Twitter is down. I say that and it sounds like I'm playing word association games (I say Twitter, you say... down, that's right). It's unfortunate, given the inordinate amount of time people like us spend on the service that it's become so downright unavailable recently. There has been much more communication from the Twitterpeople with regards to what parts are up and down, and we're definitely glad that they're doing something about fixing it.
On the other hand, contrary to the best predictions of Robert Scoble this on our weekend podcast, people just aren't happy to know why the service is down - they want it back up.
A Tale of Romance Gone Awry
It’s great that the folks at Twitter are starting to communicate with us, but I find it harder and harder to get myself to use Twitter anymore.
As it seems to be the case more and more these days, the truth comes out as Frederic admits he's had a thing for FriendFeed for quite some time, and finds that talking with FriendFeed is often more interesting that the same old same old with Twitter.
Will I Stick Around?
I'm not sure. I think that I've been using Twitter less and less myself prior to the outages, but for me my Twitter usage is pretty cyclical. I'll start using it heavily, then I'll get preoccupied with FriendFeed, or sometimes I'll just stop using both altogether and actually get some work done. Luckily, I haven't really felt the effects of the screwball outages this time around, because it happened mostly during a cycle of non-use for me.
I'm starting to see my Twitter usage diminish to mostly passive. I check my @ replies a couple times a day, and I'm starting to add more automated methods of posting (such as the recent addition of my XboX status messages to the service). Most of my Twitter interaction happens these days on FriendFeed (but for the occasional political blowout - I'd link an example, but guess what? That archive feature is horked.).
Most likely for me, I'll maintain an active presence on it and occasionally actively pop in from time to time. As for an actual heavy communications tool for me, I think those days may be behind me as well.