Could you continue if Twitter went down permanently? Will web 2.0 be the same? How will your disciples know what you're doing? Is there an alternative?
These are questions we all have to ask ourselves in this grave predicament. With Twitter's continued downtime over the past year users have begin looking at alternatives. But before we look at those, let's first look at the worst case scenario of twitter going down permanently now and then let's come together to discuss it in hopes we find a solution.
Here are some of the instant media network alternatives we've found for you for this dire scenario.
sadf** (typo, a little joke... very little....see there it goes)
Prognosis: Great! From the reviews i read(on easily 50 sites over the few days), the following sites are good alternatives in our estimation:
Plurk (Twitter for points!)
Jisco & mytalk.at (Twitter for multi languages)
Wassr (Twitter for Asian languages)
Zannel (Twitter for Multimedia)
Seesmic & Hictu (Twitter for videos)
Blip.fm (Twitter for music)
Pownce (Twitter for file sharing)
Brightkite (Twitter for organizers)
Yammer (Twitter for companies)
Zannel & spotjots (Twitter for Location)
Plurk (Journal Twitters)
Personal Favorites and Our reviews: Our personal top picks based on reviews we've read over the past month and by signing on to each service)
We like Zannel. It allows users to take a photo from their iphone and it will record the location that person is at. Now parents can track their kids. If you make them take a photo you can instantly see if they're where they say they are!!! Besides that the photo and video uploading, rating and real time commenting options are great. Something Twitter certainly lacks. We get why twitter is popular however. It's the facebook (of old) compared to myspace (friendfeed/pownce).
Spotjots is like Zannel but even better!! Just check out how nice their site is. Click on the map and notice 1)high quality, 2)precision of location. This one ranks first on useability.
Pownce is good for sharing legal files with others on the network. Up to 10MB/file. Like Rejaw and Twitter, a desktop application(Apollo) to alert you of new replies is available.
Tumblr is good if you're an Aol Instant message user as it gives you updates while using the service. Although you lack the ability to leave comments on people's messages, the clean interface and features make up for it. Features such as the ability to have your own domain name. I definetely think this is a "tumbleblog" worth creating especially with the html markup options we're all accustomed to here on Active Rain.
We also like Brightkite. Brightkite would be extremely useful for members of any community/company/organization/committee to get the heads up on what others are doing at a certain event and at the same time be given an update by one person (ceo for example) to all those in attendance at such an event. Imagine in this scenario, Matt Heaton or Bob Stewart being able to tweet everyone (in their adress book) on their phone that the location of the next Rebarcamp was moved elsewhere. Would also make for a fun easter egg/treasure hunt event with clues being given to savvy users as a bonus. I think this will be very popular as more and more people learn about it.
Moodmill For those who like using yahoo or msn/windows live/hotmail messengers, this site might be right for you. Basically, the idea behind this is being able to express how you feel up to the minute using a smily icon in front of your text comments as to quickly relay to your friends or family members if you could use a pick-me-up or be left alone. I find this interesting for overseas relationships, military personel etc, but it's got a long way to go still.
Kwippy is great for various reasons. 1)allows you to write as many characters as you want in your text box messages(like tumbir) and 2)integrates your facebook status which ofcourse could be a blog post as we all know now. What we also liked about Kwippy is it's ability to allow you to share your "kwips" on other sites like digg, de.lico.us, facebook and twitter.
Yammer currently looks to be the best site application for Corporations. It allows Executives to quickly find answers to their questions without having to go throughout the entire office for it. Powerpoint presenations can be shared as well.
While Twitter allows one to let others know what you're doing, Tumbir let's you share those experiences according to Founder David Karp. The big reason we like Tumbir is due to it's customized design features. Like Wordpress, Tumbir has an almost endless set of fonts,backgrounds, templates and layouts making it very easy to get the look and feel you want for the best experience.
Blip.fm looks promising as Fuzz Artist CEO Jeff Yasuda is currently in the works to allow music streems from music giants Warner, Sony, EMI and Universal. This could completely change how you listen to music. Yasuda also owns Yammer and Pownce which we mentioned previously.
Mytalk.at also looks like it may become popular for advertisers as you have the ability to embed google adsense and analytics codes directly into html posts as to allow you to create seperate pages in your account each one directed at a different set of consumers with links in the form of topic posts (looks like a google search result). So these should easily be picked up by the bots.
We find Rejaw interesting as it allows people to add a desktop application to their computer called Radar which, once installed, notifies you of new shouts, replies and whispers to your account. Kind of like getting a buzz on your cellphone. This is a Macintosh only feature (sorry pc users) You'll be glad to know that both twitter and pownce also have such an application for their users. Miscellaneous replies are allowed but posts get closed after 3 days if noone has commented. This makes it easier to find live discussions.
Jaiku, a google owned company(Since 10/07) is probably Twitter's competitor right now and is setup very similarly to it. 140 character limit, api for developers, lifestream, sms, etc. We're still trying to differentiate the features but it's a good google clone if ever there was one. btw: some people pronounce this "Geicku", not to be confused with "Geico"
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Twitter Notes:
Twtiter Diehards: For those of you who want to see who the Top 100 most followed twitterers are, go to TwitDir
Character Limits: Twitter allows you to use 140 characters. The above sites improve that. Kwippy for one has unlimited limits(not really microblogging anymore i suppose)
Blogfeeds to Twitter: Using Twitterfeed you can have your posts show up directly on your twitter account much like Active Rain has set up for you here as well.
Facebook: Keep in mind that Facebook now has a "status" feature. So you can have a status facebook feed go into twitter.
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What are all these sites? What are they trying to accomplish? What is the term for it all? Microblogging
You can read more about all of the above services at news media sites like digg, newsweek, techcrunch or wired to name a few.
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This post was inspired by Christopher and Stephanie somers with their post on the Synopsis of the Housing Market. We feel this is probably our most informative post yet as it really will help users find the service best for them. Twitter may be all the rage now, but there are a lot of competitors on their heels who offer far better bang for the buck. Try them out and please reply with your review for one or all. With that information we can then create a post which polls and or gives more specific reviews based on people's favorites. Thanks and happy reading.
Ok now if you've been reading this whole post and want to know if there's an application being developed or existing that will allow you to make one message/topic/shout and have it show up on some of those networks (kind of like posting here and having it show up on your bloglog, localism, outside blog posts to name a few) then ask no more as there is such an application and it is: PING.FM This is called an Aggragator. It's basically a feed that goes directly into a host of different site networks. Especially big network sites like facebook and linkedin.
Mariana, how you think i feel. i just spent hmm. well since about 5:30 this morning on this. AND I'M STILL NOT DONE LOL. maybe i need to go hiking as well. hehe.
Good information here. I think it's best to stick with one and maybe a backup. Unless your primary business is to know all these tools, you can get way bogged down with the tools. You give really good alternatives.
Rebecca, ya. We really like spotjots the most. But there were easily about 10 or so, that we mentioned in our reviews that are worthy of a look. Each has features that may be more useful to some as compared to others. It all depends on where you currently spend time on.
The Somers, Thanks. I'm glad you liked the video too, it's a great parody. But with all of TWitter's downtime it's certainly not inconceivable.
That was awesome..and I love the list..I just pulled one because I realized most of my visits on my site..are the United States...I like twitter to just post links..but then there are days...I love chatting..I get more emotional when I see the error 404 on activerain! :)
Midori, ha gotta love those proxy errors. When you get them just reload the page, click back and try to send the post through again, it usually works. As mentioned elsewhere this usually occurs during heavy traffic hours. Starting at around 6:00 p.m eastern time.
This list is like what I would envision Jeff Turner's online playground to be. I've only heard of about 10 of these, most of them through Jeff's posts. There was some initial interest from the RE.net about Utterz, Brightkite and Plurk, but now the hot site is blip.fm.
Didn't know Jeff Yasuda was also involved with Yammer and Pownce. He recently commented on Jason Crouch's post about blip.fm. Nice to see a CEO being visible and engaging users.
I'm on social media overload! Just getting the hang of twitter and you throw me a curve. Bookmarking for further look as it is really late. Thanks for all your time putting this together for sharing. Late, can't even type anymore.
Debbie, That's fine. It is is a lot of information but if you go through one of those sits a day for the next month you'll know all you need to know about microblogging.
Your full time staff writers are very good! Thank you for this wealth of information! You guys keep churning out some of the best blogs on AR. Thank you!
FYI: I took your other post off and was going to put this one up at the top of the Optimist Board, but the system won't let me. I think they might be working on it today, for I've had issues just entering comments or editing my blog. I'll try it again tonight or in the morning.
Castellum - there is so much info on this post ! A lot of sites to go through and learn about. Pretty darn amazing ! Also, am glad we could be an inspiration with the video we put on our blog. Whenever I think about it, I smile. Same with the Twitter video too : ) You guys rock ! ~ Somers
p.s. will also flag this as being recommended for a feature !
Hi Ray - because this post is such a wealth of info on social networking sites, I included it in this week's Week-in-Review. Thanks for all those links!
Ann, thank you. We'll be sure to pay it forward :)
Jennifer, we appreciate hurting your head?
Bonnie, we kind of expected a bigger response but perhaps twitterlike sites aren't as popular as we thought. We actually put more work into this post than almost any other short of the active rain about us post we did for a contest. Bookmark it and share it with your friends as we're pretty sure this is the most extensive list on the net as of now based on research we did for several days.
Well considering we made the post on November 22, 2008 that news is new to us. We'll investigate it and then add a disclaimer within the post about it. Thanks for notifying us, much appreciated.
UPDATE: Ok i'ts official.
That's a shame. Well there's certainly no shortage of alternatives hehe.
Jeff, CEO of Blip.fm here. First and foremost, I'm really impressed with your knowledge of the Twitterati. I hear that there are about 300 Twitter clones out there and even off-the-shelf build-your-own-Twitter software packages available. Also, thanks for mentioning Blip.fm and I'm glad that you are enjoying it. We still have a LOT of work to do, but it's been fun to watch the user base grow. I really have to give my thanks to you guys for being supportive of our mission. I can tell you that it's been a tough, but rewarding process.
I also wanted to clear up a few things. First, while we were partners with the former team from Pownce, it was founded by a completely different team. Great people and I wish them well in their new endeavor. Second, I think Yammer is really great, but I'm not involved with that project either. We got some coverage in a recent BusinessWeek article that may have implied that we were involved. Anyway, I just wanted to clear up some possible confusion and give proper credit where it's due.
Happy Holidays and I hope to see you on Blip.fm in '09.
Jeff, It's an honor speaking with you. We just realized we made you sign up so you can comment. Success! :)
On a serious note, thank you for that reply. We do enjoy blip.fm and so do many others here on this network. We'll continue to highlight your company as we see fit. We foresee a post just on Blip.fm in ourcrystal ball. Thanks for the clarification in regards to Pownce and Yammer. Hard to trust the news these days. As long as you continue to progress forward, Blip.fm should be around a long time.
IF there's 300, we got some more searching to do :) Feel free to divulge a list or two in our inbox to take a look at if you have one handy.
Thanks again for commenting and we hope, in advance, you enjoy the blip.fm post we post this week. All the Best-
p.s: now that we got you to sign up, perhaps start blogging yourself. There's always room for one more :)
Sincerely Active Castellum ( Castellum Realty llc - Lancaster PA Real Estate )
Wow! Thanks for the offer to write a post on us - let me know if you need any info. You guys really do a great job keeping your users engaged. It's one of the greatest challenges as people have more and more choices available to them. I'll keep on the lookout for other Twitter babies, but you did a great job in finding the top sites that people are, well, "following."
Speaking of which, please shoot me your blip.fm user name so I can start telling people about you guys. I'm at http://blip.fm/jeff - you can check out my music taste (or lack thereof)...
Not sure if I have ever quite figured out why twiiter is important in the social networking arena. Can any one enlighten me? I have noticed people following other people in the thousands. I barely have time to follow myself nevermind other people.
Kevin, Twitter started as a fad, but it's a fad that is now engrained within the structure of networks such as:
Active Rain
LinkedIn
Blip.Fm
Facebook
To name a few, and more importantly it's starting to get recognized on big networks like Fox News who also are tied to the same networks (besides active rain) that i just listed above. In other words, you're
Jeff, sorry, we've been so backlogged as of late. My account is blip.fm/vk_designs_llc I didn't forget about you, just give me a bit more time to catch up and then i'll get back to Paying it forward to ya :)
Lancaster PA Luxury Real Estate information for homeowners in Lancaster County Pennsylvania and for those wishing to relocate to Lancaster PA. We offer downsizing services specifically for 55+ seniors looking to move into an Active Adult community in Lancaster PA or Hershey PA. This blog covers, green building practices, historic homes, market conditions and statistics, and general news and information about the real estate market in Lancaster, Lititz, Hershey and all neighboring communities. If you are looking to buy or sell a home in Lancaster PA, then Castellum Realty is your preferred Real Estate Agency of Choice. Castellum Realty strives to treat it's customers like Royalty.
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Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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Holy Cow. Social Media Overload. I need to go hiking now and forget about the internet.