Twitter as the new email and killer app. Now is the time to grow it
February 10, 2008 by Tris Hussey
Filed under Business News
Twitter. Ah Twitter, love it mostly, hate it sometimes. A little experiment that has just grown into something that none of us could have imagined a year ago (remember when Twitter had its explosion during SXSW?). And now it’s time for it to grow. Assetbar has an interesting proposal, something that is analogous to email, set up Twitter proxy (maybe a Twitter server):
Twitter is the new mail
Because twitter has done such a great job with their API, the net effect of a twitter-proxy is that you could could still send and receive your twitter messages, directly from twitter, or via twitter-proxy. If your friends are sending SMS messages to twitter, they would still end up at twitter-proxy. Source: Twitter-proxy: Any Interest? « Assetbar: drinks and recipes
This was also covered by Louis Gray with an interesting follow up regarding how poorly Google Reader brought the information to him.
I’ve had several days to think about this. Twitter reminds me of something we all take for granted–the lowly POP server.
Eudora Welty and the humble PO
Yes, that is really how both the email app and the humble POP server got their names. When POP servers were first born, there weren’t many of them, so there was a bit of a rush to get an account. It was, I think, when email became the killer app.
Twitter is at a cross roads. It could become like email. Make twitter servers … ids that people have across networks. There is something. Now, how to do it…














Definitely agree about the speed. I noticed the same slowdown that Louis did, and yesterday was getting almost up-to-the-minute updates via Twitter for a soccer match. Might well be my medium of choice in future!
Yes, Twitter has significant potential for fast updates and rapid communication.
I find it compliments email very well.