1. It's substanceless. It's impossible to say anything of real value within 140 characters. Why do you think so many people are using it to share links instead of their own personal insight? Because no one can make a substantial point using three word sentences! - Brad Williamson

2. It's turning into MySpace. Ya know how back in the day so many people wanted to inflate the amount of friends they have so they could be PERCEIVED as being popular? Well that's happening on Twitter right now. Unless you or your entity is a public figure, there's no way all those followers are listening to you. As a regular Twitter user who isn't any type of well-known thought leader, a high Follower count doesn't mean you have influence, it just means you have way too much time on your hands as you try to manufacture a following. - Brad Williamson

3. Here's how a Twitter conversation unfolds: 1. I write a Tweet (I hate saying that word). 2. Moments later, a person replies to that Tweet as best they can in 140 characters. 3. Because I haven't been on Twitter in a couple hours, I finally see their response and do my best to reply to them in 140 characters. 4. Hours later, my response is seen and replied to. ...This delayed conversation continues to go on for a while longer, and by the time it's over, each of us have collectively typed maybe a 1000 characters of weak banter to one another. CONVERSATIONS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO UNFOLD LIKE THIS!! Get on IM, for goodness sake, if you want to have typed conversations! - Brad Williamson

4. All the hype is causing mainstream news organizations to OVERUSE the platform. Valuable on-air time is being used to either see what Twitterers are saying (in 140 characters, NOT MUCH) about an issue, or they're asking us to follow them during time on segments when they're supposed to be reporting news. - Brad Williamson

5. Public figures are starting to believe that all it takes to be considered someone who is "fan friendly" is to write, or for their assistants to write, quick little tweets. As a fan of certain celebrity Twitterers, I find it to be insulting that they think they can satisfy my hunger to gain deeper insight into their lives with this lazy approach to fan "engagement." - Brad Williamson

I use twitter primarily to converse on hot trending topics :) - Swaroop

I'll post more of my beef with with Twitter in a bit. In the meantime, let's hear some well thought out reasons why Twitter is awful so that those who love the platform can feel a frenzy to argue back ;-) - Brad Williamson

@Swaroop Do you feel like you can express comprehensive thoughts on trending topics within your limited character space? - Brad Williamson

Twitter is/was/will be a big success owing to fact that people don't have time to blog (I know some ppl still manage to pull this off), but most of them would just like to dump their quick thoughts onto a platform easily reachable. - Swaroop

@Brad: Agree to the fact that expressing a huge belief couldn't be done in 140 chars, but that's where we have conversations (Reply to a tweet) right ? For scattered conversations - I am still able to successfully stay in loop/touch with the trends & friends - Swaroop

@Swaroop Why wouldn't you use Facebook, or any other social media platform that allows you to breath a little, to share yourself with friends and family? - Brad Williamson

It is changing as do all children as they grow up. So far, I still like it. :-) - Mathew A. Koeneker

I don't feel like I can have a conversation on twitter without threads - Ryan

@Brad: I'm using Facebook - But it's too personal for scattered thoughts. Sometimes strangers are better judges for random crazy ideas/or when some work related help (some technical prob). Plus I do have the twitter app repeating the tweets back in Facebook for those one or two friends who don't tweet. - Swaroop

@Brad: Like your image on Blue "ugly" duckling *ahem* bird - Swaroop

@Matthew Besides the Trending Topics (which has just tuned into a "FOLLOW ME!!" soapbox) and a few other little improvements, I personally don't think it's evolved that much. To me, it's still a constrained conversation prison (I wonder if that made any sense ;-) - Brad Williamson

@Swaroop HAHA! Yeah, when I saw that pic, I knew it would be perfect for this conversation ;-) - Brad Williamson

I like it for what it is and if Twitter expands options that will be a good thing. This site 'Friendfeed' offers more options for expression--I like that feature also, even better, I like the cc feature to Twitter. All social sites will eventually, I think, become an octopus like entity with many arms linked to one another in clouds. - Johnice Reid

Full of 'celebs' - Kevin J Hatton

@Johnice I think we all can agree that FriendFeed is the king of of the real-time ring. - Brad Williamson

6. Using Twitter often forces you to have to say out loud the word "Tweet." I swear, if that word is ever included in the dictionary in the coming years, I'm gonna lose all respect for the English language. - Brad Williamson

7. The suggested users list represents a desperate attempt to encourage people to become engaged in the site. Not only will those suggested users never reply to anything you say to them, but it's likely that you won't be a fan of any of them in the first place. - Brad Williamson

8. The Trending Topics feature has already become a spam machine. Sure, some people leave relevant comments within these topics, but, for the most part, it's just used as a place to get new people to follow them. - Brad Williamson

It is Schrodinger's birdy I think of it as a quantum communication. I am speaking to everyone and no one at the same time. - Robert Higgins

9. It's hogging all the hype that FriendFeed deserves. - Brad Williamson

@LLL Your experience of FriendFeed would be much more enjoyable if you wouldn't privatize your feed. I'm just sayin' ;-) - Brad Williamson

10. It's sad how many people say that traditional blogging is dead and Twitter is the future. How can constrained commentary and conversation trump a platform that is limitless in function? With such a philosophy it would seem like our culture is doing everything it can to embrace a dumbed-down appreciation of ideas and information. Twitter's current popularity gives it the influence to inspire an entire generation towards lowering it's standards when trying to gain new information and insight. If people won't read anything that's longer than 140 characters then you can guarantee that the future of long-form books doesn't look bright. - Brad Williamson

Twitter sucks because it won't auto-refresh on the Nokia N800 :) (via http://ff.im/53bCT) - George Dearing

Twitter is on the bottom of a very large trend, it will be as ubiquitous as email. But yeah Brad they will have to replace wikipedia with twikipedia. Explain the 10th Convention of the Parties on Biodiversity in 140 characters. - Robert Higgins

Brad -- permit me to voice a contrarian opinion on Twitter. :) I think it is currently the world's premier news distribution system. I used to share your views on Twitter until I realized that tweets can point to documents of any type or size, including long articles, books, dissertations, movies, etc. -- one click and you are on the full document. Now I use Twitter to track the latest news from dozens of high-quality news sources. For discussions, I use Friendfeed mostly. - Sean McBride

An appalling lack of features and reliability - LANjackal

Spam. - Will Higgins™

Good article Brad. I think you make some very good points. - Kevin J Hatton

The lack of features is really the only thing that bugs me. I can't believe a company with as much venture capital as they have and as huge of a userbase hasn't managed to innovate.... at all. I still use Twitter religiously, as that's where the majority of my friends and connections are, but I really wish they'd fix some things. - mike fabio

Peoplebrowsr is overflowing with features for managing Twitter. - Sean McBride

I agree with Sean. I use it to track news from various sources as well as the thoughts of others. I post quick links to things from the web that I want to share, but if I have an opinion to share in the form of a longer-form response to something, I'll blog that, then usually post a link to it on Twitter. I'm new to FriendFeed and still trying to figure out how to fit it into my flow, but i like its ability to do much of what Twitter does without the 140char limit. - Kevin Arth

It's easier to just crosspost tweets to something with more features like Facebook. That way if someone has a follow up they can put it there instead. Other than that it's mostly a glorified mailing list, though I think Dane Cook proved to us that even that has some use. - Ben Blackford

Twitter will peak in 2009. - Patrick Breitenbach

Who wants to read about what strangers are eating for dinner without at least seeing pictures of the food? - Amy℠

Twitter may be awful but guess what? I tried to get people to come to Friendfeed and they didn't. So it's what we live with. - Morton Fox

I love twitter because it allows me to use it exactly how I want to. Follow and unfollow and block allow spam to effect me very little. IF you are autofollowing and auto dming then spam will ruin it for you and in fact... you are spam. Its only awful if you let it be awful. it is awful as a ongoing conversation tool, but not what it was built to be I dont think. A baseball bat is a horrible straw. Cool that folks dont like it though, dont make it your home page and it will never affect you. When something gives you choices, including the ultimate choice to never-ever use it, why bash it? - Cody Heitschmidt

One of the ways in which it is awful is that you cannot have a discussion like this. When public search worked properly you could follow conversations there but that part of the Twitter experience is broken for me and many others; which leads me to a second way it is awful - the apparent unresponsiveness of Twitter in addressing the search problem, but I am going to comment on that in tollie williams' Twitter search question. - Phil Harrison

I hate that historical posts have no real use. After 10 to 20 posts no one cares about what was posted before that. Plus the search is crappy. - Sullivan from iPhone

What about ways in which it is not crappy. For me It has been an excellent introduction to new people (globally) and mediums (such as friendfeed). I have made new friends and acquaintances that I enjoy communicating with and yes a few of them are famous people who really do try to communicate and they have my admiration for that. Now that I have been introduced to friendfeed, however, Twitters' flaws are more and more apparent. - Phil Harrison

discussion on Twitter is strongly constricted by the (in)famous 140 char limits. I tends to look with interest to new experiments like Qaiku, where there is a true conversation model, where replies are not conditioned by length... - Marco Castellani

i like twitter - Bill Rawlinson

I like Twitter, but the Visigoths have definitely stormed the gates with spam posts, links to their own blogs, zero conversation, and WAY too many hashtags. In short, it isn't Twitter that sucks - it's we users who suck. - Ciaoenrico

1. Spam followers! 2. updates that are not relevant to me at all. - Rohit

http://friendfeed.com/thwarte... http://friendfeed.com/thwarte... http://friendfeed.com/thwarte... http://friendfeed.com/thwarte... - Andy Bakun

Twitter sucks but thanks to FriendFeed we can discuss why. - Sivan Mozes

RT Let's all give our personal perspectives on why Twitter is AWFUL - elefantastico

When you get dropped off the Twitter search, your Twitter life is effectively over. I have been dropped off the Twitter search since June 10, and I have a broken heart that shall never mend. I loved #Journchat with all my heart. I was never in my entire life as happy as I was in Journchat on Twitter. Now, I will never again be able to participate in Journchat. When you get dropped off of Twitter search, you can't participate in hashtagged chats on Twitter. Twitter is a free service. When the folks that built Twitter don't restore you to their Twitter search, it is their choice and their prerogative, and since Twitter is a free service, I have no recourse. Now, I am trying to figure out why I wasted nine months of my precious life laboring over Twitter. Those 9 months are a total loss. This free service problem is why I hate free blogging services. You could labor over a free blog for years and then the service vanishes overnight and you just permanently wasted years of your life. ALWAYS get a freestanding blog. Twitter is social media, and social media is supposed to be transparent, but there is little to no transparency with Twitter over this dropped off their Twitter search issue. I am really, really disappointed over their lack of transparency. - J. D. Ebberly

Same thing happened to me buddy. Apparently once you get dropped off Twitter Search, it's permanent - LANjackal from IM

Great points 1-10 Brad! I would only add that twitter search sux (for more than this dropping issue that JD and LANj are talking about) because it only goes back in time a short period of time. I do find twitter useful but wish everyone was on ff instead... that would be more useful. :-) - Chris Heath

Twitter is like a food you really don't like, so you just don't eat it. 140 characters limits creativity but if you can't get a point across within those limits your language skills are lacking or you are using the wrong medium to make your point. Plenty of people do get Twitter and use it creatively. If it's not for you, stay away. No-one is insisting you use it. - Gilbert Harding

I don't really think the spam criticism is fair. If FriendFeed had the same amount of users as Twitter then there would be the same amount of spam. Also, if people are spamming you just unfollow them. The only real problem is the spam in the trending topics. Personally, I love Twitter and FriendFeed. I don't mind using both. - Shawn Hickman

Don't really like twitter, but I agree. Spam on the network is very easy to avoid unless you're automatically following everyone who follows you, which is just plain stupid IMO - LANjackal from IM

http://www.wordle.net/gallery... - david

Why I find Twitter to be valuable (a few feeds I follow): Antiwarcom, alleyinsider, amnesty, atul, bbcpolitics, bbcscitech, BreakingNews, CBSNews, CFR_org, cnnbrk, cqpolitics, dailydish, DavidCornDC, DemocracyNow, dorait, EFF, foxnew_pol, FP_Passport, Gizmodo, glenngreenwald, guardiannews, guardiantech, haaretzonline, harpers, huffingtonpost, HuffPolitics, infowarsstories, jeremyscahill, Jerusalem_Post, jstreetdotorg, jtanews, klamma, KurzweilAINews, louisgray, Lifehacker, mashable, mkapor, mmfa, Mondoweiss, msnbc_breaking, newscientist, NewYorkerDotCom, NiemanLab, nprnews, nprpolitics, nybooks, nytimes, nytimesbits, Paulwolfowitz, rww, sciam, science, Scobleizer, techreview, TheEconomist, thenation, thinkprogress, TIME, timesonline, timoreilly, tnr, tpmmedia, venturebeat, verymorph, Washindependent, whorunsgov, wired, wiredmag. - Sean McBride

WOW. Thanks for the list of Twitterers who are worth following. But I gotta strike back with a counter point... Instead of Twitter, why not use an RSS reader to filter through their latest content, where you can read the entire headline as well as the article's by-line? - Brad Williamson

Brad -- actually, I am experimenting on a regular basis with using Google Reader, Feedly, Friendfeed and Peoplebrowsr as front ends for browsing and managing Twitter feeds. I haven't yet settled on any one interface as the best (my opinion keeps changing from day to day and with experience). Also, I have noticed that as a rule 140 characters provide more than enough space for the artful placement of keywords to motivate me to click through to read an entire article or document. I can usually tell at a glance whether to skim over or dig into an article on the basis of a brief title and the source. - Sean McBride

Twitter = Divas, Wanabe Divas, People on Prozak and Spammers! There are a few nice people there, but it is really hard to have a conversation! So unless you have a large following, the best way to use Twitter is to follow the peeps you are interested in, and then go to their blogs, FaceBook, etc, to talk with! - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

Twitter = some of the best news sources and minds on the planet. Twitter is only as good as the feeds you choose to follow. - Sean McBride

You people have an awful lot to say about something you dislike. No one is forcing you to use Twitter. No one will resent you if you leave. - Tal Shafik

@Sean, so Twitter is for broadcasting, if you have a following. Twitter is not for dialogue! - Igor The Troll יִצְחָק

Actually it's far more useful to me the more people that are on it. But is least interesting in feeds from self appointed A listers. I avoid those and all is good. - Cole Jolley

Igor -- yes: Twitter is primarily a *broadcasting* medium, and nearly useless as a discussion medium. Friendfeed is probably the world's premier discussion medium. Friendfeed could easily match Twitter as a broadcasting medium simply by providing the option to hide all comments under a list view interface (with one click to open the discussions). - Sean McBride

Sivan Mozes hahahah... that is so true. It's like Friendfeed users need to constantly remind and assure themselves they did the right thing leaving Twitter - Andre P. Siregar

we didn't leave twitter.. twitter left us. - joking aside though i don't think there's many ff users who don't have a twitter account maybe 10%... maybe (if i had to guess) - Chris Heath

Already said my piece, in long form, here: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009... - Uche Ogbuji

Nice article, Uche! - Brad Williamson

I think the market is big enough for facebook, twitter and friendfeed. Google wave will only strengthen twitter further with its extension Twave. Twitter has all the high profile people in it.. celebs, technologists, u name it.Twitter has its identity as a microblogging social network, Friendfeed has its identity as an aggregator with microbloggin features.Both hav their place. I think most will shift their base to facebook from twitter once facebook unveals the "everyone button"... - Gtp19

there is not many desktop and phone clients for friendfeed.. any social network is nothing without its users.. i think more the people get to know about and use twitter, there is much of a chance for them to use friendfeed. - Gtp19

Brad, point #10 is the most relevant in my opinion. Despite illusions to the contrary, our culture has been barreling down the "dumbed down" path for quite some time. I hate to think what the future will hold if we continue this pattern. - John