Twitter dead?

Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> said:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/14/twitter_goes_silent/

 

Twitter has stopped sending SMS updates to UK customers, thus leaving them unaware of the latest important updates on what their friends had for breakfast.

Twitter is a service for bloggers who can't string a sentence together and who want to appeal to readers who can't focus beyond a headline. Updates can be sent in over SMS message, limited to 140 characters, and are bounced out to interested parties.

The problem, for Twitter, is that sending SMS messages is an expensive business in Europe, even when they are purchased in bulk, and if an incoming message is bounced out to 10 "friends" then Twitter has to pay to send those ten messages. But while in Europe the sender has to pay the full cost of message delivery, as getting messages is free, in the USA received messages are deducted from the tariff bundle, so Twitter can continue to offer the service there. Back in Blighty, however, it's just too expensive.

The company reckons that even with a cap of 250 messages it could cost them $1K a year per punter, and given their complete lack of revenue that's hard to maintain. Those Twittering in the USA, Canada and India will still be able to have their day interrupted by the random ramblings of others.

 Twitter is total non-sense another digital service about to bite the dust due to a massive lack of consumer demand.

Neil Gates <(Address removed)> said:

Twitter is total non-sense another digital service about to bite the
dust due to a massive lack of consumer demand.

Twitter hasn't bitten the dust, and there is still a massive demand for it. It's just no longer paying to send free texts outside of India, America and Canada. In those countries you pay for incoming calls and incoming texts, as well as for outgoing calls and outgoing texts. Whereas, here in Europe we only pay for outgoing calls and texts. We don't pay for incoming calls or texts.

In India, America and Canada, Twitter has been able to come to arrangements with the cellphone service providers to not have to pay anything to pass texts to them, based on the fact that the more texts that Twitter sends the more money the cellphone service providers actually make out of the people receiving them.

Meanwhile, over here the cellphone service providers don't make money when we receive texts, so want to charge the senders (ie Twitter). Twitter paid for a little while (a year or so?) but then decided it was silly.

I suspect they pulled it quickly to see if they could put pressure on influential users to put pressure on our cellphone service providers – after all, Twitter is used by 10 Downing Street, the BBC, Sky News, etc., etc., to send out bulletins directly to people's phones. I also suspect that this will fail to achieve anything, and so a package will be offered to non India, America and Canada users where they pre-pay a certain amount for receiving texts (called tweets) from Twitter. Then, everything will be back to 'normal'. Well, as normal as the world of micro-blogging can be.

You have to remember that micro-blogging and presence-sharing seems pointless and crazy to a lot of older stick-in-the-mud folk today who have only just mastered email (Meanwhile kids no longer use email, just micro-blogging and instant messaging as the Ofcom findings pointed out). I'm reminded of the 1960s when the older stick-in-the-mud types couldn't see the point or purpose of ships in the North Sea playing all that racket and thought it was all going to just be a pointless flash in the pan. They were wrong weren't they.

Christopher England <(Address removed)> said:

You have to remember that micro-blogging and presence-sharing seems pointless and crazy to a lot of older stick-in-the-mud folk today who have only just mastered email (Meanwhile kids no longer use email, just micro-blogging and instant messaging as the Ofcom findings pointed out). I'm reminded of the 1960s when the older stick-in-the-mud types couldn't see the point or purpose of ships in the North Sea playing all that racket and thought it was all going to just be a pointless flash in the pan. They were wrong weren't they.

It does seem that many young people inhibit communication, e.g. hding behind headphones and using the shortest form of interchange. Twitter narrows rather than broadens communication.

Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> said:

It does seem that many young people inhibit communication, e.g. hding
behind headphones and using the shortest form of interchange. Twitter
narrows rather than broadens communication.

Think of it like this: In days of old you wrote a long letter then despatched it. A reply came after a delay, and it too would be long. Likewise amateur radio. One person keys up and goes bla bla bla bla (and bla) forever until he finally hands over to the next person for them to spend forever going bla bla (etc). So, old style communication was long winded and intense with long gaps inbetween.

Nowadays yoof communication is short and rapid-fire 'grunts' coming very frequently, sometimes incorporating simultaneous multi-tasking conversations across multiple platforms, using voice and text, and not necessarily waiting until a previous 'grunt' has finished. Today's yoof are parallel running, whereas people used to be serial running.

Christopher England <(Address removed)> said:

Nowadays yoof communication is short and rapid-fire 'grunts' coming very frequently, sometimes incorporating simultaneous multi-tasking conversations across multiple platforms, using voice and text, and not necessarily waiting until a previous 'grunt' has finished. Today's yoof are parallel running, whereas people used to be serial running.

Well argued, Christopher.

In business, it's the  Blackberry culture.

We used to have time to think, reflect and compose before responding.

Today, executives fire out messages on their Blackberries from early morning to late evening.

When they do not receive an instant response then they get annoyed and then angry. It is a personal slight to them that they have been kept waiting.

Sadly, for those of us who prefer to think and reflect the new culture is alien. The proponents of quick fire decision-making believe that there is no lost of quality in  speed decision-making.

I think that at the age of 52 I'm no longer "with it".

Sterling Times <2@slewis.biz> said:

We used to have time to think, reflect and compose before responding.

Today, executives fire out messages on their Blackberries from early
morning to late evening.

When they do not receive an instant response then they get annoyed and
then angry. It is a personal slight to them that they have been kept
waiting.

Sadly, for those of us who prefer to think and reflect the new culture
is alien. The proponents of quick fire decision-making believe that
there is no lost of quality in speed decision-making.

And they may be right. For them.

I'm an anorak of a guy who's studying how things are changing and has produced some excellent thought provoking videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

and then

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/420984/web_2_0_the_machine_is_us_ing_us/

showing how the kids of today are changing and indeed how the communication technology of today is changing. He's also done some fascinating lectures.

However, in conclusion he says we are just old bastards who have to give way to the new ways...!

Christopher England <(Address removed)> said:

However, in conclusion he says we are just old bastards who have to give way to the new ways...!

Chris, thank you. I'll give these a watch/listen when I can break awy from other activities.

I hope that the young bastards are right because they'll be fuelling my pension in the fullness of time.

Having an infinite capacity to multiplex is surely a virtue.



No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.6.3/1612 - Release Date: 14/08/2008 18:03

Alan Milewczyk <(Address removed)> said:

Now comes another development, which, I suppose is an extension of the presence-sharing thing, except now, it's not even a real person, it's a virtual one. I found out about it from BBC's technology programme "Click" and, amusingly enough, the site name is "onlinecaroline.com". Now Chris, it's not another outlet for matt

On thingthat we will never be called upon to perform at Anorak Nation is the GROUP HUG. I would opt for the sick bag as an alternative.

Alan Milewczyk <(Address removed)> said:

You know Chris, this business of presence-sharing just bemuses me. I mean, to
put it bluntly, who gives a flying f**k what others are doing in their sad little
lives.

I hate to say this but at the beginning it was 'interesting' watching well -known radio people telling the world what they were up to. I'd see which global conferences they were attending, and get a feel for what 'important' things they were up to and in to. I'd even learn when they'd bought their iPhones, etc., and what applications they as iSheep were trying out.

Then, this just degenerated into whether or not they were feeding the cat, beating the wife, having a curry, or where they were for their nightly ritual of getting drunk. It was after a few months of this that I indeed thought "What the feck am I reading all this for?" and unsubscribed from the (then) live twitter-texts from them all. Nowadays, now and again, I'll go to the Twitter site and speed read what they're up to / been up to instead!

Until they cancelled it, Twitter was still useful to me as the provider of texts carrying breaking news updates from the BBC, even from radiotoday.co.uk and mediauk.com, and weather updates, etc., so, for me, it had a purpose – the free passing on of news and information. I also use it not to tell people which bollock I'm currently scratching, but I tend to put questions 'out there' like 'Is it me or is Facebook down?' or that sort of thing, so it has a function and purpose rather than telling the world the pointless stuff.

"onlinecaroline.com". Now Chris, it's not another outlet for mattress Caroline,
this is a virtual friend that you sign up for and then she'll send you messages
based on your preferences. Why??????????????????????????????????????????

I don't get it.

Ha ha. It sounds more like a porn service. I'll give it a go!