Decaflon Thread: How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

Ozone42 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:54:13

You know, we've been saying these same things for like 4 months now? Maybe longer?

I think it's obvious twitter has to shape up to survive, but I don't think the decline has even started yet. I think they're still growing as far as users goes.

Myspace is still terrible, has problems ALL the time. It's been terrible ever since it started to get popular, but I think we're just now seeing it begin to decline.

How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

Tyme — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:25:06

But that's the thing - they might not be for long. Twitter shut down access to a lot of their backend. This isn't anything different than what has happened in the past. People will move to the service that best suits them. If you're unhappy how long will you and your friends stay? Many people (tens of thousands) have moved to FriendFeed. Twitter didn't blink - services are still shut off. That says a lot.

In this case there has always been a divide of people using it how they wanted to vs. how the owners envisioned their service being used. In those cases who wins out? The one paying the bills. They've reached the point where they have enough people using their service the way they want there is no need (business wise) to care about the rest. They are dead weight.

Identi.ca is the first option (according to them) that is open-source meaning people shouldn't be able to fall into the same trap in what happened to Twitter. So technically, it's the first viable option unless there was another open-source one before it. I'm not saying it is the solution but right now it's the first one I know of that is a viable solution.

Me, I'm coasting because I follow people via RSS on Twitter. Haven't missed a thing. :)

How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

RightOn — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:13:45

That was my point... a viable alternative. Twitter may be crap, but everyone I follow is using Twitter.

There are a handful of really nice looking alternatives, but then I can't follow the people I am.

How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

Ozone42 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:00:57

There have been other options for a long time. The problem is everyone is still using twitter :)

How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

Tyme — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:42:28

Funny you should say that RightOn. The latest buzz: there is a option.

How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

RightOn — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:59:17

I just with there was a viable alternative... I go to open up Twitter and I ALWAYS see that stupid ! symbol and can't post crap.

How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

Tyme — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:20:40

Dave Winer posted an interesting interview with the Gnip guys. Quoting Dave:

Meanwhile, the guys believe there's no technical reason that Twitter can't turn back on all the services that were hooked into the XMPP gateway -- the protocol is designed for that kind of syndication. Permalink to this paragraph

It seems, therefore that the reason must be economic -- which leads to the conclusion that Twitter, which was founded as an open platform, with a Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom philosophy, is now headed in the opposite direction.

How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

Mike — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:46:06

I'm not going to beat around the issue here... the people in charge of running and building a business with Twitter are idiots. Plain. Old. Idiots.

There are probably a half dozen ways that Twitter could make revenue, starting tomorrow. They have openly said that they will not ever serve ads, so there goes a few options. Their stability sucks so much that offering a higher-level of service uptime for $$$ is gone too. They just keep shooting themselves in the feet, over and over. Twitter could have been making money all along but they gave away the cow and the milk and it's hard to take that back.

How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

Scrivs — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:28:11

To be honest I agree with him since I still don't see how Twitter can be worth anything. They created a commodity and have no problem saying they like to refer to it as a communication platform. This is no different than if AT&T made home phone service free from the beginning and then wondering how can they make money later.

Yeah they would get everyone on their service, but those people aren't paying anything. Maybe you could charge for long distance, but that would be it. Twitter has even less of an option with that and they can't even keep the service up.

I think last week they turned off the @replies feature for the week which to me baffles the mind.

How Twitter could be worth nothing in a year

rileycentral — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:13:28

Wow. He's obviously irked. I agree that Twitter is used by a lot of people. I have cut wayyyy back on my Twittering but not because it is a bad platform, just that is steals my time from more important things. Let's say you sepnd a cumulative 30 minutes twittering in one day. What do you have to show for it? If you are lucky someone might reply or give you a 20 second hit on your blog.

I have integrated Twitter and Alex King's Twitter Tools into my blog

Postcards from the Funny Farm

as my Asides engine. It seems useful for that, plus my friends will see my twits. or maybe my friends are the twits and that's why I don't like Twitter as much as most do ;)