bed:

1. Twitter — This is blowing up. Right now, the direct messaging usage is clunky — must type in “d techcrunch hey what’s up” .. or for an app, “d forecast 14202″ — this will likely change to either “=forecast 14202″ or “@forecast 14202″.
2. Twitter — I don’t know what will blow up and be used more on Twitter — content push plays, or pull plays. Push would be having ‘NFL’ as a friend and getting all the latest NFL news pushed to you as it happens. Pull would be service apps like users requesting stock quotes, sports scores, yellow page phone numbers, etc.
3. Twitter — curious the % of twitter messages coming from web vs. text.
4. Tempted to start paying a programmer to build some of these apps. Also tempted to find a programmer to do a rev-share with (on future suspected revenues) to build out these apps — or find a small investment from someone.
5. I can’t afford to be spending money on programming my hopes and dreams right now. Thus, I should blog all these Twitter ideas I have and relieve myself of this anxiety.
6. UGH!

“Focus.” I can already hear Eric saying this to me tomorrow.

If you ever feel this crazy — you’re an entrepreneur. So who out there’s an entrepreneur?

If you’re a great PHP/MySQL programmer (and looking for some potential side work; specifically tonight) — email me. Please don’t waste my time if you really aren’t that good. You can just email me, but I’d like at the very least, examples of your work. Sample code of yours will give you an edge (as I can then truly verify if you’re great). You could attach your resume if you have it, but not necessary.

I posted an article on TechCrunch last night after I requested the Twitter dev team to open their API and expose “direct messages”. (Note: Some others had requested similar functionality from Twitter). I saw the potential of “direct messages” essentially becoming commands, so that applications could be built off the Twitter back-end — allowing users to send private commands to specific keywords (er, Twitter usernames) and those usernames processing a command via the API, and sending requested information back to the user.

This really opens Twitter up and there’s going to be a lot of applications built off the Twitter back-end (although I agree with one commenter: it’d be nice to know officially from Twitter whether they’ll ever plan to charge an application provider that builds off their platform).

Nik Cubrilovic just opened the can of worms regarding Twitter username squatting. I had lingo referring to this in the TechCrunch article, but I think Mike wanted to keep the post focused.

Twitter usernames are one-of-a-kind — and I kind of feel like this is 1995 and someone just told me, “Hey, you know, domains are one-of-a-kind — they’re going to worth money someday; people will be selling them to each other. In particular, the generic domains are going to be worth a lot.”

I’m patiently waiting to see who makes the first Twitter username sale. Will there be a “Twitter username after-market” someday? We’ll see.

Finally, Nik feels that Twitter missed out on an opportunity by not reserving these generic keywords ahead of time — I agree, but strongly disagree. I think the Twitter team is focused on building a great service — and a great back-end. I think they want people to build applications off of it and make it more apart of people’s lives. If you build an app off it, then people depend on using Twitter. Just like Evan’s Blogger.com (which he sold to Google) — he focused on building a great app, he didn’t worry about reserving the generic subdomains for ‘blogspot.com’ (Blogger’s domain for hosting).

Last night I officially launched the Ringside Startup project. I actually had soft-launched last Thursday, notifying a handful of people — including the initial advisors. Wanted to work out any kinks before going public. The mistake I made was getting the thing digg’d that night — because come today, the digg is 3 days old — it only had a few diggs over the weekend, and I’m still not sure whether it could ever get to page 1 of digg.com now.

Last night I sent an email out to Pete Cashmore (Mashable), Mike Arrington (TechCrunch), Matt Marshall (VentureBeat), and Allen Stern (Center Networks). Pete posted relatively quickly (around 1am EST), but then posted another 8 posts before I woke up — so the post was buried if you read Mashable. (Note: Don’t compete on a Monday; wait and notify the press late Monday night or Tuesday morning). The others haven’t posted yet that I’ve seen — however other bloggers have done some posting (thank you!).

Received a lot of positive feedback/support from my Techquila Shots readers. Also received quite a few inquiries to the advisory positions — honestly, keep them coming in, but I’m focused on getting the contributions now and then in the future will possibly add more advisors. Right now, there’s nothing to advise on.

I’ve only raised $320 in reader contributions — thus, I’ve started thinking about Plan B options if I can’t raise the funds. I’m thinking I either need to (more…)

Wish I hadn’t missed this event.

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) says to only hire young employees:

“Young people just have simpler lives. We may not own a car. We may not have family.” In the absence of those distractions, he says, you can focus on big ideologies. He added, “I only own a mattress.” Later: “Simplicity in life allows you to focus on what’s important.”

Paul Buchheit (Google employee #23 and Gmail creator) says to “seek out risk-taking opportunities where they can learn”. (That makes me think of any young entrepreneurs out there that have the ability to code — and have the ability to spend the summer in Boulder. If you can get accepted into TechStars, I think you’ll find the experience priceless.)

… and more tips from others. Read the article by VentureBeat for sure.

These are some hand-picked ideas from my Techquila Shots vault that I think are the best and most practical (given the anticipated budget) for Ringside Startup.

Please contribute to Ringside Startup if you’d like to see the journey of one of these ideas turn into an actual business — and hear the guidance of seasoned start-up experts during the journey.

1. LikeLoveOrHate.com
   Simply put, this idea revolves around connecting people online via similar interests. Right now, if you go to a user’s MySpace page or blog, you may see a list of music, movies, books that they like — but that doesn’t tell you much (plus it’s time consuming).

   I’m proposing a simple website that asks you questions to gauge what you like/love/hate — in an easy interface where you just click to answer questions, while we compile all of that data into a back-end database. Then, users place a widget on their blog/MySpace/etc and when another user (that has a profile with us) visits that user’s webpage, the widget instantly compares the visitor with the user being viewed, and tells the visitor what shared interests they have and whether they have a high compatibility (similar to Last.fm — see image provided).

2. “Vyous” (views, you — “your views”)
   Last I knew, YouTube was getting 40k video uploads a day — and millions of people watching. Right now, YouTube is a big cluster — there’s a handful of categories. Personally, I don’t publish videos, because I don’t even know what to create a video on. My idea is that the next step in UGC videos (user-generated content videos) is giving users a reason to create a video.

   Everyone has opinions — my favorite pizza shop in Buffalo NY is going to be different than other Buffalonians. Just as my opinion on the new movie “Borat” will be different than others — or the parts that I loved the most will differ from others. Give people a reason to create video and I believe you could double those uploads per day. Goal: To become the largest source of original “opinionated” video, photographic, and contextual content on the web (globally).

3. Event Media Aggregation (Concerts, Sporting Events, etc)
   People are taking tons of videos and photos with their cell phones and digital cameras these days at concerts, sporting events, weddings, etc. Right now though, there isn’t a single central source to find all of the media from a concert or sports game.

   This idea would create that central source — and allow people to specify if they’re attending an upcoming event, or attended a past event. They can submit URLs to Flickr photos, YouTube videos, etc — and they can also meet people that are going to an upcoming event, or find that person that they met at a previous event (but didn’t get their contact info).

4. Your Syndicated Chronological Life
   A website that allows you to input all of your online user accounts and creates a public/private timeline of your life — thus, it will displays your latest Twitter updates, Last.fm songs played, blog posts, blog comments, Yelp reviews, etc.
5. Classifieds by Cell
   Ability to easily record a video, or take photos, via your cell phone of items you have for sale. Typically, it takes too long to list an item on eBay or input it on Craigs List. This idea would allow you to pull out your cell phone, record a video, send it via your cell to us, and we’d call the user back using automated VXML technology to ask the user how much they want for the item, further detailed description, and a simple category selection.

   The whole process could take anywhere from 1-3 minutes per item. I expect there are tons of items in people’s homes that just aren’t worth it to them currently to post on eBay or Craigs List — and I believe for the millions of items listed on eBay, there are at least that many equivalent (if not more) that would be posted online if only it were simpler and took less time.

Please contribute to Ringside Startup if you’d like to see the journey of one of these ideas turn into an actual business — and hear the guidance of seasoned start-up experts during the journey.

Which one of these ideas do you feel has the most potential for “success”?