That would pretty good actually. I hope they can integrate it into twitter experience, and make it part of their api as well
- Shivanand Velmurugan
from twhirl
well, they have to get code that works from somewhere.
- Slobokan
I think it would be a smart move for them.
- Alan Le
I hope not... Summize is great as it is.
- Chris Thomson
Considering the email I got from Twitter's help dept. promoted Summize, I'm not surprised.
- Erin @queenofspain
"I for one welcome our Twitter-Summize overlords."
- Joe D'Andrea
Did anyone notice that Summize recently added translation links & language filters? Summize is a VERY well done webapp if you ask me.
- Brian Daniel Eisenberg
Buy Summize? Why don't they just integrate the Summize API into Twitter - Just Kidding - Could be a good thing!
- Eric Cedo
One company with no revenue buys another company with no revenue and whose existence depends on the first company? Why couldn't Twitter add the main Summize feature set in a few weeks if they could get their act together?
- David Fry
valuations? I'm shorting Summize if this happens...
- ryangraves
Summize would be doomed by being bought out... At least right now, they have the option of expanding to other networks such as friend feed, and brightkite, if they really wanted to!
- Joel
They have to spend their money on something and they sure as hell aren't spending it on infrastructure at the moment.
- Adam Helweh
I was thinking about that ever since I started using Summize... it makes perfect sense...
- Manos Matsakis
They'd better buy Oracle technology for scalability!
- Eric Sausse
I hope they buy up a few of the best apps that have been developed over the last year. They need to innovate, and it's people outside of Twitter who are developing the coolest stuff. Hopefully those people can help them integrate functionality into the site and bring new ideas!
- Hillary Hartley
this is smart for twitter, but generally bad for summize -- although I don't think any of those guys are really high profile and a win like this would work in their favor if they were sick of swinging for the fences. Interesting to see how it plays out.
- Tyler Willis
We'll need to think up new animals/concepts to signify the eventual 'Fail' *I'm thinking of photoshopping up a chalkboard with an incorrect calculation*
- CannonGod
They should just buy friendfeed instead...
- Colin Brumelle
they'll buy a service that does what they claim to be able to do... smart..
- Absalon Isaac Prieto
this makes it interesting and open for someone else to potentially come in a build a summize-like search across the other networks like brightkite, plurk, friendfeed etc.
- Brandon Zeuner
@Chris T. - whaaaat? I am in love with AIR apps - you are the first I've heard that hates them!
- Sarah Perez
I gave TweetDeck an honest try for 3 days but Twhirl has more features, smaller footprint, and also manages my FriendFeed stream (this comment is via Twhirl)
- Shane Robinson
from twhirl
If I cared about Twitter anymore. I'm all about FriendFeed now. Wow, I am so angry and bitter. I want to love Twitter but it's kicked me in the nuts too many times.
- David Jacobs
the one thing Twitter has it is that it was first before FF in that space. And that brings name recognition to the "masses" and a large inertia that you have to overcome before you can become a true replacement, no matter what technical advantages you bring to the table. I have 5 times more followers in Twitter than FF, and sadly a mass migration doesn't seem to be happening for these folks.
- Daniel Robitaille
Your post to a given site takes on more life when it hits the pages of friendfeed. It's almost like you weigh where you want to "release" a post first knowing that it will get "picked up" by friendfeed.
- todddoubleu
I do not think Twitter will survive as CMS systems that run into message bus systems are the hardest to scale on ruby on rails nd they do not have the money to fight two fronts ruby on rails scalability and new features to stave off competition.
- Fred Grott
good link, allen. some additional default choices would be fantastic. read: better discovery mechanisms. having only members of the echo chamber as default choices makes for a duller feed. no offense to present company. ;)
- Brooks Bayne
I think all this FF > Twitter discourse is seriously, seriously underestimating the power of Twitter's unparalleled portability. It's 100% usable through SMS and has an iPod-esque ecosystem of third party tools and add-ons that hook into it. These things brought Twitter to its throne, and now you guys aren't even factoring them into the equation because of a little downtime.
- David Chartier
i'll post some thoughts on my blog, but one thing that is still annoying is represented in this post... where your friendfeed shows all aggregated iterations of this post here on ff and it just feels silly as i can choose which iteration to leave a comment on. that's an issue. maybe you should turn comments off on the other instances. except that you cannot because its not a feature. also, check out http://friendfeed.com/frendfe... to see some aggregation bugs.
- sull
Jason, that's a brilliant "There Will Be Blood" reference. And so true. I'm afraid that Twitter is just a couple of weeks from being bludgeoned with a bowling pin by FF.
- Frank Roche
I think the removal of a character limit would hurt twitter more than help it. Twitter was never meant as a conversation platform. I think keeping it small and simple makes it much easier for people to use. One of it's biggest strengths is that it's a short form messaging service, and to take that away would make it something that isn't twitter.
- Austin Brown
Jason, I fully agree with what you say here.
- Steve Rubel
I love the fact that there is no premium linked with the number of connections you have. In twitter the greater the number of connections, the higher you appear in the "following" list of your follower. That has become a reason of spam, lowering the quality of the twitter network. Plus, FF works.
- Marcello Del Bono
I can see how Twitter is useful for people who post via SMS, but while Im at the computer FF is far more useful and also more fun to use
- Jeff Hoard
from twhirl
I could offer my agreement here on your entry's content, but I'd rather tell you how much I dug the entry's title.
- Donna Mugavero
I'll put it this way, i never used twitter because I'm not part of the technorati community, but I do use Friendfeed because it allows me to bring together all my online content and then share it with the people I want. That alone is enough for FF to beat out Twitter for me.
- Alfredo Padilla
I think one of the things we have missed carries forward or plays forward a Robert Scoble post, see : http://scobleizer.com/2008... ..let me put it in non tech terms as it pertains to start-ups. FOUNDERS MUST PARTICIPATE IN THE COMMUNITIES THAT FROM AROUND THEIR PRODUCTS! When I state founders I mean also the ones building the product.
- Fred Grott
What it comes down to me is *noise*. FriendFeed is just noisy, what with content from all my social media friends all being dumped into one stream with no organization whatsoever. I look at my FF friends page and I can't make any rhyme or reason to what I'm seeing, even with little favicons to identify which service I'm reading from. Twitter, is clean and organized.
- Stephen Lopez
School of ALL CAPS is a little loud... ;-)
- Mitchell Tsai
I think Center Networks (Allen) has an interesting analysis. I'll be curious to see if the high profile FF users are as interested in commenting on other people's feeds as having their own words commented upon. Twitter just seems like a more democratic forum to me. Personally, I don't care if it is down a couple hours a week. FF only supplements it, it is not an adequate replacement. And I like to write more than 140 characters! Still Twitter is my first choice.
- Liz
PS... Because I use the Flock browser, I get all my social media updates right from the Media Bar and People Sidebar, without ever having to open Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Pownce, Digg, etc... Everything I want is right there at the click of an icon. Flock > FF.
- Stephen Lopez
I wouldn't underestimate twitter's connection through sms. It makes it the first legit mobile social network, and that is significant for mass adoption and use. Most people don't have internet on their phone to use a web app (iPhone Facebook, Tumblr, etc.) or internet (twitpic, friendfeed, etc.) to send email to update or submit to services. But they are very likely to have sms service, and are used to using it.
- Tony
my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
- Tyler Gillies
I agree to what you say but besides Twitter reliability, its major flaw is really the reply (or conversation) system which is close to be useless. I guess FriendFeed gained a lot of people (at least myself) because of its efficient conversation system.
- fbrunel
Jason, I agree with you a lot of the time but not in this case. I think it would be suicide for Twitter to get into a features arms race with FriendFeed. They would lose that battle. Twitter needs to focus on keeping it simple, getting stable, and becoming a short messaging infrastructure - not a destination.
- Mike Doeff
Mike, I think you're right on. Twitter would do better to solidify its differentiation.
- Clay Newton
Agreed. I have flip flopped a couple of times on which service I prefer, but FriendFeed is clearly in the lead. If they launch a great iPhone app next Friday it could be thing that pushes them over the hump.
- Scott Watermasysk
FF's iPhone web app is fun and all, but a native app could offer a lot more functionality without having to wait for page loads and other clunkiness. I'm hoping for a native app too.
- David Chartier
Twitter has become a victim of the success it created for itself. As Twitter gained popularity it naturally creates a market for competition. Its poor performance allowed FF to grow. Many of Twitters power users have begun to migrate communication, and followers to FF wanted to see what it is all about. Twitter has lost its first movers advantage. I would not have been able to even make this post on Twitter. FF invites conversation and dialogue. Sorry Bezos, you may have made the wrong investment.
- Fred Neil
Agree. Twitter just isn't built for the type of robust sharing and conversations that make FF really interesting. Twitter is like shouting into a canyon, FF is like being at a noisy bar. Sorry, but too many Tweets are just status updates: You're going to Subway for lunch, whoopee! FF gets a lot better when you hide non-commented on Tweets. As for FF enhancements, I'd like a merge function so the same content from various people/feeds are collapsed into one master. That way I can see all comment streams.
- AJ Kohn
Keep in mind that twitter was not initially made for replies, the whole @ sign reply came from users wanting a way to reply and Twitter then started to support the method
- Ray Slakinski
from twhirl
Looks like Twitter has lost the first mover advantage, and now FF has the first mover advantage with its features. Though since Twitter was the first mover in the beginning it still has a bunch of people who are on it and not on other sites and also has a familiar interface and more third party applications that are compatible with it than Twitter does. Favorite thing so far about FF is the new Seesmic feature to reply to a seesmic post from within FF, really killer.
- Andrew Fielding
I'm still one of the few that want's Jaiku to get back in the game! Google is dropping the ball there!!!
- tomit
Agreed. It only shows "Replies" for me. No "All Tweets" or groups. I've installed on two computers and it's borked on both. And it doesn't show all my friends when I go to create a Group.
- Shane Robinson
from twhirl
it's not a one solution for everyone world.... this is just good for everyone
- Stefan Hayden
Like Julian, I'm the same way. Signed up for Plurk, but haven't returned. But if Twitter keeps sucking the fail whale wind, I'll probably end up there too.
- adam christensen
I don't get it. I really don't like Plurk and I really love Friendfeed. Why oh why doesn't everyone think just like me?
- Jack Baty
Think I plurked for one night...and then went back to FF waiting for Twitter to come back up.
- matt ceniceros