Comments on: The Update on Twitter http://lorennorman.com/startup-culture/the-update-on-twitter/ Loren\ Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:14:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 By: loren http://lorennorman.com/startup-culture/the-update-on-twitter/#comment-92 loren Sun, 22 Jun 2008 03:02:21 +0000 http://lorennorman.com/?p=31#comment-92 Thanks for your thoughts, Sean. A hard limit on followers would indeed mitigate the problem of power-users, but I have to admit that I think a lot of the power and value of Twitter is that it DOESN'T seek to tell you how to use it. This is shown to be a strength as we see more and more services leveraging the Twitter API, which is embodies the spirit of "do what you want with it." I think the real solution is a switch in the organization of their architecture. Twitter should be organized as a message passing system, not "blog style" where everything goes straight into the database and then gets served from the database. It's actually quite tempting to spend a weekend reimplementing Twitter using Amazon SQS. As for Scoble, I've unfollowed him already due to too much noise! Others, like Leo Laporte and friends, are much better, so how can you tell users they aren't allowed to follow him because too many already are? Besides, wouldn't they just start creating multiple accounts and cross-posting to them all? That'd probably be a whole new scaling problem... Cheers! Thanks for your thoughts, Sean. A hard limit on followers would indeed mitigate the problem of power-users, but I have to admit that I think a lot of the power and value of Twitter is that it DOESN’T seek to tell you how to use it. This is shown to be a strength as we see more and more services leveraging the Twitter API, which is embodies the spirit of “do what you want with it.”

I think the real solution is a switch in the organization of their architecture. Twitter should be organized as a message passing system, not “blog style” where everything goes straight into the database and then gets served from the database. It’s actually quite tempting to spend a weekend reimplementing Twitter using Amazon SQS.

As for Scoble, I’ve unfollowed him already due to too much noise! Others, like Leo Laporte and friends, are much better, so how can you tell users they aren’t allowed to follow him because too many already are? Besides, wouldn’t they just start creating multiple accounts and cross-posting to them all? That’d probably be a whole new scaling problem…

Cheers!

]]> By: sean808080 http://lorennorman.com/startup-culture/the-update-on-twitter/#comment-91 sean808080 Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:14:16 +0000 http://lorennorman.com/?p=31#comment-91 i meant twitter of course. damn booze! i meant twitter of course. damn booze!

]]> By: sean808080 http://lorennorman.com/startup-culture/the-update-on-twitter/#comment-90 sean808080 Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:13:35 +0000 http://lorennorman.com/?p=31#comment-90 well to be honest, if i were ev i'd just say point blank, no twitter user can have more than 2000 followers. after that it becomes less of what twitter is meant to be, which is a microblogging platform in the social sense. when people like scoble use twitter to puff up their reach, it becomes less social and more of a broadcast medium which is not what twitter is meant to be. it's a simple problem to solve if they had some balls and specified what the true point of seesmic was. they're trying to be all things to all people and that is always a trap. would you miss tweets from scoble? i surely wouldn't. do you get irritated when twitter goes down sporadically, hell yeah! which is more important to you? well to be honest, if i were ev i’d just say point blank, no twitter user can have more than 2000 followers. after that it becomes less of what twitter is meant to be, which is a microblogging platform in the social sense. when people like scoble use twitter to puff up their reach, it becomes less social and more of a broadcast medium which is not what twitter is meant to be.

it’s a simple problem to solve if they had some balls and specified what the true point of seesmic was. they’re trying to be all things to all people and that is always a trap.

would you miss tweets from scoble? i surely wouldn’t. do you get irritated when twitter goes down sporadically, hell yeah!

which is more important to you?

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