Succumbing to the trend...

[jducoeur]

Okay, there -- after putting it off for a year, I've finally signed up for Twitter. (Under the usual "jducoeur" handle.) Now, out of curiosity, is *anybody* here on it?

I have to say that I'm very happy about my first impressions: specifically, that *boy* their UI is bad. Clumsy CSS, unacceptably slow (worse than my current state, which I'm not willing to go to alpha with), really pretty awful all around. This is comforting to me, in that, while it's still better-looking than CommYou right now, it's not nearly as good as I intend CommYou to be by the time I get to beta. It's a fine reminder that yes, if you're in the right place at the right time, function does still trump form...

Comments

[mikekn]

I just signed up as well - figured it was worth looking at. (and good to claim my mikekn id before someone else does)

[jducoeur]

Okay, followed...

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I'm there as CynVandeverre but I don't expect to use it very much. That could change, I suppose.

[jducoeur]

Okay, followed. (No real cost to me if you wind up not using it...)

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

What's interesting is that I searched for you using your handle exactly as you typed it (copy/paste) and it won't return anything for you. Tried several variations based upon potential typos, too.

[jducoeur]

This seems to be one of those places where the UI Sucketh Most Mightily. I can't figure out, offhand, how one simply adds somebody by their Twitter handle on their Web UI -- it wants to know their email address, which is goofy. (I mean, I only have one Twitter handle, but several dozen email addresses, so how would my friends know which one to use?)

However, when I "follow" someone's Twitter handle via the IM interface, that works fine. (At least, I succeeded in "following" CV that way.)

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

I added you via your handle - on the home page, there's a search field in the "people" section. I added your handle and up you came. I added CV's handle and was denied. Is that the IM interface?

[jducoeur]

*headdesk*

Hadn't even occurred to look on the Home page for it. I made the blithe assumption that you found people via the "Find and Follow" page -- you know, the one with the title "Find People You Know on Twitter"? Silly me.

Anyway -- no, as the above probably makes clear, I hadn't even noticed that particular search box. Rather, I had configured things so that I can Tweet via IM, and there are a bunch of commands that you can also give that way. The "follow [foo]" command is how I added Cyn to my list. I wonder if there's some sort of capitalization bug that's getting in the way in the Web interface?

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

I tried the "Find and Follow" page, but as I don't use a gmail (or equivalent) account, and I don't have CV's email address, I didn't see any way of finding her that way. I'd have thought there'd be an "enter handle here" like there is on the home page. I've got confirmation elsewhere that I'm of reasonable intelligence and technical ability, so figuring out a UI shouldn't be that difficult for me, I'd have thought. But anyway, I have now followed CV based upon her following me.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

And I copy/pasted from Twitter's page with my username. But I think I have found you, so you probably can look at that and find me.

[asim.livejournal.com]

On as asim (I know, shock). It's the networking capabilities that have me intrigued, but that won't come to pass until I get certain other projects rolling.

[jducoeur]

Okay, followed. We might chat about it more, once we both have a clearer idea of what it's like...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Uh.

Okay, so it's...a persistent chat room with "small-world" filtering like LJ (you see your friends). Makes some sense. Needs a better interface, fer shure.

[jducoeur]

Well, keep in mind that the killer app for Twitter is the SMS capability -- that's what makes it more than just a typical chat room, and why it matters to CommYou. Twitter is *all* about the SMS: indeed, the update length limit is built around it. The result is that it's focused on brief "what I'm doing now" updates, and micro-conversations that result from that, with an extremely strong focus on mobile.

I still think it's a crappy implementation, mind, and I'm not quite clear on whether they have a business plan that makes any rational sense. (Unless they've cut a good deal with the phone systems, they have to be losing *pots* of money.) But it's an interesting example of making do with what comes to hand...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. Good point.

Clearly my 18th century phone (2001, I think, is the vintage) is holding me back from Progress! (It does SMS....slowly, at $0.15 a pop. Not twittering thither.)

[jducoeur]

I'm using SMS a bit, to start with -- we'll see if I do much of it, though. I suspect IM will prove to be my primary mechanism for using the thing...

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

OK, I've signed up (as dlevey) - but I admit I'm struggling to figure out what the point of it is.

At any given moment, the literalist in me would say that if I'm updating what I'm doing, then THAT is what I'm doing.

The realist in me says that if I'm doing something else, then perhaps I should be doing that rather than taking the time to put out a quick update. And overall, I don't see my friends as the sort of people who are on the edges of their seats waiting to see what I'll do next - especially as a broadcast to someone's mobile device.

But I may just be an idiot. Or a curmudgeon. Or a curmudgeonly idiot. :-)

[jducoeur]

Okay, followed. I confess, I am by *no* means sure I understand what it's for myself. But I figure there's no better way to find out other than to play with it a bit...

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's why I did it. That plus the "if I look for a job without a twitter handle I'll be at a serious disadvantage" mindset.

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

i'm hakamadare (http://twitter.com/hakamadare) there.

as for how to use it, or what it's for, there's a bit of a prescriptivist/descriptivist divide there. as far as i can tell (and there's a good essay about this out there somewhere, although i'm unable to bring it to hand just now), it was originally supposed to be a sort of microblog, a natural progression from, say, the practice of encoding your current iTunes track into your IM client's status message, or how the old .plan and .project files worked with fingerd.

to my mind, Twitter succeeds quite well at that use case; however, that's not how people seem to want to use it. people instead seem to use it as a sort of clumsy, very laggy IRC room, relying heavily on the @<username> convention and direct messaging. while that doesn't have much attraction for me, it does seem more in line with what CommYou is about, if i understand correctly.

-steve

[jducoeur]

Okay, followed. Although yet again the system stability doesn't impress me: in this particular case, it didn't ack the follow command.

Anyway -- ayep. I don't much care about intent vs. actual use: most worthwhile online services don't get used as originally intended anyway. I'm trying to prepare myself mentally for the expectation that, if it succeeds, CommYou's use cases are going to surprise me, and I'll have to adjust.

Frankly, I'm seeing the chat-room use case pretty quickly, and I agree: if anything, I find it a *delightful* proof of concept, because they're doing some of the things I'm planning on for CommYou, and I'm pretty sure my version is going to be more usable -- not perfect, but better. (I'm amused that they haven't managed to get AIM integration working: it was a sunnuvabitch, but we did pretty much manage to wrestle that problem to the ground at Zingdom.)

[johno.livejournal.com]

johalloran there.

I use it more mini blogging, rather then any sort of small community or slow IRC.

Partly because I can never seem to reply to anyone else's posts.

[jducoeur]

Okay, followed. I get the impression that the mini-blogging use case is a common one...

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

I am, though having it go to my phone got to the point where I started ignoring legitimate text messages for too long of a period of time to make text messaging me a useful instant communication mechanism for my wife, so I stopped receiving them, and now largely use it as a post-only forum.

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

Not me, but then, I don't have a cell phone, either...

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Oh fine.

I'm not sure what it is, but I may as well sign up, if only to claim my username.

[jducoeur]

Heh -- yes, I'll admit that that was part of the priority for me, as well. Not that anybody has yet stolen my handle out from under me anywhere, but sooner or later it might happen...