Microblogging is all about conversations. About interesting ideas, and the opinions and clarifications to those. About discovering things happening around you. But to be honest, Twitter and its clones like Identi.ca do not do that so well. Ease of posting, and good external tools might be there, but what lacks is the possibility to have real conversations. That is where...

JP Rangaswami is writing about how innovation should happen as a dialogue between the developers and the users of the product. As an example of how innovation used to happen, he dug up Henry Ford's early automobiles and assembly lines. With these early Fords, the customer choice was limited to having your car "in any color as long as it...