Slashdot Mirror
Is Twitter Rendered Obsolete By Google+?
suraj.sun writes with a ComputerWorld piece predicting the end of Twitter, at least in its current form. From the article: "It's only a matter of time before Twitter becomes a ghost town. While Google+ will soon do all the things Twitter does, Twitter can't support a long list of the things Google+ supports. Also on Google+, you can post pictures and videos directly in posts, launch immediately into a video chat, send your posts to nonmembers and even present all your posts marked 'Public' as a blog available to anyone with an Internet."
Can I get "an Internet"? How do you quantify one?
No.
But on Twitter I can use any name I wish ...
If were about "doing more," people would still just be using email (and email lists) over twitter. It's all the restrictions of twitter that prevent it from being a nuisance that made it stick.
People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. -Steve Jobs
...will Google lock me out of Gmail and other services if they decide my Twitter account violated the TOS?
No? Well in that case I'll keep using Twitter and they can keep Google Plus.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
That means it's sure to win. This reminds of of when OS/2 mopped the floor with Windows because it had superior multitasking and memory management!
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Where Twitter loses is in monetizing traffic. In other words, Google knows how to use your traffic to feed you ads that sooner or later you click on. They do it well enough to make a lot of money.
This works for Google because all of their products draw you into their web space, and you can't avoid being presented with Google Ads.
The weakness of Twitter is that in many ways it's easier to use from a phone, Hootsuite, or some other client - even Google Plus with an add-on. There's never any need to actually visit the Twitter web site.
Consequently they're stuck with those idiotic "Promoted Tweets" - which in my experience are so far removed from anything that interests me that I really think they're using chimpanzees instead of algorithms to place them.
Three Squirrels
I kind of look at twitter as an rrs hosting service (for personal use) that put a web interface on the top and made a purpose built manager and search engine. Its main success was that the account was secondary to the "tweets" (so you did not need to share personal information, and you knew what you were sharing) and that they got media endorsement. The limitations lowered the barrier for the general public to use it.
Can I get "an Internet"?
RFC 1918 explains how to set up your own internet.
Remember when because some of your colleagues were on ICQ or AOL but some were on Yahoo Messenger but some were on MSN but some had started to move to Skype etc you ended up having to have accounts with all of them because you don't control which account the person you need to speak to likes to use? And the techies amongst us started wanting tools like Kopete to deal with our plurality of accounts? That's the direction I see social networks going in. Already there are people who are Facebook friends whose Facebook status updates come from their Twitter app. Meanwhile many Twitter posts are there to point me to blog articles on blogs that I could also individually follow using RSS. And all those social communities hasn't, for instance, stopped me doing the old fashioned form of community of visiting and commenting on sites I like, like Slashdot. One more social network does not necessarily mean death to the rest. I don't see Twitter and Facebook following Bebo and MySpace into insignificance. It means yet another system I'll need to have an account on because people I need/want to follow/talk to use it. It does not mean I have a new single account that I consider to be my identity -- "me on the web" -- it means I'll have (well, if someone sends me an invite) an additional personally identifiable account on the Web. I think interoperability between social networks is going to be the next big battleground.
If you look at Google+ and Twitter as APIs, then you can implement Twitter using the Google+ API but not the reverse. That doesn't mean things can't change, but I bet a few Twitter project managers have been sleepless lately.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
>Actually, it's really not that hard.
The latest Slashdot meme.
The hypno-toad always wins.
Gently reply
Forget red bull, use Brawndo - It's got electrolytes!
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
+1 Internets for you (because I'm all out of mod points)
Yes, the issue of "real names" will keep Twitter more relevant. Twitter is what the Internet is about.
Google+ Circles is just hypocrisy. Real Name v pseudonym is just different Circles. Begs the question of Circles existence.
The lacking ability to filter on the receiving end (for the main Stream) doesn't help either.
I really can't see Google+ replacing Twitter anytime soon, as Google+ has a strict requirement for real names and will even close accounts based on it. Twitter on the other side is fine with pseudonyms and gets used a lot with them, not only from people that want to keep their real names private, but also organizations and companies that use it as their news feed or just from fake personalities for commedy purposes.
Google+ seems to have some plans to allow business use in the future, but right now they doesn't and it's not clear if they only allow that for money or also for the average make-shift organization (i.e. Anonymous, Wikileaks, Free Software stuff, etc.).
As far as I see it, with it's requirement for real names Google has essentially taken a first real step to being evil, while Twitter on the other side seems to be a much more open platform that is used by a lot of people that don't want their real names to be known for one reason or another.
I use Twitter because of SMS, and it doesn't cost me a dime (since my plan has unlimited SMS whether I use it or not). So until Google offers SMS services, Twitter style, anyone going from Twitter to Google+ will be limiting their market. Then again, maybe I'm special.
Twitter was obsolete when it only allowed 140 characters.
Not if Google keep banning years-old email accounts for stupid little problems associated with Google+. I wanted to join when my sister sent me an invite (not because it looked that great, but because my sister asked me to join), but I resisted because it was too new and too closely linked to other Google services. I'm glad I did, since Gmail has been my main email provider for several years, including for work, and my Google/Gmail name is not 100% accurate. I'd hate to lose years of email due to some dumb little infringement of an unrealistic TOS agreement. Maybe eventually, but for now there are too many kinks to work out.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Seriously, this is 'Will Wave Eat E-Mail' all over again. No. It has long strings attached. It has plenty of bells and whistles, but this is comparing apples and fruit baskets, or a can opener with a Swiss army knife. Sometimes all you want is an apple for your teacher, and sure you can cut meat, whittle wood, read fine print, tweeze splinters and even open cans with your knife, but it'll be faster and cheaper if you just go out to the kitchen and use the tool that was designed for that and nothing else.
Or maybe an edited version?
For those of us who have never used twitter, is there an edited, "best of" to convince us to use it?
I googled "best of twitter", but it appears to be an reductio ad absurdum situation - all the top links seem to want me to follow some twitter account...
Is there compelling twitter content I am missing?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I'm actually on G+ and I use it kind of a lot. I thought the discussion might benefit from somebody who's actually actively using the service rather than having sampled it and written it off as "I hate social networking and this is social networking". I'm enjoying it a good bit because it's more interactive and engaging than Twitter and with a lot more obvious and up-front control over everything than on Facebook.
The integration with Picasa is excellent and I'm looking forward to the (optional) integration with the other services. I'll really be happy with it when Gmail and Voice filters can use my Circles to do useful work, i.e. let family and friends through, dump the other crap.
I'm still using Twitter, mostly because I'm still following #FuckYouWashington, but less and less. G+ easily occupies the same space as Twitter and with a little tweaking will easily replace Facebook for me.
As for the supposed privacy issues, I haven't run into anything that concerns me. When I share something Public, I take for granted that means Public. When I post to a smaller Circle, I trust it go to that smaller Circle. If they want a more accurate profile of me to present ads which I might conceivably be interested in while I'm doing my friends-and-family socializing, that works fine by me. I've dismissed about a million Zynga ads on Facebook and their ad-bot code can't take a hint so more accurate ad profiling works in my favor by being less irritating by several orders of magnitude.
Moreover, I can use any pseudonym I like as long as I don't use it on G+ which seems a reasonable trade-off. If your concern is that the CIA might get grandma's cookie recipe, then you're screwed if your family is contacting you through G+ but hopefully you're bright enough to do anything truly nefarious on a more secure channel.
I follow a couple of Googlers, a couple of celebrities I was already following on Twitter and that's just about it for now until invites are opened a little wider. In all it's low-key and fosters a more interesting kind of correspondence. Open discourse seems to pop up a lot more often and it's a lot more coherent than either a Twitter discussion or a Facebook comment thread not to mention a lot easier to join a public thread.
In all, I like it a lot and I'm looking forward to the improvements.
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
This is like asking whether nose-picking is going to obsolete butt-scratching. I mean, sure, there's an answer ("probably not"), but even if it does, the only discernible effect will be the usual six-month lag before TV journalists catch up to whatever bit of jargon replaces "tweet".
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
You don't lose access to Gmail (or Docs, Calendar, Blogger, or any other Google service that doesn't require Google+) if you're banned from Google+. The only way you can get a full Google-wide ban is if you're caught breaking a Google-wide policy such as spamming or illegal activity. They've also changed their policy so they give you fair warning to change your username before they lock your account, and there's an appeals process in place to get your account back if you do get banned for using a fake username.
They also won't ban you just because your name doesn't match your birth certificate. They're only locking accounts for people who are using obviously fake names.
There's a long blog post from a Google VP that goes into a lot of detail on the issue here: https://plus.google.com/113116318008017777871/posts/VJoZMS8zVqU
For my part, I don’t see the problem with Twitter. I mean, 140 characters is more than enough to develop a fully formed and well articulated
"Friending" on Facebook is different from "Following" on Twitter. On Facebook it's symmetrical -- I can't friend you, unless you also friend me. On Twitter it's asymmetrical -- you can follow me, without me following you back.
This difference alone is why Facebook will never kill Twitter. (And I'm not even talking about the horrible UI mess that is Facebook, or it's atrocious privacy reputation.)
Google+ follows Twitter's following philosophy and in that way is much more like to Twitter than Facebook is. OTOH, Twitter allows anonymity which Google+ sadly doesn't.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
The entire point of the internet is pseudo-anonymity. This is how Twitter became a central news source to the political dissent surrounding the Arab spring.
Google+ is something designed by and for valley dwelling, prius driving, aspergers-suffering dullards. Google+ may even be perfect for the inane, self-absorbed and narcissistic. It's never going to be as important as or a replacement for Twitter unless it allows user to hide behind aliases.
If the other social networking sites are any indication. Something better will come along in about 3 - 4 years to replace google+
Right now, Twitter has some advantages that Google+ doesn't have. They aren't insurmountable, but Google+ as it stands now won't replace Twitter.
- SMS Updates: Right now, I can text 40404 with a tweet and it'll appear on my Twitter stream. Google is apparently testing this in India. No news on when/if this will appear in America and other countries.
- API/Third Party Tools: Right now, I can run Seesmic Desktop to check my tweets. I can have my blog tweet for me. I can program my own application to interact with Twitter. Twitter lets me do all this thanks to their open APIs. Google+ currently doesn't have any APIs. Once they get an API-set, then people can develop tools to let me access Google+ without actually having to go to Google's website. Until then, they'll lag behind.
- Names: I use a pseudonym on my blog and Twitter. I don't use my real name (unlike on Slashdot, but this account was from years back when I didn't care about privacy as much). Google+, however, demands that I use my real name. I don't want everyone I tweet/blog to to know my real name. I'd rather show them the pseudonym and let certain circles see my real name. If Google+ would let me choose who gets to see my real name and who doesn't, they would solve this problem. (They could require you input your real name but then have you set which circles see which names/nicknames.)
I'll keep an eye on Google+, but until they fix the above items I'm not abandoning Twitter for it.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.