Remember June 2007? If you where in Second Life at that time you probably would remember it as ‘the month of the failing asset servers‘. Nearly constant over capacity caused the servers controlling the objects in Second Life to consistently fail, causing much anger amongst its residents over lost objects etc. Of course by now the asset server is known for its constant failure but it was sort of new at that time - a direct result of the flood of new members after Second Life had been hyped so thoroughly by the media.
So to anyone that was there, it might be amusing to see what is happening over at another such hyped application called ‘Twitter‘. If you read my blog I’m going to assume you have at least heard of Twitter. But it’s been weeks now since the application that could best be described as a centralized ’shoutbox’ has been displaying nothing but errors, disabled functions and malfunctioning in general when you do get access to the application. Not unlike a certain virtual world back in 2007.
Curious to see if once again media turns on Twitter and officially declares ‘the hype over’, much like they did with a certain virtual world in 2007 - and if this will continue to happen with start ups. Due to the serious money involved in tech news its no longer just Scoble and Techcrunch taking an interest in these start ups, more and more media and niche outlets are reporting on new internet applications. Combine this with ever growing interest and adoption of new media (its a small step from creating a facebook profile to signing up for twitter) by the casual internet users and you start to see a pattern.
A web(2.0) application is born, low funding, not really scalable but a good idea. The sneezers of new media join (the more niche the better, it means they can start a meme), finding it increasingly easy to spread the word to their loyal followers trough applications such as twitter, or blogging, or friendfeed etc. This same, large group of followers joins and as a new gadget is usually something techies share amongst each other soon you have another group sign up big enough to make media notice. Some controversy (as the perceived uselessness of Twitter) makes some reporter curious, gives it some more attention by writing a controversial article to the controversy (Twitter is useful after all!) ending up in the predictable hype cycle. The cycle of course becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as these start ups that started with a couple of servers at home are not particularly good at scalability (made even worse by API programs) and soon the controversy becomes bashing the program again. (Controversy means attention and visibility, so of course everyone joins in again).
What is remarkable however, is Twitter seems to handle it a lot better than Linden Lab at the time. Well, given Linden Labs poor record for communicating anything it’s not really that remarkable, but the guys behind twitter really seem to make an effort to make their problems transparent, which is obviously the smart thing to do. But it is really time they get their act together, I myself stopped checking the service daily due to the poor service and competitors are jumping at the chance to bump twitter for good.
Posted on: May 30, 2008 | Share on:
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Suzanne Aurilio
said on June 1st
Interesting observation. I wonder what user profile I fit? Maybe the outer rim of geek adopters. But I lose interest very quickly when things don’t work. Period. The value proposition is so fragile anyway, hype aside for a minute. But I’m new to the game of perpetual beta, or maybe we all are, I’m just new to jumping in so soon. I’m ready to ditch my premium SL account. I only play there and even then my user experience renders play a drudge. My not so bad graphics card, is no longer up to par, etc etc. I love my Iphone on the other hand and my G4.
Rick van der Wal
said on June 1st
Thank you for commenting! It’s a pretty safe bet to place you in the early adopters category by what you describe here. The iPhone, Twitter, Second Life are all typical products for the early adopter (and a tiny group of innovators). The innovator creates the hype, or the attention towards a technology, or even the technology itself.
What I found remarkable is how accurate Moore’s adoption curve continues to be. ‘Crossing the chasm’ seems to be such a widely applicable model, but the ‘innovators’- early adopters, and the gap between the early majority (the chasm) seems to be not only a social/marketing event, but with these poorly scalable 2.0 start ups also a technological event.
Suzanne Aurilio
said on June 2nd
Interesting book indeed and yes I realize that even amongst my middle-aged peers I’m still an early adopter, never mind my colleagues in the academy some of whom are proudly 19th century, which I find refreshing if not scary. My song and dance circles around literacies, the degree to which someone can engage effectively with his/her surroundings.
It’s about the nobs per se, but about the tacit knowledge that comes with being literate or competent.
It may be however that as technologies are developed for the main stream, they become standardized and commodatized?, if that’s what I mean. The development of GUI is an example of what I mean.
Digado
said on June 2nd
Indeed the GUI is an example I actually use to make technology ‘boring. The technology was still the dominant factor before the graphic user interface, even tho the problem solving potential of super fast processing was already there.
I like the Clay Shirky quote where he says: “Technology doesn’t become interesting for the masses until its boring for everyone else.”
The computer technology needed to become boring, and shift the focus to the solutions (which caused the crossing of the chasm for the PC). And boring in this context means ubiquitous - automatic when your goal is to perform a certain task.