louisgray.com - Latest Comments in louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

ben — Sun, 10 May 2009 13:48:25 -0000

I tried Yammer and found it to be a colossal time waste, multiplied by the number of people signed up. The good thing was, once we stopped using it, suddenly we had time to actually get stuff done.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Alice Tang — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 02:50:39 -0000

for those that are shocked to see Plurk's traction, here's an even more shocking truth: it is more popular than friendfeed if you don't just look at US-only traffic :).

http://trends.google.com/we...

I'm surprise that some of you are shocked by the number. But then again, it's hard to realize what's going on outside the valley when you are embedded deeply into this hyper-sensational echo chamber world of silicon valley web 2.0 centric crowd. I think Plurk and Brightkite still have a lot to do if they want to go far but boy do I want to see the faces of those so-called social media specialists that had been calling them dead after they've just launched 6 months ago.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Martin — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:21:34 -0000

Is there some application that was missed? Simple answer: Yes! ;)
The question is not only about the business model but also about the functional strategy of a microblogging tool. Is it about plain communication or about knowledge sharing? Micromessaging vs. Microsharing? From a company's point of view sharing, filtering and find-what-you-want is important. Check out http://www.communote.com to see a microblogging tool with focus on these business features.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Chris Baskind — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:37:14 -0000

FaceBook could crush Twitter without any effort at all. Whether they want to take on the burden of maintaining such a service -- particularly when there's need to focus on the revenue model of their core product -- is another question.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Josh Downes — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:59:30 -0000

Twitter as infrastructure, I so like that comment :) Yes, that's what it will become dude :D

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Josh Downes — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:57:32 -0000

Twitter *may even* go mainstream? Isn't it already? ok, no, not like Facebook but 750% growth should say enough.
Twitter is quite simply the newest bestest coolest catchiest thing to hit the net since Google went mainstream.
I mean, sorry Facebook, prepare to make way for web 3.0 ;)

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Nic — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 13:27:14 -0000

This already exists: http://openmicroblogging.org/

We just need Twitter, etc to embrace it.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Bloggeries — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:25:22 -0000

I think Plurk will be around for a while. It just needs to start sending notifications if you get a single DM. Sending them when you're in a group one would be annoying but if someone sends one directly to you and you don't reply it looks like you aren't interested. This isn't good for personal relationships and once they fix that or if they do I think more people will start taking it seriously. I love the threaded conversation aspect of it.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

abrudtkuhl — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:26:49 -0000

If Laconi.ca can reduce the pain of their install down to that of the WordPress Famous "5 Minute Install" - I think it can be huge. If they can cure installation troubles and build a community of developers (themes, plugins, WordPress integration) - they will grow as fast as WordPress did.

I see the future as being niche microblogging communities around topics and popular blogs / sites.

Until then I think the defacto will be Twitter - if only because that's where everyone has already established themselves. At this point, it's clearly not about technology - it's about community. Of all the sites listed I only see Facebook as trouble for Twitter. Even then that trouble will only be to curb the growth of Twitter by stealing potential users. The switching costs are just too high for a Twitter user to switch.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

robdiana — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:35:53 -0000

I believe there is a possibility that Twitter will become infrastructure, similar to what happened with email. Granted email had a spec first and companies developed towards it, but many people have realized the value of a federated system for microblogging. So, what you desire may become a reality. This only becomes true if both Twitter and Facebook support the standard.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

robdiana — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:33:28 -0000

Meryn,
That is absolutely correct, there is always room for a better form of communication especially if it is significantly better. Regarding FriendFeed, it is possible that something better comes along, but the management of the information must improve. The flood of information is too hard for many to handle, so there is a significant hurdle to "better than FriendFeed".

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

robdiana — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:29:34 -0000

The Facebook thing could be a killer. They have so many users that it could make Twitter's growth stagnate very quickly. There is always room for competition, but the competition really does need to do something different. It cannot be a direct clone unless we start getting into federation, but that changes everything.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

robdiana — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:25:12 -0000

Andy,
When I started to write this post, I had assumed that the traffic for all of them would be the same. I was shocked to see the Plurk traffic. However, Plurk does have a different pull than something like Identi.ca because it is not just another Twitter clone.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Niklas Sjostrom — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:45:27 -0000

I hope that we some day have a working standard for microblogging interoperability that makes it possible to choose the platform based on visual/functional-preferences, not based on where your "friends" currently hang out.

The microblogging world today is similar to if people on Yahoo could only mail each other but not anyone using Google mail.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Meryn Stol — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:17:00 -0000

There is room for any better form of interaction, as long at it is significantly better. The blogosphere has been bootstrapped too. Twitter has been bootstrapped, now Friendfeed is being bootstrapped. ATM this won't leave space open for an "improved" FF competitor. The early adopters are too busy with FF.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Greggish — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:19:00 -0000

Rutger: Relating the Twitter experience to the FriendFeed experience I would describe Twitter as realtime statements without being able to meaningfully discern conversation out of those dissociated statements... is this a reply, a reply to what piece of information, was that a reply to something else... This is not a problem on FF, or at least not as big of a problem.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Rutger Blom — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:13:00 -0000

I'm still trying to figure out what the Twitter experience is.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Shawn K — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:30:10 -0000

Interesting thoughts here. Twitter is the king of the hill, but a few tweaks to Facebook and it could come crumbling down faster than we want to think.

I think Twitter will be like MySpace in the early years, a lot of early adopters grabbing on, with others slowly trickling in. There will be other competitors, like Jaiku and Identica and Plurk, but none will offer any significant competition. Ultimately, a competitor will come along, much like Facebook, and be a game changer.

Twitter is somewhat limited in what they can do, because its simplicity is a big part of why people love it, it wouldn't take very many of the wrong kind of features and people will be turned off.

Ultimately, Twitter needs a business model, and fast. They won't be on top forever, so they need some positive cash flow, and some reserves on hand to weather any competition that appears. MySpace has been retooling under the radar. Twitter could have the opportunity to do the same thing, a subtle remake of themselves after a game changer comes along.

There's always room for competition, and slowly but surely, it will be here. I think the real question is, can Twitter maintain its user base when the competition gets here?

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Andy C — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:25:01 -0000

I find it hard to believe that Plurk has 2-3 times the users of identi.ca but I could be wrong.

Similarly, the Jaiku fanboys will be quick to refute the obvious conclusion that identi.ca will overtake Jaiku early in 2009.

Does it matter ? Probably not. To each their own.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Greggish — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:21:00 -0000

I keep thinking that "Twitter like" messaging (not provided by Twitter) will be added onto most web community sites. That doesn't kill Twitter the website of course. But the Twitter "experience" won't be unique to just Twitter in the very near future.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Andy C — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:42:00 -0000

Yeah - there's plenty of room for everyone. When Twitter finally dies, you'll all say 'Christ - I wish I had an archive of all my Tweets.' Peace, love, empathy.

Re: louisgray.com: Twitter: Is There Room For Anyone Else?

Louis Gray — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:06:00 -0000

Post by Rob Diana: http://www.friendfeed.com/r...