When things happen in “real time” they are a lot more interesting.
Nobody wants to “read about it tomorrow” when they can “read it now”.
It did not take long forJack Dorsey’s Twitter to becomethe poster child for thetruly disruptive Social Web. People Noticed. Twitter become ubitiquous seemingly overnight.
So why the “Twitter - FAIL” post? Simple. The Twitter service still feels like a “half-baked prototype”. It is often “down”, provides highly variable response times to customers, has a silly “API Limit”
restriction to prevent the “lights from dimming” in their data centers,
and the general perception is that none of this is changing soon. In
this new game of Search 2.0 and the “real time” web, the pace of change
is exponential, not linear - and Dorsey’s crew appear to be stuck in
slow motion.
If Twitter Doesn't Grow Up Quick - Google Will End It.
And as in the photo above, Twitter may find itself “rewinding the
tape” some time from now and identifying that critical inflection where
they “dropped the last ball”. That point where their competition
stopped firing warning shots, but locked in with that silver bullet,
and where everything came crashing down.
Facebook and Google are both investing heavily in “catching up”.
Facebook’s enhancement a few weeks back, to provide their community
with an amazingly similar “Twitter Stream Of Consciousness” feel was
significant. Google’s recent launch of iGoogle Social Gadgets was both brilliant - and may well turn out to be that “silver bullet” that will one-day haunt Dorsey and his team.
An interesting observation I have made is that most of the chatter
out there are from people that likely would disagree with me, and who
are instead dismissing Google, pointing to how limited their Timeline Gadget
is compared to what Twitter offers. ”Oh, if only they had let us type
whatever we wanted, THEN it might have been a Twitter alternative -
stupid Google!”
No, not stupid Google. ”Stupid” People.
Do you really think that Google didn’t “think of that”? HELLO? They are a pretty smart bunch over there I THINK.
Google is the first software company ever that publically launches all their products in beta
- and many of them seem to stay in beta indefinitely. Having said
that, their “beta” software often performs better, and always scales
better than the rest of the online software ecosystem!
Google is always striving to improve. Google understands Continuous Improvement.
Google is smart. And Google “knows” what happened with Microsoft and the DOJ. They will tread carefully.
Above all, Google knows how to Make IT Work.
They focus on the back-end first, and the front-end last. Compare that
with what Microsoft’s approach was over the last 20 years.
Twitter’s last change of note was to their “front-end” but to their home page. Unimpressive.
Is Twitter Destined To Simply Be Remembered?
Dorsey, I know your team is super smart
too. I hope you are playing the “google game” with the rest of your
infrastucture and on the cusp of revealing a better, faster, scalable
“new and improved” version of Twitter.I like rooting for the underdog,
and I don’t want to see epitaphs like this mark the final chapter in
the Twitter book of history. Change people, CHANGE!
And please, get rid of that silly “Oops, Out Of API Requests” issue. You’re killing us…..
-Pedro