Two Puzzle Pieces: iLoop And Twitter

iWatch? No.

I think it will be called the iLoop.

Apple’s address is 1 Infinite Loop.

To call it an “iWatch” is stupid. They never called their music player an “iJukebox” or “iMusic” or “iPlayer.” Calling it an “iPod” left it wide open to do more than play music — as it eventually did; offering, for example, video and photos. And “pod” was a brilliant choice, since the iPod was white — and most people connected it to the white pods of the movie 2001.

Anyway, I go for iLoop after searching the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office’s database and finding just one applicant — a holding (aka beard) company — seeking “iLoop” and “eLoop” under the guise of health-related services.

And seeing common-sense reports today that Apple had seeded partners with the SDK for the wrist device made me connect it Twitter talking about changing the Timeline.

Changing the Timeline only makes sense if it needs to be adapted to something.

I think that “something” is the iLoop.

Even the most ardent Twitter user wouldn’t dare want all of their Timeline on their wrist. Even I — who has not been any slouch at Twitter — think that would be nuts.

But this is a problem users could solve if Twitter would cooperate.

1) Give users the ability to classify tweets. In other words, metadata. See my prior post about this.

2) Give users the ability to prioritize tweets. When I’m out and about, the only tweets I’d want to see are related to very important news: Terrorist attack, nearby accident, death of someone prominent, and the like. Individuals I Follow I could look up on my own. For real-time on-the-go Twitter, I’d want it limited strictly to news. And while Twitter might want that to all be corporate news — partners who pay to be prioritized — I’d want to put some individuals in that mix. Some people might not want news at all. They might want to see tweets just from their family or business partners or close friends (which, ironically, is how Twitter began).

3) Twitter could start things rolling by letting people create an iLoop list of up to, say, ten or even twenty Twitter accounts that would be pushed to the iLoop. Some people would scream at this limitation — but when they see how just ten accounts could sometimes be too distracting, the furor would subside as firsthand experience sets in.

The uproar over Twitter the past few days is that we don’t want someone else mediating our Timelines. We want that control. Hinting that control will be unilaterally — capriciously — taken away is what has created the controversy.

If Twitter’s idea is to modify Timelines to accommodate the iLoop, they’ve gone about it in their usual flatfooted and clumsy manner — clearly not understanding what users see in their damned service and what we get from it.

Anyway, this is my speculation, tying together two separate pieces of information.

Let’s see what Tuesday — 9/9 — brings.