I was wrong on Twitter

Twitter.com Site Info

Well my prediction about Twitter.com reaching its peak, which I was stupid enough to post earlier this year, was a flop.  After some initial post hype drop off Twitter is exploding.

What is striking is how Twitter and Facebook are getting all the benefit from the smartphone Web 3.0 revolution, while Flickr is not.  You would think that a site like Flickr should be gaining massive ground right now.  But Flickr is a hard tool to integrate in to other services.  It is not as open to Application development on top of it as Twitter of Facebook.  Twitter and Facebook embraced the ecosystem.  Facebook was promoted greatly by Mafia Wars and Farmville, which it had to pay nothing to build.  Twitter is gain ground from Web 3.0 services like Foursquare. 

The key to having a winning online service is Integration and Distribution.  Twitter and Facebook have it much better than Flickr and MySpace, so they won.

Thomas Hawk's petition for Flickr

This is a simple petition where people can add their name to request that Flickr stop the practice of deleting accounts without warning. Our online lives are valuable and deserve due process.

We have outlined a due process procedure in this group whereby Flickr marks a perceived offender's account as private for a one week period, during which time an individual would be given an opportunity to take self corrective action to avoid the permanent deletion of their Flickr account.

This simple change in policy would be a win win. A win for Flickr who wishes to immediately address potential photostream content issues and a win for the user who is given an opportunity at a minimum to preserve and download their content off of Flickr's servers and to bring their account into compliance with Flickr for an opportunity to continue on as part of this great community that we all share.

Please add your name and a link to your flickrstream to this thread as a comment.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/dueprocess/discuss/72157624240455532/

flickr.com - Traffic Details from Alexa: The rise of Twitter

flickr.com - Traffic Details from Alexa

As Web 2.0 tools go Flickr and YouTube are the old hands.  Yahoo, I have to say has failed against Google's YouTube.  When you think that everyone in the world has a digital camera and can take digital pictures that can be posted on Flickr in SMS, and that it was one of the earliest flagship Web 2.0 its stagnation against a more restricted YouTube is a bit sad. 

But Fickr has never helped people to achieve anything with its tool.

Facebook is a new comer which has recently become and established player much larger than Flickr.  Not because it offers much of anything, but because its easy to use and offers the community a tool where it can own its contacts and discussions.

Its all about ownership in Web 2.0  and we can see what I think to be the ultimate Web 2.0 tool: twitter.  Twitter I can't praise enough as a concept, and watch as it becomes the latest to break past Flickr in the major Web 2.0 field.

I've used Flickr now for about 5 years I think, and I have to say that in that time it has offered almost no improvement in function.   Actually I like Flickr 2004 much more than Flickr 2008 and I almost never use the product.

The main problem is Yahoo.  Yahoo does not get Web 2.0 and I hope Microsoft does take it over and bring some business sense to the product.  Microsoft does not seem to know it but it always has been doing "Web 2.0", Microsoft provides the standard tools for users to communicate with, and it can extend Office to THE web 2.0 tool.

I was a bit sad to see Azure does not yet have a branded Office section.  Office Live IMHO should not just be a PART of the mostly failed Live.com launch, but should be its own brand on the Internet.

flickr.com - Traffic Details from Alexa

Though Live's web presence is strong I find nobody comes to my blogs via Live.com even though I am blogging about SharePoint and Live.com!!!!  I am using Live.com myself and its kind of a lonely experience.

Live is hotmail, IM and maybe Office and I think rather than pushing some strange Azure concept Microsoft should push extending and integrating Office via the Cloud and SharePoint.

And that's my penny

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