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Re: And Now…The Backlash

devilinthedetails — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 09:33:40 -0000

Well, perhaps my own perception of the issue is a reflection of my own usage of Twitter. I use twitter every day, but it's not constant (as the occasional number of hours (or days) between tweets) would indicate.

Maybe it's not necessarily the A-listers picking up, but the non "power" users. You're right, Twitter's downtime has been trending upward every month for the last year and a half, and yes, I think people have been very loyal thus far, but they are loyal precisely for the reason you state, at this point, there isn't anything better out there.

I wasn't trying to intimate that there never would be, just that there isn't at present. Like any service or product, once something better comes along you either keep up or close down.

Re: And Now…The Backlash

mointrigue — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:42:30 -0000

Honestly? Twitter's had problems for a LONG time, and it has really been community good will that's been keeping it going. There's been rumblings about an "alternative to Twitter" for quite a while as well, but users HAVE been sticking it out hoping for Twitter "to get their ducks in a row." What's the community gained by doing that? Twitter's uptime and performance has actually gotten worse, not better. The reason why has already been discussed at length everywhere else, so I won't get into that here.

Consider though, if you had a desktop app that crashed as often as Twitter did, would you keep using it? I certainly wouldn't. What's going on here is not a sudden cry, it's just the A-Listers starting to pick up on and agree with the muttering that's been going on for a while.

Honestly, there is nothing magical about Twitter as a service. It's valuable to users because of the active community there. If that community all picked up and moved elsewhere, that service would be the new hotness, but social inertia keeps us using what's essentially a poorly designed and poorly implemented product.

All that being said, I haven't seen a compelling service to switch to yet, however unless Twitter resolves its issues soon it will absolutely lose its user base to the next decent app that comes along.

Re: When not talking about Twitter, what do you do in life?

mointrigue — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:17:23 -0000

Does *actually writing* code count as echo free? I actually do find a beauty and poetry to code that I find fascinating outside of the whole social media stuff. I also read voraciously, both books and comics. Most of my preferred fiction is sci-fi or epic fantasy, and I've been known to plow through a decent amount of non-fiction at a time. My girlfriend and I spend an inordinate amount of time haunting the local bookstores. I also watch a ton of movies with similar preferences, with the exception of occasional bouts of what I call "the Buffy sickness" when I compulsively re-watch episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for days.

I used to study a martial art called Aikido, which I'm including in the list because I've developed an itch to go back to the dojo. When I'm near the ocean I like to scuba dive off any nearby reef, although I find lake diving to be so boring as to not be worth the trouble.

I write quite a bit, and sure a lot of it is on the computer, but I have a particular fascination with the feeling of putting pen to paper, and so I tend to spend too much money on Cross pens and Moleskin (or similar) notebooks.

I'm on the board of my professional association, which deals with a lot of labor relations stuff for the employees we represent.

I'm a good cook, and enjoy experimenting with new recipes. Playing games and harassing the cat are always good for laughs as well.

Re: The Twitter outage persists (Scripting News)

mointrigue — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:40:35 -0000

This post on Get Satisfaction indicates that they are having problems with caching on their server which is causing the problem. Later on the twitter rep indicates that they've updated @twitter_status, but that they know the problem is still not fixed.

They should probably still put it up on their blog though.

Re: How can I stop being called a ‘blogger’?

mointrigue — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:46:58 -0000

I started responding to you, but there was too much. I ended up posting it here.

Re: Are there psychological disorders with us early adopters?

mointrigue — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:27:49 -0000

I've thought for the longest time that the future isn't in Twitter, MySpace or Facebook, but niche social networks. I don't think those things will completely go away, but we'll depend on them less and less. Hopefully, these "velvet rope" (to steal your term for it) networks will start providing tools that are better suited for specific types of information.

Re: Should anonymous people be allowed to conduct business?

mointrigue — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 07:56:30 -0000

Hmm, I realize that anonymity is part of net culture, but honestly the older I get the less I like it. In addition, once you invoke the legal system, expecting to remain anonymous is ridiculous. If someone were to choose to take legal action against me, I had better be provided with information on who my accuser is, and a handle isn't going to cut it.

I don't think that a network has to restrict anonymous handles from business, but expecting ANY anonymity when you invoke a legal action is ridiculous.

The harassment issue is a negative side affect, but its not anything new. There's always the danger of retribution, and that's something that should be dealt with at the original socnet, or if it spreads beyond that however else you go about it. Harassment happens, its a real issue that I don't have the answer for.