Twittering...

Hahah it's insane. Insanely perfect too actually.

Well finally on Twitter. Heard about it a while ago (I think Ashwan told me about it while he was still here) and also got a couple invites but didn't want to get onto another site where I would have to write. (Tried having a wordpress blog but didn't like the UI so stuck to blogspot and only put up 2 posts up there).

But finally decided it might be worth the effort because Twitter is in the news a lot lately for the amount of traffic it is getting. So created login and put up my first 'post'.

The reason it is perfect according to me is because each post can only be 140 characters long and that is good because 1) people can't rant and rant and rant 2) everyone else writes a short post - no issues for me to read.

Why it is insane is because you end up knowing so much more than you otherwise would about others who use twitter. For instance I came to know M (the only person I have on there right now. Will hopefully find more people I know soon) had fractured her hand (a while ago I am assuming since her plaster is off already). Hope it is all good M. (I would also dare to assume she is a left handed person by deducing another of her 'update'). She is into coffee and is a Starbucks loyalist but now enjoys Mcmocha. And a lot more stuff obviously. All this information came in some 20 or so posts (3 minutes tops) while I haven't known any of this from flowing her blog for quite a long time. Freaky but then again what is ever private once it is published on the net?

The User Interface isn't the best in the world but I have to admit that 'twittering' is easy. The site is pretty slow though and UI and speed are two reasons that make me think right away that Google should buy them over hehe.

Yahoo and MSN are out. Neither are masters of either. I mean Panama is so damn slow - it is such a turn off. If yahoo had the volumes or greatly superior traffic I wouldn't even crib. But let me not start, I could go on and on.

I wonder how they will monetize it. I would have to assume ads (I didn't see any yet). Which as an online advertiser I might be glad about (so many more opportunities for 'eyeballs'). What I think they should do though is collect some more demographic information from it's users. Of course there can be contextual targeting based on what the users are talking/writing about but in 140 characters, I don't know if it makes sense unless there is a theme or multiple mentions of the same thing.

Anyway lets see how it goes. Will at least use it for a few more days.

I have to add their home page so doesn't look like a home page.



Haha just figured 30 minutes after I published the post that their 'Create an Account' form is messed up. If you type a name which is unavailable and hit tab and then hit shift tab to go back to the first field of 'Username', the unavailable shows as available. I am sure it won't let you create an account and will come back with the error after you hit submit but it still is 'bad user experience'.