Yes, Twitter is a “poor man’s email system”

Posted: March 3rd, 2009 | Author: Vibhu Norby | Filed under: Communication, Email | Tags: , | 37 Comments »

First, a confession: I am sick and tired of hearing about Twitter in the news. I’m tired of reading my tech RSS feeds and finding 11/20 articles is about Twitter app this, Twitter stats that, Twitter has no revenue, Twitter raises $100b round, Twitter saves lives, Twitter saves news, Twitter kills Google, Twitter TWITTER TWITTER. Twitter on CNN, Twitter on Skittles, Twitter on crack, Tweeter H. Christ…you get the point.

That’s not to say that I don’t use it myself. I have no problem with the product itself. I think it’s innovative and interesting. I just don’t want to hear about it anymore. And yes, I am aware that this is a hypocritical post. But hear me out, even though it pains my ears to read my own post.

Today, Google CEO Eric Schmidt called Twitter a “poor man’s email system.” He said, specifically, that as a computer scientist, that’s how he sees it fundamentally. While I am unable to gauge the reaction of the entire blogosphere yet, from the few comments I am reading here and there, the reaction is what you’d expect from a group of people who drank their own kool-aid: Eric Schmidt is crazy. He’s jealous. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s scared.

No, ladies and gentlemen, he is not. He is absolutely right.

Twitter is trying to be three things.

1. It is trying to be a blog. Self-evident.

2. It is trying to be a communication tool. Self-evident.

3. It is trying to be an identity system. Unlike a social network, we don’t use our real names to refer to each other, instead a handle and an avatar like most web identity systems.

What Twitter has done is basically created an entire “new” protocol  for communication through its API, as if to usurp open standards that already exist.  It comes with its own identity system, like the email addresses we already use. You can write content and send it out to many people. You can send messages to people directly. You can reply and forward messages. You can send links, pictures, and other content.

But here is why it is like a “poor man’s email system.” Email (IMAP + SMTP), and HTTP itself (and now XML, too) are existing open standards that we have used to communicate for 20ish years. You can reply to messages, but you are actually replying to an entire account instead of in a threaded conversation, almost as if the programmer made a mistake. You can forward messages, but “RT” is not built into the system, it’s just something people made up to account for the lack of that basic communication utility. You can send links and pictures and other content, but you have to use a different service for each different content type,  so good people have created an entire eco-system of services, each to make up for features that Twitter should have had, and that email has had for a long time.

It’s not like Twitter forgot about email. But why does Twitter send me an email when I have a new follower, but not a new reply? Why does Twitter send me an email when I have a direct message, but not for a tweet from a friend?

The fact is, Twitter is a business that exists based on their ability to control our conversations. With email, we have everything that Twitter should have if it wants to become a tool for communication. Built-in security, threaded conversations, the ability to transfer many types of content, unique identities, filtering, grouping, unlimited access to the raw data and protocol, privacy, and more. So if Twitter wants to reign the king of communication, it has a lot of work to do.

But here’s a better option. Why isn’t the service built on IMAP and SMTP in the first place? I should be able to access my Twitter account like my inbox. If you didnt know Twitter existed, you would never see it any differently from a simple email service that allowed you to post and reply to emails publicly, with a 140-character limit. So viewed in that light, yes, Twitter is a poor man’s email system.