Whether Twitter’s most recent technical failures prove fatal isn’t the question. The point is that they really should be.
It’s hard to get too angry at a free service — particularly one which has been so enjoyed by its users. Which is why, when my frustration levels with Twitter passed the redline, I signed-off in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner.
For those who don’t labor in the dark seam of geekdom, Twitter is a microblogging service. Part instant messaging system, part bulletin board, Twitter has elevated the simple question “What are you doing?” to a bustling community of users and software developers. And unlike many small tech startups, Twitter has managed to carry its 140-character gospel well beyond the early adopter crowd. This week’s 1,400 word feature writeup in USA Today is ample evidence of Twitter’s breakout appeal.
Unfortunately, Twitter’s popularity has been its undoing. Beginning last year, the service was struck by clusters of outages and technical missteps. Its lighthearted error screen has become a permanent addition to the geek lexicon as the Fail Whale. “Twitter is down” articles in the tech press haven’t been news for a long time.
Too big, too fast
The problem lies in Twitter’s software code and infrastructure, which wasn’t written with the sort of loads in mind the service must now routinely manage. That didn’t stop Twitter from taking venture funding, which assumes further growth. Nor has it prevented the company from blaming virtually everyone but themselves for their current state of affairs, shutting down basic services, and leaving key segments of its developer community out in the cold.
Faithful like a puppy
Through all this, Twitter’s user community has been amazingly loyal. They’ve remained at Twitter’s bedside, always quick with a cheery word when the patient is momentarily lucid, faithful in its hope of the service’s ultimate recovery.
While this looks like simple codependence, Twitter’s users haven’t stuck around through the service’s flailings out of blind loyalty, brand attachment, or gratitude. They’ve hung on for something quite tangible: their commnities.
On Twitter, users create their own communities over time, choosing to follow or be followed by others. This is the secret sauce of social media. Each user’s community is different and unique to the service. In fact, to the user, community is the service.
A new level of FAIL
Yesterday, Twitter took a big step toward undoing this critical connection with their user base. Over the course of several hours, user communities began to simply disappear. Follower counts — and, perhaps more importantly, the lists of people users were following — began to evaporate. For once, user reaction was closer to panic and anger than frustration.
Twitter shut down, restored some sort of backup, and returned with a vague error notice:
We are recovering from an issue affecting your Twitter relationships. You may see inconsistencies in your timeline or your profile counts as we resolve this.
Almost 24 hours later, personal communities are not back to normal. Twitter’s Biz Stone issued a brief statement on the company blog promising further action, but the damage is done. Users now know Twitter is not reliable custodian of their communities.
Whether this proves to be fatal remains to be seen. But the point is, it should be fatal. Twitter’s grotesque incompetence cannot be allowed to stand as a model for other startups: lock in your users, then treat them as you will.
Take action
Friendfeed. Identi.ca. Plurk. Even old standbys such as Facebook. There are plenty of great alternatives to Twitter these days, and more in the pipeline. Move your communities over. Create new ones. If you’re on more than one platform, all the better.
But clinging to Twitter’s smoking ruin is both servile and counterproductive. You and your community deserve better. Our future communities on other services deserve better. Twitter must die.
