Twitter as Imperfect Microblogging
Twitter is one of a number of new apps appearing on the Web that increases conversations versus the traditional post and comments model of blogging. Sometimes these apps are called microblogging.
Twitter works very similarly to text messaging on a cellphone. It has a 140 character limit per message. The users have a modest profile to complete, and you build a list of users that you are following and a list of users who follow you.
At present, there is no advertising. Your tweets back and forth are limited only by the ability of the servers to handle the traffic. Some users treat it as a variety of RSS feed, while others use it for pure, or impure conversations.
I see Twitter as a beta app right now. The app is developing a new area of cyberspace and is having some growing pains. They’ve just gotten funding from Bijan Sabet and Jeff Bezos which should help in the long run.
They have some operating issues. Volume and speed seem to be the crux of the problems, which is to be expected given the huge popularity of the app. The API for Twitter is available and quite a number of developers have written reader and feeder type apps to work with Twitter. Unfortunately, when Twitter makes an upgrade or corrects a bug, it affects the symbiotic apps.
I would suggest a certain amount of patience as Twitter grows. A work in progress is just that, expecting anything more is a failure on your part, not theirs.
Twitter is making progress on a daily basis, rather than rolling out occasional, ponderous version 12.0.1. That makes using Twitter interesting as features are up and down, improved and stabilized. It’s an experiment in something new, so hang in there.
Subscribe
Comments