[arrrg]

Thing is, Twitter should be a protocol. It clearly fills an existing need (I see it as very similar to email in that regard, just filling a different need – people want to chat publicly with each other and in a very informal way inform the public about things), but it doesn’t really make sense as a service that wants to make money.

Twitter should be just like email, not this one monopoly controlling everything. It’s sad that that’s the way it is.

[patrickk]

I feel exactly the same about Facebook. There should be a protocol for social networks and should be federated with no one controlling everything, similar to email.

If fact, I believe it will go this way at some point in the future, despite how impregnable Facebook seems now. At one point Bebo and MySpace seemed unassailable too.

[majani]

Twitter was open to the protocol idea once, when they were even allowing Twitter clones to be built using their API. Chances are they simply ran the numbers and saw that that route was not big enough to fulfill their lofty ambitions.

The only way the social network protocol can be realised is if you have a lucky band of developers for whom everything just clicks into place without funding, like Craigslist. Unfortunately that's really hard to achieve in today's internet landscape where anyone with a large hosting bill gets an offer they can't refuse from a VC.

[chton]

I'm not sure if it's even possible to build a twitter-like system with distributed servers in the vein of e-mail. It's possible for e-mail because it's a one-way system. Twitter has the concept of following a user, and that user's tweets appear to me. It's a 2-way system that needs to constantly be kept in sync. Even if it's possible to do, it won't be easy, with loads of extra technical challenges that SMTP doesn't have.

[steveklabnik]

There was already an open standard to do everything but the private messaging part: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OStatus

[freehunter]

App.net is like Twitter, the protocol. Not quite the same, but it's basically Twitter as a platform, where the core business is federation and an API for services to build off.

Still centralized, still controlled by one company, but it's a step in the right direction. It's a shame they're struggling to survive against worse services.

[brandoncapecci]

Twitter is a private company so they should continue to do whatever they please. If you want to create a decentralized Twitter go for it... my guess is it would be about as popular as Diaspora but all the praise to you if you can disrupt them.

[arrrg]

They can do whatever they please. I can wish that they would do something else. They obviously won’t. It’s not in their own self-interest.

Saying they should remain this cynical monopoly that does shitty things just seems nonsensical to me. No, they should not. They can. They do. I think they shouldn’t.

I mean, none of this will actually happen. Twitter will continue to have a monopoly and I see no realistic way to change that. I don’t think there will ever be Twitter as a protocol. I’m just saying there should be. It did work out for email. And, yeah, email is imperfect in so, so, so many ways, but at least it isn’t under control by a single company.

[brandoncapecci]

You're allowed to think whatever you want obviously; my point was that stating you'd wish they'd gone a different direction is much different than seemingly positioning an argument for what they should and shouldn't do as realistic or in any way beneficial for Twitter. I'm glad you cleared that up but your personal opinions on their direction seem in contention with your admittance that it wouldn't be possible or advantageous for them to follow what you'd like them to do. In regards to email, the oligopoly of decent clients act in a way really no less perverse than Twitter does (which I don't think is much at all mind you).