Twitter fritter, Users bitter...

Uh Oh...looks like Twitter's users are revolting*

They are starting to take stylus to blog about issues with the lack of ongoing development, and the flaky back end infrastructure.

I've been on Twitter since fairly early days, it reminds me of the alt.net in the early 1990's - except with pictures and a voyeuristic ability to see who else the people you were talking to are talking to. Functionally both were pretty crap as services go in the early days. Problem is, the altnet grew up with proper email clients etc, whereas Twitter is really still a toy - there is no ability to sort posts, no really usable persistence, etc etc.

Mind you, with the users calling 'emselves "Tweeters" and sending "Tweets" to each other, no wonder its still seen as a toy

However, it did do something very interesting - Telcos have been trying to solve the Unified Messaging Service problem for at least 10 years, but tried to build a Rolls-Royce medium, whereas Twitter simplified the problem by reducing the message to 140 characters. This facet imho has huge promise, just look at the added value services that have been developed around Twitter.

And I must say I find it more attractive now - could be that the user base is maturing, or that there are only so many times you can stomach writing about your lunch, but people seem to be writing less insipidly inane stuff, the signal / noise ratio is growing.

And for some reason, I perceive a huge growth in the last 3 months or so - in my experience its driven hugely by people coming off Facebook, but wanting to stay connected to the same social networks - golden Early Adopter opinion drivers. But these are fickle beings, and can flitter off to the next new shiny thing at the drop of a heartbeat - not so much "mavens" as "magpies" - and many potential competitors are waiting to pownce, hoping for a seesmic shift their way.

Tempus Fugit. Carpe Diem. Cave Canem.

*Actually they are very nice individually, its just when they flock together.....