Okay, hopefully that title sounded as funny to you as it did to me.
What's that you say? You were hoping for one more social networking site to subscribe to that will insidiously begin to leech minutes, then hours, out of your day until you wake up neck deep in dirty laundry and overflowing trash cans. Believe me, your boss isn't going to give a crap that you have 100 new followers when he is asking for the TPS report. Can you handle one more distraction?
If you think you're up for the challenge, identi.ca is a brand-spankin new microblogging service that has a very similar look to Twitter (unlike Plurk, which just reminds me of a creepy old stinky BBS chat room) and is full of hip, swingin' early adopters, probably the smarmiest descriptive term ever. I'd rather be called a space monkey. You can hop on the public timeline and actually, like, engage in a conversation, kinda. It is like Neil Armstrong new. People snapping up tiny 1-letter names left and right new.
I like this newness because I feel much more comfortable following and replying to total strangers when there are just a few of them. Following strangers is something I'd never do on the street, well almost never. I only stumbled upon Twitter through reading dooce (don't laugh! I love her) and by the time I arrived it was already a metropolis. So landing on this page with a handful of other space monkeys feels like hiding in the mall after it closes and running through the stores like a lunatic. That analogy probably only worked for you if you're a girl, and a girly-girl at that.
Here are the top 3 references I keep noticing over there, so if you want to seem cool, DON'T use these one-liners, it's been done before:
- Canada jokes, .ca. Get it?
- Better/worse/same as Twitter.
- Saying 'Hello world' (on second thought, maybe the site just posts that when you create an account? I saw scads of those and thought it odd.)
What identi.ca doesn't have though, is the gorgeous iconography of Twitter, the holy trinity that is:
- Twitter bird
- Fail Whale
- 'Tweets'
Identi.ca's big gun is that it is an Open Network Service and a whole bunch of other technical stuff that made my eyes glaze over. Read more here: http://identi.ca/doc/faq if you are into potato-clocks and Star Trek and that sort of thing. I keed, I keed! I just poke fun at that which flies right over my head, I see it whizzing by, I know it's there.
I think it's biggest problem is going to be the name: identi.ca. It has no flow, no mojo. Who in the hell thought that was a good idea? I mean really. Run these things by a test audience first kids, you'll work out so many issues that way.
But the actual application, I like, so I give it a tentative thumbs up. Like 1 1/4 thumbs.
8 comments:
Indenti.ca is an interesting experiment to watch.
The majority of users are already on Twitter, and my guess is that it wouldn't exist without Twitter.com downtime of late.
So the primary reason (stated often) for using it is some version of "Twitter than works"
However, it only has some of Twitter's functions, and is slow with the small number of current users. Reports are coming in of crashes in and we'll soon see that it's only a clone without any innovation.
Open Source is cool. But what innovation or functions can you get that you can't get with the Twitter API?
As you state, Twitter, Tweets, the bird and the whale are in our lexicon. Twitter has first mover advantage and it looks like they have so big a lead that it would take years of the current fiasco in downtime to kill it.
Of course, I got an account on indenti.ca because all the cool kids were doing it :)
Although you mentioned it in a joking way, you hit the nail right on the head.
Twitter, and the entire cast of cartoon-like characters, makes using Twitter fun. It's a world we can escape into using a language that "outsiders" just don't understand.
Both of these factors have more impact on loyalty than you can imagine. Twitter has attracted, seduced, and gained the loyalty of a Tribe that may test competitive services -- but will only leave when the rides at another amusement park are more fun and exciting.
identi.ca is the result of the typical left-brain dominated techie-geek mindset of the open source community. True value comes from taking a core function and adding an interface that leverages embedded psychological triggers.
Time will tell with identi.ca. But with that name.... it's got a long way to go.
Added you - new level of stalking achieved.
Must.. Not...Join......
PS: Was the title a Bob the Builder joke?
@Warren I agree that identi.ca is definitely getting traffic help with Twitter's downtimes but can they make up for those years of Twitter branding? I also ran over and got an identi.ca account tho, just in case.
@John-Paul I do feel that identi-ca has more of a geek-mentality. I just don't get the same kind of 'vibe' as I do with Twitter and I think end-users have to like it for it to branch out beyond the confines of techville.
@GorillaSushi Stalking right back at-cha.
@Claire Resist the urge Claire, resist! And no, no BOB joke here but feel free to assume it was, if it makes me seem smarter/cooler.
I have resisted so far :)
Do you even have Bob the builder over there?
@Claire It is VERY techie. I fear they are going to find out I have no idea what they are talking about and kick me out.
And yes, we have Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine, Dora, Boobah, the whole gang.
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