Yes, that’s right! Enough with it! Why do we have to make all these comparisons between these services, when sometimes it just isn’t the case?
For the past month my RSS reader has been literally filled with Twitter posts, FriendFeed posts and now it’s time for Plurk. Each blogger tries to find the next big microblogging platform, “the Twitter killer”. I always love a visionary post, but sometimes we need to take a step back and analyze the facts. Twitter is not going to disappear any time soon.
Yes, Twitter had, and still has problems, but I can bet it’s a temporary thing. We’re talking about a huge financial investment here, and no investor will sit and watch his money flowing out the window. Further more, many communities have been built on Twitter. People have spent lots of precious time growing their number of followers, no one is going to give that up so easily. Beyond that, Twitter has a value that only few realize: it’s a great instrument to help you develop your writing skills by focusing ideas in concise, 140 character long, messages.
Twitter has the advantage of time and awareness. That’s one advantage that FriendFeed and Plurk don’t have. And no, I’m not writing this post because I’m some sort of Twitter fanatic or evangelist. On the contrary, I know I’ve never used it at its full potential due to time limitations. Further more, I really enjoy participating in discussions over at FriendFeed, but I’m not a Plurk user, and probably won’t be any time soon. I find it awkward for my taste. And sincerely, I prefer a bird instead of a headless animal.
Why I don’t believe in the reality of this “war”
The biggest problem with this “versus” hype resides in the fact that these services are different, providing different user experiences, at least Twitter and FriendFeed. A few days back I was watching ShoeMoney‘s videocast, co-hosted by Jennifer Slegg. I asked them what do they think of FriendFeed. Jeremy’s answer was pretty straight-forward: “I’ve never used it”, and when it was Jennifer’s turn to answer I got the following: “I’ve signed up a few days ago, but I’m not convinced. I prefer Twitter.” (These are not exact quotes, but since I don’t have a transcript, I tried to reproduce them.)
So, here goes something that I did not expect from Jennifer, a confusion between 2 different services. Otherwise, I don’t see how Twitter popped into her answer. While Twitter is clearly a microblogging platform, if we really need to find a term for FriendFeed, the most appropriate should be “microforum“, in my opinion. How can we compare them? We should not, but unfortunately, this is the reality that’s been spreading lately.
Letting the numbers speak
If people are so eager to find the service that will grab the crown from Twitter, maybe we should take a look at some facts, for example the funding that these 3 services received (according to TechCrunch):
- Twitter – $5.4M + $15M (May 2008)
- FriendFeed – $5M
- Plurk – This I couldn’t find
Higher funding does not necessarily guarantee better services, but it surely creates more premises.
Further more, let’s study the latest levels of traffic, including the last month, when Twitter was down and all the FriendFeed & Plurk hype began.
Is Twitter dying?
You tell me. The numbers say that despite their technical and communication problems, all this hype has boosted their traffic way above the competition. From where I stand, Twitter is going to be around for a while, and I can see a nice future for FriendFeed too.
What do you think?