Sitting here early morning ready to post a link to share with all 200+ people in my twitter neighborhood and I'm getting the message I get at least twice a week, "Something went terribly wrong" or the new one, "Over capacity". Twitter has been around a little over a year now and it seems instead the quality of the application getting better it has become worse. Maybe the people over at twitter did not think it was take off as fast? Maybe people are trying to use it for what it is not? A while back I wrote a post on twitter and the other social networks and how i finally realized what is was and how to use it, or so I thought. Soon I became obsessed with twitter and more I used twitter the more I realized how time after time twitter was not stable. I mentioned yesterday how twitter is like this girlfriend that treats you like dirt but you keep allowing her in your home...this is what twitter is most of the time. Why do we keep coming back to it? It's not like we do not have other apps to use that are more stable. Heck, Pownce does not cap you at 140 characters, Jaiku is very stable but I guess us Americans are a glutton for punishment. Here is my "little two cents about twitter (again)...
what twitter is...
Twitter is a application that is really hard to explain to people. It's one of these web based programs that either you like or you don't. What I finally get about twitter is that it's a place to jot down a quick thought, a cool site that you have come across (what cool about twitter is that when you put the link in there most times it converts it to a tiny url). What I really dig about twitter is that the more your twitter neighborhood grows the more you can reach people in reference to sharing a blog post, a cool music site, or if you are funny as heck (like myself...I am so funny...really, I make myself laugh at least once a day) you can jot down a funny line or two and share with the twitter world. Like I said, twitter is hard to understand if you do not use it but it is truly a great social network tool to use because when using IM you just do not want to say, "hey! check out this link! Okay, buh bye." Twitter allows you to throw it out there and go about your business. You can use it from your computer or from your mobile device and from what I am seeing many people do this on a daily basis and I think maybe that might be the problem.
Maybe Evan Williams wanted to take this venture slow because Blogger was a huge success (which he sold to Google), Odeo is still hit and miss so to speak so maybe with Twitter he wanted to scale this slow. I think maybe after SXSW (South by Southwest festival) it really blew up and now he's playing catch up. I only have a little over 200 people following me but people like Leo Laporte, Robert Scoble, John C. Dvorak, Kevin Rose, Merlin Mann and yes even presidental hopeful Senator Barack Obama have thousands of people followers...now times that with the people that are joining each day (even some companies have thrown their hat in the ring in reference to using twitter to benefit them) and I can see why this network is down more times it is up. Maybe it may need to have Twitter pro accounts like Pownce, I'm sure we could cough up $15-$20 a year because most people spend more than that ever week on coffee alone (thank goodness I don't drink coffee anymore). I don't think that would be hard to do and maybe when businesses wish to use it he could charge them as well. One thing I can say is that the more twitter is down, soon or a later people will begin slowly moving away from this platform to find a more, stable place to use.
what twitter is not...
I think many people (I include myself in this category) began using this as kind of a chat room and I truly believe twitter is not made for that and maybe the problem lies there. Maybe people want to use it in this fashion...sort of like getting to know a person yet before giving them their IM handle. It's like, "let me test the waters with you here and if you are not too annoying here maybe we can take this to phase II and you can chat with me in real time via Instant Messenger." Sometimes I have seen tweets that may going on for about 3-4 tweets (again, I have been guilty of this). I have come to realize that if I have something in large volume to convey I need to go to my blog and write and it and then post a link to via twitter. I found myself needing to step back really far from twitter because I was spending more time on twitter than writing on my blogs. Once I stepped back from twitter I truly see what twitter should be used for and I appreciate it more. If I need to say something that is going to go on more than two tweets...write a post. Maybe some of us "Twitters" need to step back from it and see what exactly how it should be used because since I did this, and believe me, it was hard because as many times I would check to see if someone replied to my tweet or to see if my neighborhood has grown it was tiresome. But again, this is not twitter fault...this was on me.
Another thing is that sometimes people get hung up on how many people they can have in their neighborhood and some of these "tweeters" are nothing but bots and maybe there lies the problem as well. Maybe they could have something where if a person has not updated in a month or so their account will get suspended. I know this, people really dig twitter and I don't think it's going away but if something is not done to rectify this problem it will begin losing members.
In a Nutshell...
So, here it is in a nutshell in reference to twitter. Twitter is a electronic bulletin board really where you can post quick thoughts, links to other sites and blog post in a 140 characters. The reason for the 140 character is for people who are mobile so that is cool. Jaiku, Pownce and now friendfeed is on the block so the question to Mr. Evan Williams what are you going to do about this problem. Why do we still use Twitter with all of it's flaws when we could begin fleeing to other platforms? Some of us don't like change, some people are not fair weather friends, and many people have made friends through twitter. We are loving your product but even loyalist will get tired of putting up with a platform that is down more than it is up. We are hanging in here with you Evan, let us know what we need to do and many people that use twitter will do it.
