I Might Leave Twitter for Identi.ca

This morning I heard about Identi.ca and decided to check it out. It’s a microblogging service that’s obviously been inspired by Twitter. But… and this is a big but… it’s open source and distributed.

The website itself is a little rough around the edges but is quite functional. I’ve been using the service for less than 12 hours and I’m ready to dump Twitter if a lot of my network does the same. I’ve been following my Identi.ca stream using XMPP through Pidgin or the Google Talk client on my Blackberry and the service has been rock solid.

If you check out the FAQ, you’ll find several “coming soon” features, which will make things even nicer.

I’m ready to move to Identi.ca. The big thing missing for me is… you. A lot of the PDX scene has joined (and added me… if you haven’t, I’m aaron on Identi.ca) but it seems folks are still posting mainly on Twitter. Join me in making the move.

Tagged as: identica, identi.ca, twitter, microblogging

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Posted on:: Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 20:08

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Jmartens Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 / 20:29

Identi.ca is really promising. However, we can’t judge their stability yet. Late this afternoon, the create (@evan) posted a comment that the site was up to just under 1,800 users. Not exactly enough to measure scalability.

You are right, the open source/distributive part of it is the key.

I will say that identi.ca is the first of the twitter clones that I think could actually kill twitter. It’s clean, easy to use but still looks good, and it works!

Aaron B. Hockley Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 / 20:34

You’re right Jeff, Identi.ca is definitely under a MUCH lighter load than Twitter. I’m not saying that Identi.ca is the solution to all of Twitter’s ills, but a) it was designed to scale by distribution and b) over the past 12 hours, it’s been a hell of a lot more stable than Twitter.

I’m being optimistic and hoping it turns out to be all that I hope it will

Rick Turoczy Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 / 20:44

Completely concur with the “the more the merrier” sentiment. Let’s give this a run and see if it might be what we’ve been seeking.

Add SMS updating and a client of some sort (in addition to getting folks over there) and that would likely seal the deal for me.

Ben Bradley Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 / 20:49

I’m tossing my hat in with identi.ca, not putting all my eggs in one basket, but it seems like a great new solution.

Only one criticism though - MAKE IT EASIER TO ADD FRIENDS!

Evan Prodromou Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 / 20:50

I think scalability is key, but I also believe that as Knuth said, “premature optimization is the root of all evil”. I’m going to be working over the next few days to get performance up to snuff, and then going after some of the low-hanging feature requests (reply button, anyone?). I’m glad identi.ca has captured the Web community’s imagination.

Jmartens Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 / 21:17

Great work, Evan….I’m more excited about identi.ca than any other web service right now.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for July 02 » Silicon Florist Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 / 23:02

[...] I Might Leave Twitter for Identi.ca Aaron Hockley writes “I’m ready to move to Identi.ca. The big thing missing for me is… you. A lot of the PDX scene has joined (and added me… if you haven’t, I’m aaron on Identi.ca) but it seems folks are still posting mainly on Twitter. Join me in making the move.” [Editor: And I’m over there, too, as turoczy.] [...]

Rick Turoczy Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 / 00:21

Tris Hussey really brought this whole thing to light with his comparison to POP mail.
http://www.mapleleaftwo.com/identica-canadas-gift-to-microblogging-and-might-become-twitters-salvation/

We need to set up a server or two here in Portland… err Vancouver. Or. Well, you know what I mean. In the Silicon Forest somwhere. To help with the scaling issues.

Distributed? Just what we needed!

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