August 8, 2009

• A few days ago, popular websites like Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, YouTube, etc, were under the attack of a Distributed Denial Of Service (DDOS) attack. Out of all the websites that were being attacked, Twitter was probably the one that was affected the most. In fact, out of all the news reports about the DDOS, Twitter was the main subject related to the attack. A lot of attention was specifically put on Twitter, and some people were practically in a panic, making it seem like we lost some kind of important infrastructure that we couldn't live without. I know, ridiculous right? This got me thinking that "wow, Twitter really has infiltrated society so much, that maybe it might be more than just another fad that would eventually fade out." Sure, tons of people have already proclaimed how much Twitter is going to be a relatively short lived website, or at least have said that it's popularity will be severely diminished in time (like what happened with myspace). You know what, I still believe in that prediction. I've said my piece before, but that was before I decided to take the plunge and actually use Twitter, so that I could see what the fuss is all about. So allow me to say another piece...

  Now after months of using Twitter, the same conclusion seems to have popped up, and it's that Twitter has many things going against it that will probably turn people away from the service in droves. From the 140 character max entries, the luckluster way it shares links (photos, videos, etc), to the horrible way it handles conversations and threads. Twitter did originally intend for this social network to consist mostly of banal things like "currently ordering a Frappuccino at Starbucks," but people realized that they wanted to do more with it, except it wasn't really thoroughly designed to handle more detailed posts. It's simply a mess and a chore to fully do the things you want to do with Twitter, especially considering social sites like Facebook has done it right, and that came up a few years before Twitter was even born. Comparing Twitter to Facebook, is seriously like comparing a pager to a cellphone (I don't really intend this to be a Twitter versus Facebook topic, because that's been done to death).

  With the current state of Twitter, we have six types of common updates that I've noticed. You've got the "currently doing the laundry" updates, which is what Twitter was made for. There are those who use it to share current events news updates, which is something the service does admittedly well, since Twitter is more like a newsfeed ticker. Posting thoughts or mini-blogs like "I saw "x" movie, and it was great," which is something that I think works well with Twitter. Updates that focus on just sharing a web link to a video, photo, or article, is another thing that's welcome. Then there are those who do the whole Twitter trend stuff like "Follow Friday" or "Music Monday," which is honestly kind of annoying. Then there are the updates that are apparently part of a conversation with other Twitter users, which is frankly a frustrating thing to do in this social network.

  Out of those six types of updates, half of those are actually kind of useful. News updates, sharing links, and mini-blogs are something I want to see more with Twitter, although Facebook does those better as well (wait, I'm not suppose to say that F word anymore). To my knowledge, there are in fact tons of people out there (and businesses) who does post the noteworthy updates, which makes the service tolerable to use, but then all the useless stuff are still there as well. If people can just concentrate more on the good that Twitter can do (like the case with Iran this year), and not worry so much about how many people are "following" them (it's like that "friends thing" with myspace all over again - horrible), then I can see this social network thriving pass that fad phase. I know that I do still plan to use Twitter in conjunction to my Facebook updates, so for the time being it at least looks like this service has proven to be beneficial to me after all.

  www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/twitter-apparently-down/
  g4tv.com/videos/40545/Problems-With-Twitter/
  www.vancouversun.com/technology/Young+people+ignoring+Twitter+trends+survey+finds/1862961/story.html
  twitter.com/optimum5

  • 3:18 pm
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