Twitter is having problems again and I have to admit it’s trying even my boundless patience. The closer you get to real-time services the more impatient people will be. I get it. The comparable instability of Flickr and del.icio.us back in the day felt less intense.
But I have to laugh at the Net Pundits giving Twitter a few weeks to live before it dies because “the luminaries” such Scoble, Winer, Arrington, etc. will leave. Do people really care if these one-way broadcasters who aren’t following them, aren’t listening to them, and who care as much or more about their statistics than anything either themselves or their followers might talk about, migrate elsewhere?
I have a theory that the pundit migration would actually be a great boon to Twitter. I won’t miss anything actually important that the luminaries say– when they do it gets endlessly amplified in the tech guru echo chamber and I’m bound to hear the echo– and perhaps removing the load on the servers represented by stats-sluts and their ego-searching, Twitter Karma sifting, constantly shouting Tweet personae would improve system stability for the rest of us.
As for me, it’s a stand-off. I won’t move until a significant part of the group I follow moves. The platform pales in comparison to the people… I’d rather get the good stuff with the occasional speed-reducing hiccup than wander a desert landscape inhabited mostly by the bloated carcasses of the punditocracy erecting elaborate, Ozymandian structures to honor themselves.
You make a good point. The aftermath of high-profile departures, I think, will tell us a lot about why people were on Twitter in the first place; I suspect it’s a mixture of following the crowd and finding genuine value, but the proportions remain to be seen.
However, I’m far from confident that “leave” is so sure; I seem to recall Hugh McLeod “leaving” twitter only to return a few weeks later.
“Bloated carcasses” seems pretty harsh on the pundits; however, +1 for Shelley reference.
Certainly not all pundits are bloated carcasses… I leave it to one’s imaginationto decide which the label fits
Linked to this one after a twitter conversation about twitter influence on blog reading habits. Am quite taken with “The platform pales in comparison to the people…” It’s true. I’m not twittering because it’s cool, but because it’s been a terribly convenient and pleasant way to connect with a couple of good friends, and because it’s fostered a couple of new acquaintanceships of merit.
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