Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Plurk, and now Identi.ca
I hope I’m not the only one to rant about this but I feel it’s time that I finally write in my blog and whine about the amount of Twitter clones coming out. Don’t get me wrong I am a fan of Twitter and the idea behind it but when there are literally all these start ups trying to copy the idea with “features that will blow Twitter away.” You kind sit back and get sick of the whole idea.
My guess for the surge of clones being released is start ups who think they can do it better. I’m sure there are plenty of companies/people who think they can do Twitter better but it’s not going to matter. Just like how AOL Instant Messenger is still the most used IM service used today even though it has less feature than newer IM services. Twitter was there first and has a large user base. Most people are not going leave Twitter just for it’s current faults and instability. Those who have large networks of friends will find it hard to transfer everyone to new services.
This is where I bring up FriendFeed, a site that is not trying to fight Twitter but leverages the power of several (currently 41) services. With FriendFeed, I am able to aggregate data from Twitter, YouTube, Pownce, Flickr, RSS Feeds/Blogs, and Digg just to name a few. On FriendFeed I am able to see my friends Tweets, Flickr updates, blog updates, and more. I can do all that without pestering my friends to join. Now that is powerful and unique. FriendFeed did the smart thing and played nicely with many popular services.
Michael Arrington of TechCrunch wrote about an article titled “Twitter Conversations Come To A Screaming Halt; Users Simply Move To Friendfeed” and suggests that Twitter should be afraid of FriendFeed. I don’t think Twitter has anything to worry about because FriendFeed is not even in direct competition with Twitter. I do like new sites but when I found out about Identi.ca and how it has the same restrictions of 140 characters you kind of scratch your head and wonder what this Identi.ca has on any other site. When I see more of these clones come out, it just reminds me how FriendFeed was so well thought out. If you are getting sick of all these new clones, you owe it yourself to try out FriendFeed. It won’t even require you to move your friends over.
