Twitter’s Mysterious Mystique
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.
June 25th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Mark,
Given everything we as Twitter users have been through at this point and with the knowledge that many of the features in Twellow and others can be bought/built once the architecture is stable I think most will be prone to stick around. I hate the whale as much as the next person but for whatever reason I have not been able to switch over, and nor have most of my follow(er) community.
Twitter needs to take the money from the new raise, stabilize the technology, understand the business model and drive forward with a well established obviously loyal user base that will be ecstatic to have media that works every day and has a plan to drive the product forward.
My two cents
June 25th, 2008 at 10:43 am
That’s the real mystery - peoples’ unwillingness to leave Twitter. The problem is that switching to Jaiku or Pownce is not worth it if no one’s there to make new place interesting and/or useful.
Mark
June 25th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
It seems like several bloggers (including myself) chose to Twhinge today - where Twhinge = complaining about Twitter.
June 26th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Check out Summize, best tool for keeping track of twitter conversations in real-time, allows for searches, like all Twitt’s in Toronto:
http://summize.com/search?ands=&from=&geocode=43.670233%2C-79.386755%2C15mi&lang=all&near=Toronto¬s=&ors=&phrase=&q=&ref=&rpp=15&since=&tag=&to=&units=mi&until=&within=15
Also, check out ‘twhirl’ great desktop twitter tool
June 28th, 2008 at 7:00 am
[...] Speaking of Twitter, it raised $15-million from a bunch of investors include Amazon domo Jeff Bezos. It’s ironic that service was, once [...]
June 28th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I believe Twitter is inferior to Plurk, given that the latter allows conversations. Twitter has a large lead since it started earlier. However those who are trying both seem to be favouring Plurk. Of course you have to stay on Twitter given the community there, but you can try to persuade them to watch both. I’m sure in that direct comparison, Plurk will win out easily, even if Twitter was not having all its problems.