Twitter _is_ a weak reimplementation of IRC. For that matter, instant messaging in general, from AIM to Jabber, is a weak reimplementation of IRC. It took years

Twitter _is_ a weak reimplementation of IRC. For that matter, instant messaging in general, from AIM to Jabber, is a weak reimplementation of IRC. It took years for these chat protocols to get features like rooms and direct-client chats and file transfers. It would have been better to slightly extend the IRC protocol to support the handful of things these services offer (SMS delivery and off-line message stores). In the same vein, all forum software is a weak reimplementation of Usenet. Not distributed, no killfiles, can't pick your own client interface, can't make your own groups. I learned a valuable lesson when I watched AIM use explode in high school. I realized that non-geeks started using a crappy chat interface because it was well marketed and ubiquitous (AOL and AIM). The same thing happens with many inferior technologies. Java is an extremely weak reimplementation of some most fundamental semantics of Lisp (such as garbage collection), and, thanks to marketing, became exceedingly popular. Twitter is the same thing (except I still don't see non-geeks using it).