11 comments

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  Marc Dierens

  1 year ago

  I'm still using Twitter, but have moved a lot of my "social media" online time to FriendFeed. I will continue to use Twitter for the near future, we'll see what will happen with the new funding.
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  Zvi Band

  1 year ago

  What is truly remarkable about twitter is that, as much downtime as they have, they still remain unbelievably popular. Yes, the usage statistics are down, but you know you will still keep twhirl running and post as much as you can.
  
  The question is... what happens if someone comes along, offering the exact same service, but with a reliable architecture? Will twitter disappear? Or will it win because it still has so many people?
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  mojaam

  1 year ago

  Plurk FTW! Plurk can also be buggy at times and has it's fair share of problems, but the conversations are a lot easier there. You can view all responses on a single page which is something I never understood twitter for not doing. So I hope the new kid plurk overtakes the twitter beast or at least twitter becomes a lot better. For real for real I will just stick to Facebook statuses if they changed a few things.
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  Christopher Rollyson

  1 year ago

  Nick, thanks for this blurb. I too have been frustrated with Twitter downtime, but it hasn't been crippling on more than a handful of cases. I typically tweet about 6x/day, so not a power user. I did open a pownce account and intend to use that as a back-up, but I keep going back to twitter because 1) everyone's there, 2) they seem to have a good attitude about it, which doesn't fix the prob but appeals and, most important, 3) the interface. On the iPhone, it's so tight and simple and it's fun to use. I was disappointed when facebook changed their interface to twitter; some months ago, they (don't know the technology but my impression was) would "cache" what you wrote on facebook and feed it to twitter when it was back up, giving an asynchronous effect. That was great when twitter was down; you could continue to tweet on facebook without missing a beat! I'm surprised that no one has hacked something like that.
  
  Anyway, I think they're still in the zone, but if problems persist, a fast follower can do them in. For most people, change costs will serve as a deterrent for a while, but the tipping point approaches...
  
  Cheers-
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  Justin Thorp

  1 year ago

  I really don't understand why people freak out so much about Twitter down time... except maybe for bored writers who are looking for the next Web 2.0 scandal to write about in turn driving traffic to their blogs.
  
  Zvi, I'm confident that if plurk got the same level of usage that Twitter did, it'd crumble.
  
  95% of the time I want to use Twitter it works just fine. Maybe I have low expectations but it does what I need and I'm sticking with it.
  
  I think in general people need to chillax a bit.
  
  If we're talking about potential competitors to Twitter, i'd be more concerned about Google. I'd read rumor somewhere that they're integrating the notion of "presence" into all their applications.
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  Craig - Hook Mobile

  1 year ago

  I am still committed to Twitter. People fail to recognize that Twitter has a lot more complete system than other competitors. By tackling the SMS upload costs (and taking on the costs), they are doing something that others simply can't do. I believe they will get the reliability up and Twitter will be the system we all use.
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  Martin Ringlein

  1 year ago

  I only found this post through Nick's twitter -- so I guess you are not completely "out" and I guess it still has some useful function.
  
  I am just busting your chops, but I do find it ironic that you use Twitter to tell others that you may be done using Tiwtter.
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  Nick O'Neill

  1 year ago

  @Martin ... totally agree ... I was thinking the same thing last night after I wrote the post ;)
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  Jeph Christoff

  1 year ago

  Twitter is down for sure, but they're definitely not out.
  
  I think that Twitter has the interface, the integration (some networks still don't have sms capability) and the users so when they finally get their act together, and I hope it's soon, they'll be back on top.
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  Tim Courtney

  1 year ago

  Nick, I've told you before that I read you because of your tweets about blog posts. I'm getting back into RSS, but still I don't hit the popular blogs as much due to volume. Your headlines grab me on Twitter, and that's why you continue to have my attention, at least from a blog perspective.
  
  My usage is down, too. Really focused on cutting out the intermittent distractions. But, I do use Twitter for instant communication with peeps, and for coordinating meeting up in person (DM's to my phone).
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  Jason Preston

  1 year ago

  I'm starting to look at some location-based SMS/Twitter-like alternatives. I'm going to be posting about them soon once I gather some more impressions.
  
  I think that the next step with this kind of service is going to be tied to geography. It seems like the obvious next layer to me.
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