The Twitter Debate Continues
May 27, 2008 by Zach
I use obsess over Twitter. The system is so simple, post an update and everyone sees it. Want to share a pic, pop the link, it’s converted to a small url, and boom, everyone can see it. It’s so simple that its constant down time makes me wonder. The database geek in me can’t understand why it keeps going down. Each post is 140 characters or less and there are no graphics in the system, only links. It’s a database admin’s dream.
Scoble and Arrington have a post-a-day marathon going about Twitter’s problems. Scoble thinks FriendFeed is the answer, though he has his doubts. Has it grown too quickly? The easy answer is to find an alternative service…but we have all of those friends? How can we port them to another service? Well, so far the Twitter API doesn’t have export capability.
I’m watching Pownce, though. It’s built for scale, but has a few too many features. As Scoble points out, he always ends up back at Twitter because it’s lightweight and only does one thing. Problem is, it sometimes can’t even do that.