As Essential As Oxygen
A service that inspires passion as Twitter does, and attracts dramatic growth as Twitter does, faces a singular challenge. Twitter has had to relocate and re-architect several times to deal with increased load, and each major shift potentially leaves people without access to one of the key parts of their day. Changes behind the scenes caused tweet delivery to seem unreliable the day before this week's U.S. Presidential primary Pennsylvania, sparking concerns and even anger.
In the midst of this, Biz Stone told me, "We have a vision of Twitter as a reliable communication utility around the world," and added, "We have a lot of work ahead of us." Still, even criticism often includes agreement that Twitter is generally very reliable.
In addition to issues of scalability, I asked about the long-term viability of Twitter, a free service with no advertising or any obvious means of support. They have received quite a bit of funding, but surely a viable business model is needed, I suggested. Biz responded, "Yes, scaling Twitter as a company and as a service is a challenge that we have decided to take on. Sustainability is certainly part of scaling Twitter as a company. We'll comment on the business of Twitter when we're ready. Right now our focus is on growth, reliability, and creating a good experience."
Worth Trying
Go ahead, sign up for an account. Let the site search your email address book to find people you know, and follow them. You might be surprised what you learn about people you though you knew! You might even find yourself talking about things not many people know about you, too.
There is an official blog for the site, as well as Twitter accounts for each of the company's principals. For more information about some of the neat things you can do with Twitter, also visit TwitterHolics.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
The editor who published this article is now paying more attention to Twitter -- I've succeeded! :-)
2 - Eric Berlin
The success of twitter as you've said is due to its simplicity, the open API, and perhaps most importantly, early market share grab amongst tech and media online adopter types. Pownce and Jaiku might offer some different/better features, but why switch if people you know are on twitter and you've already invested time building up a friend/follow list there?
3 - Matthew T. Sussman
So when's the launch of Twittercritics.org?
4 - Phillip Winn
EB (#2), there's no question in my mind that Twitter came along at just the right time. It will be especially difficult for competing services to succeed, because of the social networking aspects you mention. Why should I sign up with X if everyone's on Twitter?
I already have Facebook and Twitter, though I'm barely using Facebook anymore. Another site? Forget it!
5 - Phillip Winn
Suss (#3) there's a somewhat clumsy BC bot on twitter right now: BC Magazine. I'll improve the bot at some point.
In the meantime, BC Magazine is people, so sign up and join the peeps! :-)
6 - Matthew T. Sussman
Yeah, I think I'm just going to skip this iteration of the Internet until we get to Web 10.0, when Synapsr comes out, letting me seamlessly publish my stream of consciousness to the World Wide Web without having to translate it into keystrokes and words.
7 - Bennett
Thanks for this Phillip, it looks good. In the apps section of twitter there's a desktop console named "Spaz" which I've downloaded and am enjoying its functionality. Plus, I like the name, and if you visit their site you get to see the "dictionary picture" for a spaz...
8 - RJ Elliott
Good article, PW. Now I know what all that "twittering" on Facebook is about. ;)
9 - Phillip Winn
Eric, our esteemed founder and publisher, is now tweeting. Mwua ha ha!