5 ms·

I'm curious as to the point of building a Twitter clone (other than because you can). It seems that Twitter has really captured the market for 140 char message

by modoc 18y ago

I'm curious as to the point of building a Twitter clone (other than because you can). It seems that Twitter has really captured the market for 140 char messages. What is the differentiator here?

jdbeast00 18y ago
enterprise microblogging?
- mg1313 18y ago
  Exactly...Yammer does that.
  - moe 18y ago
    "Enterprise microblogging"? And there is a company selling that? And there are companies buying that? I'm not sure if I want to laugh or cry right now.
    - mg1313 18y ago
      It is known that companies are, usually, more resistant to the inovation. I just remember the company I worked for some time ago: they switched from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005 last year :)... I know a company which builds educational products...yet it doesn't support Firefox! Firefox which has 20% of the market! Another company just upgraded their Internet Explorer browser...switching from IE6 to IE7... So, give it some time...the enterprise will catch up eventually with Twitter like stuff. Too bad that, at that time, something new will be out there...and they have to play the cat and mouse again.
      - moe 18y ago
        Sorry, I think you completely misunderstood me. I'm baffled that someone would even want to deploy a twitter-like app in a corporate environment. Twitter seems to be the most counter-productive form of communication imaginable, even when you get rid of the character limit.
        tptacek 18y ago
        Twitter is probably more valuable inside an enterprise than on the Internet. It's part of plenty of people's jobs to keep up with a constant stream of minor updates.
        modoc 18y ago
        The 140 char limit, the inability to attach files, etc... seem very counter-productive with regards to intra-corporate communication. I'd never look toward Twitter for that role. IRC, campfire, Confluence, etc... sure, but never Twitter.
        tptacek 18y ago
        IRC, Campfire, and Confluence all require you to actively participate. (Thanks, I just remembered to hop on ours). IM is always-on, and at my clients it seems to work. But broadcasting over IM doesn't work. Email broadcasts piss off enterprise people (not least because psychotic IT managers crack down on email storage, which leads to a startup idea that could easily generate an 8-figure ROI for most large enterprises: kill those IT managers). What does that leave you with? I'm actually bullish on enterprise microblogging.
        moe 18y ago
        IM is always-on, and at my clients it seems to work. But broadcasting over IM doesn't work. It's the broadcast bit about twitter that worries me. Broadcast equals noise. Communication noise is very harmful. If you really value real-time updates about your peers then that should at least be limited to the stuff that can be relevant to you, e.g. to people that work on the same project as you. For this purpose a simple chat-room seems more than adequate. And that is supported by pretty much every IM service in existence. Without character limits. With seamless unicast.
        tptacek 18y ago
        Broadcasts limited to the stuff relevant to you seems like the entire Twitter problem statement. I think you're getting hung up on how Internet Twitter is used. Enterprise IM isn't used for picking up teenaged girls on Yahoo, either.
    - cmars232 18y ago
      A big shot marketing guy at my day job (large company) started promoting Yammer as a "great way to share ideas and information". But, no proprietary or internal only communications please, since its on offsite servers. WTF?
mg1313 18y ago
I guess this resembles the case of the social networks out there. There are some general leaders (Facebook, Myspace, Hi5) and some niche leaders (Linkedin and other dozen of niche social networks). And a bit resembles also with the search engine situation: Google is the leader but that doesn't stop entrepreneurs to build niche search engines or even take on Google directly. Twitter is the leader, no doubt. But a Twitter clone could have a specific niche (Yammer, for example, is much more oriented to enterprise "twittering"). Laconica just offers you, free, the mean to build such a niche service without being necessary to hire developers. Like there are lots of social networking software...or video sharing software (Youtube clones).
- ttacor 18y ago
  Interesting...I used a Youtube clone software to build a niche video sharing service. Of course, I never hope to reach Youtube mass...and I don't intent to.
TomOfTTB 18y ago
I'm not a Twitter devotee personally but if they're right and Twitter keeps growing eventually competition is going to spring up. I mean, imagine a company having a monopoly on e-mail and having to build a system robust enough to handle every e-mail sent worldwide. It wouldn't be possible. Given that it makes a certain amount of sense to start working on an open source protocol now so that it's mature when/if Twitter competition starts to spring up.
jbrun 18y ago
These guys are based at the same co-working station as us, Station-C in Montreal, and they seem to have an idea of what they are doing. Following the linux model. They install micro-blogging on companies intranets and then do service for them. Not a bad idea, won't be the next google, but it is a niche market that seems ripe for the taking. A lot of companies want to use twitter like services, but are not comfortable going online.
- mg1313 18y ago
  A good way to make money for those guys...intranet microblogging.
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
riffic 18y ago
One problem with twitter is you can't control the namespace.
nir 18y ago
Having it available as open source can prove a significant advantage - they might become the Wordpress of microblogging, so to speak. As for Twitter capturing the microblogging market, with ~6 million users I doubt this is the case. Either what we've seen so far is the tip of the iceberg, or there is very little real demand for microblogging. Twitter seems to be very focused on a certain market and certain set of features, so there's definitely room for other players.
- dagobart 18y ago
  I think the laconi.ca folks could gain a significant share of the market if they indeed would make it possible for their users to have the same username for all identi.ca installations in the world, just as it is possible for wordpress users to comment on every wordpress blog using the same wordpress identity. A while back, I reasoned on Twitter vs identi.ca. -- Here's the bit on roaming micro-blogging services: http://is.gd/sJtL http://is.gd/sJtL
warp 18y ago
Twitter is a walled garden. Laconi.ca isn't, you can subscribe and respond to users on laconi.ca installations on other domains. It doesn't even have to be running the laconi.ca software, you can communicate with any domain which adheres to the OpenMicroBlogging protocol (there is atleast one other implementation out there).

by modoc 18y ago

I'm curious as to the point of building a Twitter clone (other than because you can). It seems that Twitter has really captured the market for 140 char messages. What is the differentiator here?

jdbeast00 18y ago

enterprise microblogging?

mg1313 18y ago
Exactly...Yammer does that.
- moe 18y ago
  "Enterprise microblogging"? And there is a company selling that? And there are companies buying that? I'm not sure if I want to laugh or cry right now.
  - mg1313 18y ago
    It is known that companies are, usually, more resistant to the inovation. I just remember the company I worked for some time ago: they switched from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005 last year :)... I know a company which builds educational products...yet it doesn't support Firefox! Firefox which has 20% of the market! Another company just upgraded their Internet Explorer browser...switching from IE6 to IE7... So, give it some time...the enterprise will catch up eventually with Twitter like stuff. Too bad that, at that time, something new will be out there...and they have to play the cat and mouse again.
    - moe 18y ago
      Sorry, I think you completely misunderstood me. I'm baffled that someone would even want to deploy a twitter-like app in a corporate environment. Twitter seems to be the most counter-productive form of communication imaginable, even when you get rid of the character limit.
      - tptacek 18y ago
        Twitter is probably more valuable inside an enterprise than on the Internet. It's part of plenty of people's jobs to keep up with a constant stream of minor updates.
        modoc 18y ago
        The 140 char limit, the inability to attach files, etc... seem very counter-productive with regards to intra-corporate communication. I'd never look toward Twitter for that role. IRC, campfire, Confluence, etc... sure, but never Twitter.
        tptacek 18y ago
        IRC, Campfire, and Confluence all require you to actively participate. (Thanks, I just remembered to hop on ours). IM is always-on, and at my clients it seems to work. But broadcasting over IM doesn't work. Email broadcasts piss off enterprise people (not least because psychotic IT managers crack down on email storage, which leads to a startup idea that could easily generate an 8-figure ROI for most large enterprises: kill those IT managers). What does that leave you with? I'm actually bullish on enterprise microblogging.
        moe 18y ago
        IM is always-on, and at my clients it seems to work. But broadcasting over IM doesn't work. It's the broadcast bit about twitter that worries me. Broadcast equals noise. Communication noise is very harmful. If you really value real-time updates about your peers then that should at least be limited to the stuff that can be relevant to you, e.g. to people that work on the same project as you. For this purpose a simple chat-room seems more than adequate. And that is supported by pretty much every IM service in existence. Without character limits. With seamless unicast.
        tptacek 18y ago
        Broadcasts limited to the stuff relevant to you seems like the entire Twitter problem statement. I think you're getting hung up on how Internet Twitter is used. Enterprise IM isn't used for picking up teenaged girls on Yahoo, either.
  - cmars232 18y ago
    A big shot marketing guy at my day job (large company) started promoting Yammer as a "great way to share ideas and information". But, no proprietary or internal only communications please, since its on offsite servers. WTF?

mg1313 18y ago

I guess this resembles the case of the social networks out there. There are some general leaders (Facebook, Myspace, Hi5) and some niche leaders (Linkedin and other dozen of niche social networks). And a bit resembles also with the search engine situation: Google is the leader but that doesn't stop entrepreneurs to build niche search engines or even take on Google directly. Twitter is the leader, no doubt. But a Twitter clone could have a specific niche (Yammer, for example, is much more oriented to enterprise "twittering"). Laconica just offers you, free, the mean to build such a niche service without being necessary to hire developers. Like there are lots of social networking software...or video sharing software (Youtube clones).

ttacor 18y ago
Interesting...I used a Youtube clone software to build a niche video sharing service. Of course, I never hope to reach Youtube mass...and I don't intent to.

TomOfTTB 18y ago

I'm not a Twitter devotee personally but if they're right and Twitter keeps growing eventually competition is going to spring up. I mean, imagine a company having a monopoly on e-mail and having to build a system robust enough to handle every e-mail sent worldwide. It wouldn't be possible. Given that it makes a certain amount of sense to start working on an open source protocol now so that it's mature when/if Twitter competition starts to spring up.

jbrun 18y ago

These guys are based at the same co-working station as us, Station-C in Montreal, and they seem to have an idea of what they are doing. Following the linux model. They install micro-blogging on companies intranets and then do service for them. Not a bad idea, won't be the next google, but it is a niche market that seems ripe for the taking. A lot of companies want to use twitter like services, but are not comfortable going online.

mg1313 18y ago
A good way to make money for those guys...intranet microblogging.

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

riffic 18y ago

One problem with twitter is you can't control the namespace.

nir 18y ago

Having it available as open source can prove a significant advantage - they might become the Wordpress of microblogging, so to speak. As for Twitter capturing the microblogging market, with ~6 million users I doubt this is the case. Either what we've seen so far is the tip of the iceberg, or there is very little real demand for microblogging. Twitter seems to be very focused on a certain market and certain set of features, so there's definitely room for other players.

dagobart 18y ago
I think the laconi.ca folks could gain a significant share of the market if they indeed would make it possible for their users to have the same username for all identi.ca installations in the world, just as it is possible for wordpress users to comment on every wordpress blog using the same wordpress identity. A while back, I reasoned on Twitter vs identi.ca. -- Here's the bit on roaming micro-blogging services: http://is.gd/sJtL http://is.gd/sJtL

warp 18y ago

Twitter is a walled garden. Laconi.ca isn't, you can subscribe and respond to users on laconi.ca installations on other domains. It doesn't even have to be running the laconi.ca software, you can communicate with any domain which adheres to the OpenMicroBlogging protocol (there is atleast one other implementation out there).