Regular readers will know I’m a huge fan of services like Twitter and more recently FriendFeed. But in recent days, Twitter’s continuing service problems combined with the firehose effect of FriendFeed have been driving me nuts.
Every man and his dog has become an armchair CTO, offering alternative views about how Twitter might be fixed. I’m one of them. In truth, no-one except the Twitter development team know the nature and extent of the problems. I/we can debate all day about what the management team might or should do but none of that matters. What matters is whether Twitter will ever get it right. People remind me that eBay took three major attempts before it got the technology anywhere near right. True – but we live in a different world where instant gratification is often the rule.
In a recent GillmorGang (or was it NewsGang Live?) it was suggested that Twitter has become so ingrained in the lives of those who are its aficianados that only a clone could displace it. Microsoft’s name cropped up, recalling the browser wars. Who knows? All I can say is that I regularly hear people saying that they’ve got an idea, or project for developing a Twitter that works for business.
In the meantime, I had thought that FriendFeed would provide a way forward for aggregating information from the people I find interesting. It does, but the firehose effect, combined with the dis-aggregation that FriendFeed comments adds to any type of post is very quickly rendering my consumption of the service difficult at best and impossible at worst. Yes, I can filter FriendFeed material by service and that does help. But then there’s always that lingering doubt that something really interesting will slip through. That’s the problem of trying to follow people you know are smarter than you.
In recent days that has been exacerbated by the fact I’ve seen some incredibly generous acts of human giving on these services. Those are events I don’t want to miss yet the very services that keep me informed are driving me crazy.
Is there an answer? Some people have suggested using Summize, where you can search what’s going on at Twitter via keywords. What do I find? Yet another service, this time with the unlikely title Plurk is getting attention. Like the dumb schmuk I am, I’ve signed up for Plurk, even though I have no real clue what it is other than another Twitter’esque clone.
I must be a glutton for punishment. I’m considering therapy. 
