Summit Notebook

So how plugged in is the SEC chair? (technologically speaking)

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro says her agency has its work cut out to compete with the massive amounts of money that private firms, policed by the SEC, pour into the latest technology.

“Can we keep up with Wall Street? I think we have a fighting chance. We’ll never have, under any circumstances, the kind of budgets that would allow us to spend a billion dollars a year on technology as some firms do, I mean that’s just not going to happen, and I totally understand that,” she said at the Reuters Future Face of Finance Summit.

“If we can build a forensics lab for our enforcement people to be able to download data off of iPhones and iPads and other instruments, then we will be a lot better able to pursue insider trading potentially and other securities law violations,” she said.

So how technologically plugged in is the SEC chair personally?

“I have an iPad,” Schapiro said.

“No I don’t do Twitter, I don’t have a Facebook page. You know, in my position it would be complicated,” she said with a laugh. “So maybe I’m kind of middling in terms of technology.”

Her agency has a Twitter feed and a Facebook page in development.

McCain to Gaga: I’ll save my talking for the Senate

Don’t expect Senator John McCain to respond to critical Twitter comments from pop star Lady Gaga as the U.S. Senate girds for a showdown over gays in the military.

“I only Twitter with Snooki, as you know,” McCain said Monday at the Reuters Washington Summit.

The Senate is expected to take up the hot-button issue on Tuesday, and McCain said he expects to focus his efforts on the floor of the Senate, not the popular microblogging service.

But he says the gay-friendly pop star and her followers are welcome to weigh in.

“I welcome her in the debate, I welcome all of her young fans into the debate,” McCain said. “It’s good to have lots of people involved.

With mere weeks until the Nov. 2 congressional elections, Democrats are hoping to rescind a ban on gays serving openly in the military — a policy known as “Don’t ask, don’t tell” — by including it in a bill that outlines the Pentagon’s spending priorities.

McCain and other Senate Republicans say it’s a nakedly political ploy to fire up a key segment of the Democratic base, and are seeking to block the bill on the grounds that Congress should wait until the Pentagon finishes up its review of the issue in December.

from MediaFile:

Twitter’s Costolo: not quite footloose and fancy free

You'd think fast-racing Twitter would keep one eye firmly fixed on the rearview and side mirrors.

With the Internet landscape littered with also-rans -- from pets.com to AskJeeves.com to a Facebook-steamrolled MySpace -- you'd imagine the one thing overnight Internet microblogging phenomenon Twitter would fear the most would be to get displaced by an up-and-comer with the same alarming speed.

Not so. Chief Operating Officer Dick Costolo insists no one at the company he has worked at for less than a year worries about two theoretical guys in a garage dreaming up the next social networking sensation.

"That's a fun question. The way I think about that is the only thing to prevent us from being successful is us," said the co-founder and CEO of FeedBurner, a digital content syndication platform that was acquired by Google in the summer of 2007. "This stuff that's out of my control -- I've got no hair and I'm too stressed out as is," said the bespectacled, balding executive who joined Twitter in September.

"We all kind of make it our job to understand what the landscape looks like but we make it a point to reinforce to each other that we're the people that are going to make Twitter successful, not the success or failure of the competition."

That's not to say Costolo and his company are luxuriating in a carefree existence. With more than $100 million raised from the likes of T. Rowe Price, Benchmark Capital and other investment names -- granting the four-year old firm an eye-popping $1 billion valuation -- tons of hype and the attendant hopes, Costolo is well aware of the need to meet some of those lofty expectations.

"We've got things to prove before we get there," admitted Costolo, an amateur stage performer. "I constantly, constantly, constantly worry about what we need to do to be a self-sustaining business."

Facebook’s Zuckerberg talks MySpace, Twitter

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Tuesday and while he wouldn’t touch TechCrunch’s report about financing and valuation, he did opine about a few of Facebook’s Web peers:

On the difference between Facebook and MySpace:

I think MySpace defines themselves as more of a media company and a media portal. A way to see the different content that is going on, or a way for a News Corp parent company to spread content through the network. Facebook has always been more focused on helping people build out their identity, helping people maintain their relationships and communicate really efficiently. We have talked about ourselves as a technology company a lot as opposed to a media company.

On the difference between Facebook and Twitter:

We respect Twitter and we think they are a great company. I think Twitter’s focus different is markedly different from Facebook’s. They are not really at all about a user’s identity. They are more about real time communication. People are sharing more and more information…and on a more frequent basis. If you extend that out then there is a good amount of information that is being shared in real time. That’s where a service like Twitter comes in, and that’s why that’s also one piece of what we want to do. If your friend does something important…there is no reason why you don’t want that update immediately. Real time is clearly one of the growing trends but i don’t think it’s the whole picture.

Photo: Reuters

from MediaFile:

It’s not easy being Biz

In the adrenalin-fueled world of Internet start-ups, where "Biz" is usually followed by "Dev," where did Twitter co-founder Biz Stone get his nickname?

After talking to the Reuters Technology Summit of growth rates and future revenue possibilities, the Twitter co-founder chatted with the Reuters San Francisco bureau about his unusual moniker and why it can pose traveling hiccups.

Christopher Isaac Stone said his parents first began calling him Biz when he mispronounced Christopher, saying "Biz-ah-bah" instead.

The name stuck, and by the third grade everyone knew him as Biz.

"I don't even answer to Christopher anymore," said the software engineer, who also goes by Isaac.

Stone's full name appears on his passport, so accidental plane ticket bookings under the name Biz have led to some problems with air travel.

Getting through airports can be like a "social engineering" experiment, with success a matter of seeking out a friendly check-in person, he said.

from MediaFile:

Counting Twitter users with Wolfram Alpha

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Monday that unless Twitter's growth rate slowed, by the end of the year its user base would exceed the population of Planet Earth.

Break out those calculators, nerds!

Let's put Biz's admittedly tongue-in-cheek statement to the test, using some back-of-the envelope math and the much-hyped, newly launched online knowledge compendium Wolfram Alpha.

Estimates of Twitter's user base vary widely. Let's take the frequently cited figure of 10 million, and double it to 20 million, since we're feeling generous and Oprah is involved.

Biz cited a week-by-week compound growth rate that would exceed the Earth's population by the end of the year.

We're in week 21 of 2009 -- that leaves 31 more weeks. We plugged the compound growth formula into Wolfram Alpha, and voila!

Twitter would have to grow its users by an astounding 20.5 percent a week to exceed Earth's population by the end of the year.