> It's not because Twitter's technology is any more superior. It's the simple thing called 'network effects'.
I agree, and the solution must be to provide a service that is useful even when not many people are using it. For example, could an rstat.us account be set up so that everything published on it is automatically republished on the user's Twitter and facebook accounts, and any replies from those places published back to rstat.us?
It already posts updates to your twitter feed if you sign in with that account and I've heard they'll be adding that feature to standard accounts soon.
"Network effects" cut both ways. I am interested in participating in the network that most of my peers are on, but I don't give a shit which network Ashton Kutcher, some C-list blogger or a random hashtag spammer is on. A non-twitter microblogging network could actually gain a lot of early momentum just by giving some thought to what it would take to make twitter suck less and then letting people know that this is not the service that Oprah or their mom will be on.
Perhaps. But the code will be there, and somebody can start up their own site on their own server at any point of time.
And the beauty of it: the way the technology works (OStatus), every time somebody does this, the overall network gets larger. In my opinion, it's really only a matter of time.
I have to disagree with you on this one. It's not about the technology. I think this is what we techies get mixed up.
I would wager to say that by now 95% of all Twitter users don't give a crap about the technology.
They just want Twitter to work.
Twitter solves a problem that people didn't realize they had before. The ability to easily see what people are currently doing - the 140 character limitation is a godsend for brevity.
Because Twitter invented that space, it is going to be VERY difficult to unseat them.
At this point, only Twitter can unseat Twitter - quite frankly.
Yup, at this point you can't get people to move away from twitter just by providing a nearly identical service. Because the network effect makes them no longer identical. You need to add a way for people to either proxy through the competition (e.g. parallels on a Macbook, skype integrating with the existing phone system, etc.) or you need a featureset that is so superior enough people will switch anyway to catalyze a larger migration.
It's not because Twitter's technology is any more superior. It's the simple thing called 'network effects'.
Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, I think Twitter is too far along for their momentum to be stopped.
Valiant attempt, and kudos to the developer(s) for actually getting it launched - but this is definitely like spitting in the wind....imho of course.