Site implementation

I recently got set up on Twitter. I’ve been hearing about it and scuttling around it for a while now. I’ll preface this by saying that I’ve only been using this for a short while, so I may just not have found some stuff out. So far I’m digging it. The concept is very simple, sms for web. That’s it. Create a user and post a message in 140 characters. Everything about the service (API’s, indexing, twibes etc) is built around this. The website layout is simple and clear, the creators are obviously exponents of the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy. There is the ability to customise the look of your homepage, follow people, find friends, edit your profile and search your tweets (the name given to your messages). This is one of the sites that is held up as a standard bearer for the Ruby on Rails people (alongside basecamp). Site uptime and capacity has been called into question. I’ve seen the “too many tweets” page now once to often in the two or three weeks I’ve been using it.

Twitter tools

It only takes a short time to realise that the twitter site is very limited. Tweets have a source field, and it is quickly apparent that most people don’t actually use the site, but some application. I tried two, Tweetie on the iPhone and twhirl (which is an air application). Both are really good and do exactly what they say on the tin.

Information flow

The way messages flow is very interesting. There’s a high drop out rate, somewhere in the region of 60%. Still, it’s apparently now the third most active social networking site. The model adopted by Twitter can lead to a skewed conversation, with a small minority of people having a disproportionate following. One of the things I did when I signed up was to follow some companies whos products I use. There was one of these people (won’t mention names) who posts during the day at a very high rate. Nothing significant, sometimes repeated, mostly inane. But they fill up my board, so that I might actually miss something I want to see. Annoying.

As a means of actual two way communication, this is poor. Tweets go into a list sorted chronologically, if you don’t happen to be sitting watching the board, chances are you will miss messages.

One other note I’d make is that, the process of following someone doesn’t actually require any permission from the person. This is interesting, because unlike say facebook, your tweets are entirely public. Not much in the way of privacy settings here. Because of this, it is actually easier to interact with people you don’t know, because there isn’t a formal “will you be my friend” moment.

Conclusion

So, as the an engineer at IBM said when he first saw the microchip “But what…is it good for?”. Random babblings. A vomit of diatribe launched onto the internet. If you have something important to say, to one, two or many people twitter doesn’t seem ideal. It’s possible, just not ideal. If you have something personal/secret to say, this doesn’t seem to be the best way to go either.