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.
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A-MEN!!!!
-bows down to Lord CB-
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Twitter is a fantastic concept. One that is changing both how friends interact but also how customer can listen and better service their customers. You obviously have a point about them not delivering on the engineering front and it is a little annoying to not see ev and biz focus more (or at least more openly) on the reliability issues. But I do not think that they deserve to die because despite the failing, they continue to provide a lot of value to their users. I am sure that even if they do not talk too much about it that the twitter team is working their butt off to try to address the issues they are running into (and these must be pretty stressful moments for them). I do not think that the additional hate message are any useful (although I understand how disappointed passionate users like yourself need to find ways to vent!)
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I strongly disagree that this is a hate message. Twitter had months to address these issues. If they fail to respond to their users' most basic needs, they certainly deserve to go away.
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I wonder if the reasons that people have stayed loyal have to do with the relatively high switching costs. Moving wholesale into a new service means losing your followers, the people you follow and all of the data that's built up. It's not like, say, search or e-commerce, where switching to another service means simply navigating to a new url.
It'd be somewhat like ditching Facebook for something new and less like ditching Altavista when Google came along.
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How would you suggest we fix some of the other more serious problems in the world…walk away from them?
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Thank you so much. “Whether this proves to be fatal remains to be seen. But the point is, it should be fatal.” It's like you took the words right out of my mouth.
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We don't need Twitter to be “killed”
What we need is for someone to come in and run Twitter who has a proven track record of running large scale apps/sites – someone with infrastructure, like Google.
The current Twitter team just doesn't seem to be able to get the tech part of it working. They have been brilliant though with their ideas and design.
As of 4:00pm PST all of my followers were back, so that proves to me that they were never “lost”. So, it was a minor inconvenience, nothing more.
I don't excuse Twitter AT ALL for performance woes though, even if it is free. But, Twitter isn't a lost cause, so long as someone capable of overcoming the technical issues is brought in.
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I'm not entirely sure how that applies, unless it's directed at the Twitter tech team.
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Yep I don't know what's dragging on longer and killing productivity due to distraction – the MSFT Yahoo! thing or Twitter. There's something to be said for Twitter just going under so everyone can move to another service begin starting anew.
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Great writing. I'm sold.
Your question is a valid one. In fact, it is idealistically reminiscent of a comment I left over on TechCruch yesterday in response to a piece of Scoble's regarding the degradation of discussion and interaction within the blogosphere due to an influx of trolls, spammers, gamers, flamers, and, of course, morons. In effect, my contention was that, when your neighborhood is in danger, you have to band together, put your backs into it, and do what it takes to save it. This is fine and good for the neighborhood.
But when your house is on fire, you climb out the window.
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Chris, while I agree in principle, I think you're missing a larger point. Any social gathering place is only as valuable as the people who choose to gather there.
I live in downtown NYC. There are many places here that are insanely popular despite “fail-whaling” in critical ways — like having bathrooms so unsanitary they would make a third-worlder cringe.
I'm on many Twitter alternatives, but for now the most stimulating stuff is still on Twitter. And therefore, so am I.
P.S. Dan Kaplan makes an excellent point about switching costs. Re-creating my follow list would be a larger pain in the shorts than dealing with the occasional fail whale. I suspect if those costs shift in some meaningful way, Twitter is in trouble.
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Wow. How inappropriately ungrateful. You are right about the undying loyalty. Twitter is a free service, and therefore we all tolerate downtime and the constant issues. It's because we've all hopped on the bandwagon at once that they're experiencing such problems, so why blame them for doing what they can to cope? Sure, some additional communication about the issues from Twitter reps would help, but I'd prefer they spend their time nutting out the solutions.
Other services (ie. Plurk) just don't have the heart that Twitter does, and that's because we've all filled it with love. It was the first of it's kind, and it remains the best.
I think most Twitter users are on multiple platforms, but Twitter remains the dominant player because it allows you complete freedom to express yourself and you create the purpose of your Twitter account yourself.
I really just wanted to point out that it's fairly ungrateful, and that we are all getting a huge (free) benefit from Twitter sticking around despite the problems.
I found this article persuasive enough to share on Twitter and to make me join Identi.ca. But the one thing I will hate to give up about Twitter are the Favorites. I have a passion for good short-form writing and I'm quite proud of my collection of over 100 favorite tweets from the poets and other freaks I follow. I'd hate to leave that behind. Even if I can get a good number of those people to follow me to Identi.ca, I don't see any mention of plans for a Favorites feature in the FAQs.
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Twitter didn't raise all that venture capital because they're a bunch of hip, popular folks. They raised it because we were there, tirelessly creating content on Twitter's behalf. They raised it because our attention, activity, and relationships will be mined for its commercial value. So while we never paid to use Twitter, the company received direct benefit from our participation. Don't feel you have to stick around because Twitter gave you a free ride. They didn't.
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I think it has to start with Bloggers refusing to give them any more attention. I am doing my last blog post on Twitter tonight. I am on FriendFeed (first and foremost): http://friendfeed.com/jessestay, and identica: http://identi.ca/jessestay
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I'm not sure what is in store for Identi.ca. Their community is growing, and it seems to be more than just the sum of Twitter frustration. My guess is that the platform's open nature will yield new features fairly rapidly. They've come a long way very quickly.
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Twitter won't be killed, any more than anyone set out to kill Friendster, for example.
What may happen is that significant amounts of users will transfer to Friendfeed or Identi.ca, and that will lead to a growing number following their groups of friends, just as people left Friendster, or Myspace, and may one day leave Facebook.
Whether or not that happens simply depends on whether a significant mass moves or not, and that's the only thing that will make any type of difference.
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Having only just re-visited twitter after an aborted start a year ago, I'm finding surprising value in it this time. Maybe it has matured since then, or maybe it was me.
It did feel weird that a week after I started using it again there were all these problem. But I've run a fast growing company in the past and know how hard it can be. It seems some people are extremely fickle, and have rather lofty expectations especially for a free service. How about hanging out in Darfur for a while (for example), and see if your expectations of things change. It's no wonder the world thinks we North America's a spoiled rotten, we are.
Whatever, things will evolve and either Twitter will do better or not, but no need to attack it. You are leaving Twitter? On the balance, I'd say it's your loss.
JMTCW.
Identi.ca is cool and everything, but the name isn't as sweet as 'Twitter', what do you call a 'tweet' on identi.ca? an Identication? Heh. Identi.ca really chose a poor name.
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I don't view my follower count as a “community” and think those who do are kidding themselves, especially those who are freaking out that their count is down. I don't care if the numbers are off, and I don't “tirelessly” create content on their behalf. I do it for fun. As stated earlier, it's the people on Twitter that make the difference. I broadcast, and I listen. The value for me is in the now, not the history. If Twitter dropped of the map tomorrow, I personally would be out nothing, and that's what I've spent, and exactly what they owe me. Servile? Hardly.
You are right that they've been getting a free ride and perhaps shouldn't be. Though every other service I'm on except Friendfeed, (Plurk, Identi.ca, etc) has had performance or other issues as well. Twitter is still the best ride in town. I hope Twitter survives, but if they don't, whatever. And with other services replicating the Twitter API, even 3rd party services shouln't suffer too much if we need to find a replacement.
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I don't see how you can NOT classify it as a hate message. “Why Twitter Must Die,” says enough. Were you to more effectively choose a proper headline, then maybe. It has extremely negative connotations for a service that's free and full of positive people.
You can leave Twitter if you are unhappy, but you don't have to make a big stink out it. Trust me, Twitter users don't want your negativity anyway.
Twitter has been a great experience for me, my friends, my family, my business and new friends I've gained just because of its existence. Sure, it's had its downtime, but so does everything. Maybe if you weren't slouched over your computer screen 16 hours a day, it wouldn't bother you so much. If it's down, relax, maybe even look out a window. It's not meant to be huddled over 24/7.
Twitter has brought new life to the overpopulated social network world. Heck, my mother is on Twitter and she can barely use a cell phone. That says something right there. I've learned about new music, movies, seen things I've never seen before, and gotten advice from people I'd never dreamed of talking to in person. How can you say it “must die” just because of occasional downtime? How can you not look at the bigger picture?
Twitter is also a fantastic way of journaling. How many people journal these days? I can say few and far between. I've never considered myself a journaler, if that's even a word. But now look what I have… nearly one entry every day since I've signed up. How can I not value that?
Twitter, despite some shortcomings, is healthy. It brings people out to communicate who may never have shared an interesting tidbit here and there. If you're such an extreme pessimist that gets frustrated and up in arms at the slightest of technical failures, then you have other issues. Try to see the joy in things rather than their blemishes. Your life will be better.
As an example of Twitter's usefullness, I just today introduced it to a local deli (http://www.firstanddeli.com). I threw up a new site for them, and set them up with a Twitter account. Now, every morning, the owner 'tweets' the soup of the day. And to see the light in her eyes, would've changed anyone's opinion. The fact that she can update her site, without a computer from her cellphone, blew her away. Not only that, but the fact that people in the area can get the soup delivered to their cell phones every morning brings new life to a traditional small restaurant. Now, what if Twitter goes down for a day? OMG! People won't know the soup of the day! Chris, the world has bigger issues. If that happens, I don't think people will be too upset. Unless they're like you, I guess.
Grow up, Chris. Have fun pouting elsewhere.
So, is this post because your pissed you haven't received payment for “tirelessly creating content?” Wow, Chris, you act as if it's a chore to enter in something less than 140 characters. If it is, THEN DON'T DO IT. Nobody is forcing you to enter information. It's by choice. Some people “tweet” 50 times a day, some “tweet” once every 50 days. You act as if it is a weight on your shoulders. If it is, then it's been brought upon by you and only you.
Sorry you didn't get monetary benefits from all your 'hard' work creating all the content for Twitter. Too bad you can't put value in something that's just plain positive. BTW, have you been getting paid from Facebook, Plurk, FriendFeed, etc.? Why shouldn't Twitter benefit from our participation? They're the one's tirelessly working to keep the system running smoothly. They're the ones putting in the real work to keeping a system up that's FREE and became enormously popular faster than they'd expected.
Tell me Chris, if someone came up with a cure for cancer, would you rat on them if they couldn't get it out fast enough? Would you also rat on them for not paying you because perhaps you wrote a column on how great the cure is and 'tirelessly' created stories upon stories about how great it is?
Some of us are actually taking bets as to what will happen with microblogging. My own guess is that it will become distributed (as per Laconi.ca's OpenMicroBlogging) while, at the same time, it will be integrated in other services (such as non-micro blogging platforms like WordPress or in social networking services like OpenSocial).
Still, we all seem to be agreed on the fact that the very idea of microblogging is here to stay.
Should be fun. Whether Twitter completely dies or just falls out of the radar.
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You should clearly have a nice, soothing cup of tea. My point is that sites which feature user-created content aren't giving us anything for free. Their value is in the user base.
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Ha! Ok, and I'll tweet about it, too.
You mean I can't “pout” on my own website? How strange.
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excuse for interrupting for one second but just how is Twitter even considered to be journaling .. note passing like teenagers in class maybe but it is far from being a method of journalling.
Twitter is not healthy as we see every couple of days when something else goes wrong but is typically attributed to database problems. The whole system is a database nightmare that for some reason they haven't been able to fix yet.
And while I might suggest that Chris' headline was a bit extreme Twitter has given us the users any reason not to be pessimistic. Maybe the time has come for you to take off your rose colored glasses and accept the fact that Twitter is a cesspool of problems living off of VC money and without a business plan in sight.
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oh give it a rest .. this is a free frikken service that in light of the real world means squat. Even trying to equate our discussions about the failings of Twitter with things like homelessness of genocide in Darfur is nothing short of facitous.
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but when those technical problems are a continual event that even brings about a whole new phrasology for it you have to start questioning the foundation on which this new method of communication is built. Don't get me wrong I truly believe that what Twitter has shown us is that we do indeed need a super simple method of mass communication but that isn't going to fall to its knees every other day.
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agreed Jason
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Whether Twitter is a free service or not doesn't matter. what does matter is that they have created – or attempted to – a platform that is suppose to be able to handle anything thrown at it. We can't just turn around and say will you 100,000 people please get of Twitter for a day or two so we can burp this baby some more .. As filling it with love – oh please gag me with a spoon. .. We have filled Twitter with our continual data which if they get their heads out of their asses will make them all very rich and we get a silly mass communication tool in the process .. whoopee …
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23 days to be exact as of today but there will come a point where they will be feature set and because of their arictecture things like SMS are going to be really hard to implement
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Yeah! What Charpie ^ said! Lighten up, holy.
Folks like yourself and Winer, Criminy — when twitter has an outage, it is like it's the end of the world or something… “ZOMG, my friends are GONE… and I can't even tweet it, panic!”
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thank you Jack for the sensible response to this community misconception. That might ahve been the case very early on but it changed into a numbers game the moment that people like Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis joined and suddenly it became how many people were following you. To be fair to Robert though he has said that it is important that it flows both ways. But you look at any on the leaders on Twitter and their follwers to following ratio and it becomes clear that it is about the numbers and this attitude then trickle down.
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I'm no longer on Twitter, emjayess.
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The failures of twitter are healthy reminders that as much as we might come to rely on these social media tools, we are not really “customers” of twitter and they don't owe us anything. Use it while it works, then use the next thing. Develop “relationships” in more than one media channel and cultivate the connections you care about. Don't use twitter or anything else alone as your rolodex. It could all be gone tomorrow and if that happens, we'll say, it was fun while it lasted.
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That's fine advice. There's a lot of interesting webby stuff out there. As I adopt services, I also consider my exit strategy. “If this fails — what's the backup?” It *will* fail.
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I don't know if this was mentioned in another comment (I admit I didn't read all of them), but you forgot about plurk as an alternative. I am not up on whether they are planning ahead enough to avoid twitter's problems, but so far I have had a good experience with the site. The key would be for plurk to design a feature so you could import your twitter community. I don't know if it will happen since it will presumably require cooperation from twitter but I know other plurk users would appreciate that too.
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Plurk is mentioned at the foot of the article. Interoperability between services would certainly reduce the impact of outages, but I don't know how willing these companies will be to play nice.
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Personally I have lived over 40 years happily without Twitter. I have never understood how it would add some quality into my life. Beside, real life can be found elsewhere. A good thing is you can get there by taxi.
Summer is short, and autumn is just around the corner.
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And right now strawberries are fresh.
Twitter is what you make it. If you want to use it as a journal, you can. It is a recording of a thought, a comment, or a record of day-to-day events or experiences. It's stamped in time, yet it's organic in its pattern of inputs.
How can you, StevenHodson, consider it NOT a journal? You say it's “note passing like teenagers in class…” but how is that so? It's not necessarily directed at any one person. It's not in secret. It's to whomever wants to listen, and perhaps that's nobody. When you wrote notes in class, did you write hundreds of the exact same note and give them to everyone you know?
No, sir, it is NOT “far from being a method of journaling.” It's a way for people to express themselves in their own manner. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it, but you also don't have to bring down those who enjoy it for what it is.
Keep dwelling on your “database nightmares” and you'll give yourself a heart attack. Who cares if they live of VC money? Good for them. Stop sounding jealous and go back to your cave.
I like it.
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Twitter needs to die and die fast! What a waste of space and garbage mound this site is. Who the hell cares what people are doing to with their day in 2 sentences or less every f*&^ing 5 minutes. What a colossal waste of time that must be to update the world (who doesn't care anyways) about what you're doing. Damn I hope this site's hype fizzles, quickly. We're sick of hearing about twitter this, twitter than. Just die.