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Twitter’s Mysterious Mystique
By Mark Evans | June 25, 2008
Does it strike anyone as terribly ironic that on the day that Twitter officially raises $15-million in venture capital, the service continues to be plagued by technical problems?
Forget about Twitter surviving the Steve Jobs’ most recent love-fest, it would have been better if Twitter had been able to stay up today as a sign of faith for its investors - Union Square Ventures and Digital Garage, Jeff Bezos and Bijan Sabet.
Speaking of irony, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said the money will be used to make Twitter “reliable and robust”. Maybe that’s something Twitter should have been working on before pulling in a cool $15-million.
“To reach our goal, Twitter must be reliable and robust. Private funding gives us the runway we need to stay focused on the infrastructure that will help our business take flight. We will continue hiring systems engineers, operators, and architects, as well as consultants, scientists, and other professionals to help us realize our vision.”
As for a business model, Stone says it’s coming…soon. Well, as soon as Twitter gets its act together (aka stops going down on a regular basis).
Meanwhile, Twitter becomes more popular as the growing number of disciples embrace micro-blogging and the ability to communicate at any time in mere seconds.
As for alternatives, Pownce is still around. In fact, MIT’s Technology Review goes out on a limb and names Pownce as one of the 10 Web startups to watch in 2008.
MIT suggests that while you can micro-blog with Pownce, “it really a file-sharing platform disguised as a microblogging service–and possibly the next big thing to inflict insomnia on entertainment industry lawyers.”
Hmm, that’s interesting - a P2P platform - just the thing that Canadians are going to need to circumvent the disastrous copyright legislation recently tabled.
Finally, Mashable has all kinds of good things to say about Twellow, which makes it easier to find fellow Twitter users. It’s a really cool application. Mashable suggests this is something Twitter should have built. I suggest it’s something they should buy, along with a few servers and some loading balance thing-a-ma-jigs.
More: I’m Actually Not a Geek has some straightforward insight into the investment and what Bezos brings to the table.
Technorati Tags: Pownce, Twitter
Topics: Web 2.0 |