I had an awesomesauce conversation with fellow Grand Effect blogger Sarah Perez last night. Twitter came up in the conversation and I asked Sarah, "Where would we go if Twitter was gone?" We debated about this for a while, but I’d like to ask you the same question and explore some of the thoughts I had while discussing it with Sarah.
Alternative Twitter Services
Surprisingly, this was far from the first answer that came out of either of our mouths. In my opinion, Pownce and Jaiku are not alternatives to Twitter for various reasons. For one, there aren’t nearly as many web apps and services out there for Pownce and Jaiku like there is for Twitter. A new Twitter service pops up almost everyday. What was the last web app or service you heard about that catered to Pownce and/or Jaiku? How recent was it? My point exactly.
Secondly, Twitter has a massive community and if it went down, everyone wouldn’t pick just one of the alternatives and head there. Most of us would spread out to various other platforms and services. It would be a fragmentation of followings and sub-communities that many would not survive.
Lastly, Pownce and Jaiku’s communities are relatively dead compared to Twitter.
FriendFeed Service
Friendfeed would be my first alternative to Twitter. Sarah noted that Friendfeed could easily add Twitter-like functionality into the service, but they don’t wish to be Twitter’s competitor. Many Twitter users are already utilizing Friendfeed and some even use it as another tool for tracking tweets and receiving Twitter updates. Numerous Friendfeed/Twitter apps are out there such as Alert Thingy, bTT, and Twhirl. I could definitely see quite a few Twitter users flocking to Friendfeed if Twitter ever disappeared.
If this were to happen, I’d be really worried for the developers of Friendfeed. This scenario would raise a heap of scaling issues for Friendfeed, which makes me wonder if it’s one of the reasons why they’re not trying to compete with Twitter.
Standby and Wait Approach
Standby and wait is an interesting option, but most of us have already picked this choice on numerous occasions, most notably when Twitter goes down. We simply wait it out. We irritably wait until Twitter finishes PMSing, even though Twitter gives us no warning and takes us for granted all the time. It’s like a bad relationship that we can’t shake. If Twitter disappeared, we might dabble in the alternatives, but everyone would be looking out for any signs that Twitter is coming back to us.
There’s No Place Like Twitter
So far, Friendfeed seems to be the closest fix to anyone’s Twitter addictions. However, we all know that there’s nothing like Twitter, even when it’s down. Are there any other services you’d consider? If not, which of these approaches would you choose?
Popularity: 7% [?]
