Blogging, SEO, web trends, google keywords and other geeky stuff.

15 Reasons Twitter Must Die

Posted: December 25th, 2008 | Author: Agitationist | Filed under: buzzwords, tools | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »


“What are you doing?”

That’s the question Twitter asks. And it requests your answer in a 140-character text box.

Stay connected with your friends! Be part of a global community! Join the conversation!

Fail whale.

No thanks.

Sorry, I know it’s last year’s news, but Twitter sucks. Here is a starter list of reasons why. Please feel free to add your own.

  1. “What we’re doing” is usually petty, mundane and boring. No one cares what you have for lunch, even if you are Shaquille O’Neal. You are just not as important as you think you are. I say this with love.
  2. Random replies and disjointed conversations that make no sense to anyone else, except when arranged in a thread by a plug-in, add-on or widget. It’s like instant messaging without features!
  3. The inevitable plug-ins, add-ons and widgets to make Twitter useful. If it’s not useful in the first place, why use it?
  4. If you can express it in 140 characters, it probably took less time to actually do it live than to “tweet” it. Whatever you said you were doing, you just stopped to tweet about it.
  5. The word “tweet“.
  6. Text messaging achieves the same purpose without sending your micro-details to everyone. Anywhere else that’s called “spamming”. Yes, I know they opted in as your “followers“, but they’ll be opting back out soon enough.
  7. “Following” someone is not healthy, whether you’re a stalker, a cult member or a Twitter user.
  8. Transparency is not always good. Public toilets should not have glass walls. The word of the year for 2008: “oversharing“.
  9. The word of 2009: “micro-fame“. You heard it here first. It’s somewhere below reality show fame, and just above getting your mug shot on the Smoking Gun. I also predict this will lead to the unfortunate word of 2010: “micro-lame”.
  10. Twitter is cutesy and bubbly and looks like a toy. Because it is a toy.
  11. “But the San Diego fires/San Francisco mudslides/(insert big news) story was broken on Twitter!” Fine, but shouldn’t those people have called 911 and then maybe tried to help, instead of attempting to gain some micro-fame (see?) by “breaking” a story we all would have heard about 5 minutes later?
  12. The inevitable “I was fired because I Twittered about my employer” lawsuit and “Twitter addiction” news stories.
  13. The constant conversation about ”how to monetize Twitter“, and the inevitable $19.95 e-book to explain how it can make you rich with little or no effort.
  14. The more popular it gets, the worse it gets. I’m no elitist (well, maybe), but have you looked at MySpace lately? QED.
  15. Twitter is just another tool to replace the voices in your head, ignore your soul-crushing job, and numb you to the yawning chasm of emptiness that is your life.

And did I mention the word “tweet“?


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How to Get a One Word Domain Name

Posted: December 24th, 2008 | Author: Agitationist | Filed under: blogging, domains | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments »

All the one word domain names are gone.

After an hour or two of searching, you’ve come to that conclusion. There is no meaningful English word that hasn’t already been registered.

Well, you’re right. Give up now.

Unless you can embrace the concept of nonsense. In which case, great one word names are right there, waiting for you to pluck them off the tree. They’re screaming at you: “Pick me! Pick me!”

First of we’re assuming that the generic names for your project (let’s say shoes.com and shoes.net) are already taken. If not, buy them, and then please buy me a lottery ticket.

OK, now that we’re back in the real world, how about zazzer.com? Blastora? Quiklit?

“But, but, but…those don’t mean anything!” you protest. Stick with me here.

Take a look at this list of recent startups. Most of them look like the product of a child on Ritalin with a bowl of alphabet soup. Wakoopa? Twingly? Hoera? Zilok? Symbaloo? If those names don’t immediately lower your IQ, at least they should make you feel a whole lot better about your ideas.

Yes, they’re meaningless, but only because they don’t mean anything yet. If you believe it’s a word, it is a word. After all, language is only language because we collectively agree on its meaning.

So when is a name a name? When people recognize it. If I want to be called Zorak, I just need you to call me Zorak. Likewise, if we all say Flickr is spelled without an “e”, well then it is. Post-Flickr, dropping the final vowel quickly became a formula: Tumblr, Raptr, Feedalizr (Twitter didn’t get the memo). Success is always imitated, formulized, and then clichéd. But someone has to jump first.

If it expresses something, evokes something or just sounds good to your ear, then it works.

Likewise, if we believe that a name-number compound makes sense, it does. Especially with a meaningful or witty backstory. 30gms.com is the web site of a firm called Fibre, of which 30 grams happens to be the recommended dose. Clever, huh?

Although that number-noun formula is overused at this point, it demonstrates a key naming principle of our time: enigma is the new familiarity. Names like “Thunderbird” and “Zenith” were supposed to imbue products with the qualities of their namesakes. Those days are gone. Names no longer define products; products define their names.

And although shoes.com may have automatic traffic for life, zapatoo.com or 12toes.com are more memorable and more brandable. When the brain hears something unique that it doesn’t quite understand, it latches on and won’t let go.

After all, branding is differentiation. And isn’t nonsense is about as different as it gets?

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