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You're the one who complained there's nobody out there doing what Twitter does "in an interesting way". Twitter is pretty much the lowest common denominator fe

You're the one who complained there's nobody out there doing what Twitter does "in an interesting way". Twitter is pretty much the lowest common denominator feature-wise, plus killer branding, plus momentum, plus an open api that lets other services treat them like infrastructure. What, exactly, would you think would be interesting, if not differentiating features like these other sites are trying to offer? I mean, are you really complaining that nobody's stepping up to just to be ignored for being an exact clone?

unalone 18y ago
What, exactly, would you think would be interesting, if not differentiating features like these other sites are trying to offer? I don't know. That's the problem with trying to compete with Twitter: it can't be done. Anything you add messes up the design. I wasn't complaining: I just don't think there are any Twitter competitors. Twitter does something so simply it can't be competed against effectively. FriendFeed can be improved, both feature-wise and design-wise. Twitter can't. In a way, I hope Twitter stays the same for as long as possible. Tumblr used to be ultrasimple in that same compact way. Now they've added a ton of features I really dislike, and I'm strongly considering switching to something else if I can find anything decent. Twitter will lose focus if it does anything else. (As it is, things like that new recommended people list is pretty garish.) That makes monetization tricky, though.
- calambrac 18y ago
  I think we're arguing different things. The article claimed was that Twitter had no competition and so was getting lazy. The op pointed out competitors. You said they weren't really competitors. I said, "no, you're wrong, they are" and added two more to the list for good measure. Now you seem to have switched to arguing whether they're successful competitors; I agree, they don't seem to be (maybe FF to a degree), but just because they haven't taken off like Twitter, that doesn't mean they aren't competitors.
  - unalone 18y ago
    But I wouldn't call them competitors. That would imply actual competition. Nobody competes with Twitter. They appeal to entirely different sorts of users, because they know they can't go directly for Twitter's userset, and if they do target Twitter users wholesale, they invariably fail. Twitter knows this as well.
    - calambrac 18y ago
      Yeah, I'm sure FriendFeed would hate to see a full-scale defection of Twitter users over to their service, or to have Shaq shut down his Twitter account in favor of a FF account. If you're arguing that Twitter is winning, fine, I agree, but it's just flat-out wrong to say that nobody's trying to take a cut of their users.
      - unalone 18y ago
        ANY site would like to see a full-scale defection. That's different from angling specifically to get those users. There's no such thing as a "cut" of users between non-competing sites. You can use FriendFeed and Twitter together and there's a good reason for it. There's less of a reason to use, say, Twitter alongside Jaiku. Suddenly you're using two services to do the same thing. Same with Twitter and Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook, or Twitter and nearly any successful company. A real Twitter competitor would be a "this-or-that" competitor. Facebook-or-MySpace. Flickr-or-SmugMug. Youtube-or-Vimeo. Twitter has no competitor that's worth mentioning. The second-biggest competitor was Jaiku, and it was mediocre.
        calambrac 18y ago
        You have a very limited idea of competition. You do realize that the ability to use both at once is FF's strategy for competing with Twitter, don't you? They know Twitter has a massive user advantage, so rather than try to build a competing network from scratch, they're trying to get users to use both, and hope that the extra features eventually convince users to be at FF more often than Twitter. And FB: they have about a billion more users than Twitter, but their recent redesign shows that they certainly think of Twitter as a competitor. "Closed" vs. "open" isn't a point of competition? You don't think to yourself "I'm going to take the next 30 seconds to tell people about what I'm up to, do I use FB or Twitter?"?

unalone 18y ago

What, exactly, would you think would be interesting, if not differentiating features like these other sites are trying to offer? I don't know. That's the problem with trying to compete with Twitter: it can't be done. Anything you add messes up the design. I wasn't complaining: I just don't think there are any Twitter competitors. Twitter does something so simply it can't be competed against effectively. FriendFeed can be improved, both feature-wise and design-wise. Twitter can't. In a way, I hope Twitter stays the same for as long as possible. Tumblr used to be ultrasimple in that same compact way. Now they've added a ton of features I really dislike, and I'm strongly considering switching to something else if I can find anything decent. Twitter will lose focus if it does anything else. (As it is, things like that new recommended people list is pretty garish.) That makes monetization tricky, though.

calambrac 18y ago
I think we're arguing different things. The article claimed was that Twitter had no competition and so was getting lazy. The op pointed out competitors. You said they weren't really competitors. I said, "no, you're wrong, they are" and added two more to the list for good measure. Now you seem to have switched to arguing whether they're successful competitors; I agree, they don't seem to be (maybe FF to a degree), but just because they haven't taken off like Twitter, that doesn't mean they aren't competitors.
- unalone 18y ago
  But I wouldn't call them competitors. That would imply actual competition. Nobody competes with Twitter. They appeal to entirely different sorts of users, because they know they can't go directly for Twitter's userset, and if they do target Twitter users wholesale, they invariably fail. Twitter knows this as well.
  - calambrac 18y ago
    Yeah, I'm sure FriendFeed would hate to see a full-scale defection of Twitter users over to their service, or to have Shaq shut down his Twitter account in favor of a FF account. If you're arguing that Twitter is winning, fine, I agree, but it's just flat-out wrong to say that nobody's trying to take a cut of their users.
    - unalone 18y ago
      ANY site would like to see a full-scale defection. That's different from angling specifically to get those users. There's no such thing as a "cut" of users between non-competing sites. You can use FriendFeed and Twitter together and there's a good reason for it. There's less of a reason to use, say, Twitter alongside Jaiku. Suddenly you're using two services to do the same thing. Same with Twitter and Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook, or Twitter and nearly any successful company. A real Twitter competitor would be a "this-or-that" competitor. Facebook-or-MySpace. Flickr-or-SmugMug. Youtube-or-Vimeo. Twitter has no competitor that's worth mentioning. The second-biggest competitor was Jaiku, and it was mediocre.
      - calambrac 18y ago
        You have a very limited idea of competition. You do realize that the ability to use both at once is FF's strategy for competing with Twitter, don't you? They know Twitter has a massive user advantage, so rather than try to build a competing network from scratch, they're trying to get users to use both, and hope that the extra features eventually convince users to be at FF more often than Twitter. And FB: they have about a billion more users than Twitter, but their recent redesign shows that they certainly think of Twitter as a competitor. "Closed" vs. "open" isn't a point of competition? You don't think to yourself "I'm going to take the next 30 seconds to tell people about what I'm up to, do I use FB or Twitter?"?