Alex's SNWeblog

Twitter is broken, unstable, slow and is getting competition..

Ever since they had that major downtime in May I think, IM has been down, and ever since that day its there number one priority to get it back up. So why did the ‘track’ feature come back first then? and why did it go down again? I feel sorry for them, every fix they make makes Twitter more unstable, they often have to rollback code ‘fixes’ etc. the API is broken. There’s no API management, so if you use FF, twhirl or Socialthing etc it will count toward the API limit, now brought back to 20  connections an hour, the only way to manage it when you loose them all, is to change your password and change it on the services you want to update from your Twitter.

The replies tab goes down quiet often, Twitter is useless without the replies tab. You might as well take down twitter all together if that doesnt work. Pagination is the same, I often can’t scroll back and the limit is now set on 10 pages back, and no you can’t change the url it will bring you back to the index page. I am not going to keep checking twitter for timeline updates, if I can’t go back forget it. I’ll just go somewhere else, but where?

This is going to be a problem for Twitter, there are allot of alternatives, but the one that’s caught on the most is Plurk! Plurk is weird the first time you use it but it grows on to you, the time line is horizontal, and you can reply on Plurks in a thread. This is something I really like, and so do allot of people, not more @-ing (you can still do that btw) but replying in a thread, likes it’s a blog post, it’s more like a microblog instead of a messaging service. So while twitter is having problems, more and more people are moving over to Plurk and more and more people are discovering the joy of threaded Replies. So even when Twitter comes back, people won’t return they will miss the threaded replies. Really all Plurk needs is IM and an API. It will get some getting used to though.

So some will say, what the deal: Jaiku has done this forever. That is correct, but in my mind Jaiku is dead. It got sold to Google and they’ve closed Jaiku to invite only. Jaiku has threaded replies, but it also has a feature so you can import your lifeline, your RSS feeds. I don’t like that, It’s too much noise. Sure plugging your blogpost is ok, but I don’t need to know that youve just uploaded 30 million photos, with a Jaiku for every photo. Just manual post ONE Jaiku for every photo Batch you uploaded.

We all know how unstable Twitter has been the last few weeks, or has always been. So is it time for something new? Lets put it this way, there’s finally a real Twitter competitor, with the time line and the @ replies and the 140 character limit. It’s Called Plurk! Leo Laporte just sent out an invite to everybody following him on twitter.
So as a web 2.0 junkie I saw it as my task to sign up.

So whats it all about, it’s really allot like twitter, a bit more flashy with ajax stuff etc, It doesn’t look that simple. Just take a look at this picture:

It looks really pretty, but I can’t take a quick glance at it an know what my friends are doing. I like the list on twitter allot more.

Anyway I suggest you try it, and take a look for your self. If you want to add me I’m ‘Tales‘ on Plurk.

And click here if you want to get an invite.
Update: Seems alot of people are giving it a try, who knows maybe it really will be the twitter replacement

Update 2: Plurk seems to be dying already, If you try to upload a picture to your profile: ‘ Due to server move picture uploading is currently disabled.
It will be re-enabled during tomorrow – monday.’

As you can see on your right hand side, there is a sidebar with widgets in it. I just want to explain what services you see and what you can do with them.

Starting with Last.FM.

Last.FM is a Social Music site, The idea is that you let Last.FM see what you are listening to so they can find neighbours. These Neighbours are other users of Last.FM that listen to the same stuff as you do. and also other artists. And because  they like artists that you like, you might like the other artists they listen to. So you can discover different artists. View my profile here

Next up Twitter . So what is Twitter?

It’s hard to explain, Twitter.com says:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

So it’s like a mini blog where during the day you answer the question: ‘What are you doing?’ There’s only one rule (I think). A ‘twitter’ can only have 140 characters. have a look and see if you like it. My profile here

And the last one today: ‘Flickr’

Flickr is a photo sharing site, you upload you’re photos and you can have you’re photo’s online for friends to view. this is also a good way to let people Rate your pictures. Check out my photo stream here