Twitter hater

twitter Faced with constant service interruptions and an annoying hype cycle, I’ve relegated Twitter to the snail mail category of communications.

That is to say I’ll check it once a day for a very short period of time, assuming of course the network is operational.

The reasons for my frustration with the network are manyfold. The overhyped social network has been hobbled by service problems over the past month if not longer. Furthermore, information is hard to organize and frankly the Twitter hype far exceeds its utility even when the thing is at peak performance.

Nary a day has gone by where I haven’t received a message along the lines of: “Something went wrong! Try again!” Or how about the oft-used overly cute and annoying message: “Bring that beat back! You’ll be able to access Twitter in a few seconds.”

Why is that what seems like every other social network is able to grow with its user base except for Twitter?

Twitter has tried to blame its poor performance on everything and everyone. First, it was the fault of Lee Mighdoll, the former vice-president of engineering, who was likely pushed out in April. Then it was the fault of Ruby on Rails, a reliable open source Web application framework. I personally think Osama Bin Laden has something to do with Twitter’s performance problems.

I also receive far more spam, of the social network variety, if you will on Twitter. It’s not the traditional garden variety e-mail spam. It’s more like the barnacle type. You know what I’m talking about Twitterers. They’re the spambots/dummy accounts that want you to click through to some link farm that’s chock o block with self-hypnosis or stop smoking messages. I receive at least 2 of these notices a week.

The second major reason is the terrible organization of information on Twitter. The more people I follow on the network, the less

There are of course features that make it appealing on a limited basis - the microblogging feature most notably. The negatives far outweigh the positives.

Then there are the Web snobs that for some unknown reason prefer Twitter. The avid Tweeters or Twitterers blindly insist Twitter is a better social network despite its obvious flaws. The slavish devotion to what increasingly seems like a flawed platform only makes me want to decrease my usage further.

Yet I will remain a Twitter user - it’s hard to ignore a platform that’s adding 1.2 million users a month. This is the power of networks. It is relegated to a network I will check no more than once a day status. Long live Facebook. Long live LinkedIn and Plurk. There’s a reason the first two networks mentioned will remain well-trafficked sites for the time being at least.

Performance matters. Down with Twitter. Wait a sec - it’s already down!

June 6, 2008 | Filed Under News Items and Commentary 

Comments

One Response to “Twitter hater”

  1. Mark Evans on June 6th, 2008 6:58 pm

    Nice rant! It is amazing that Twitter can go from strength to strength - from a adding more users perspective - even as it struggles to perform well. Meanwhile, rival services such as Pownce continue to be pretty much ignored even though they have more features.

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