My first threaded discussion in a tiny thread website
Twitter has many attributes, not least the fact that it has a very limited, but very compelling, feature set (yes, limited is a plus when it comes to functionality), but regular users, especially those who use the service to hold conversations, have missed the ability to hold those conversational tweets together in a thread.
So, the news that was broken yesterday by TechCrunch that a new service had been launched to provide such threading was sure to generate comment. Sadly, the initial reactions showed just how low a priority some people place on functionality, and how obsessed many on the web have become with graphic design as being the sole yardstick of quality.
The service – a tiny thread – has been developed by Joshua Schachter, best known as the creator of social bookmarking service Delicious. He later sold it to Yahoo! for, it is rumoured, anything between $17-$40 million; so, we are talking about someone who has a pretty spectacular record of creating value from providing useful online functionality.
A track record, I would have thought, that would have given those who commented on the TechCrunch story reason to judge Mr Schachter’s offering on its functional merit. Some hope: here was the very first comment, from “MJ”:
“that is the ugliest site i have ever seen”
That was it. How profound. And, here is the second comment, from “Sen”:
“I like the collours the white and blue do it for me.”
Good grief. Which is why my award for “actually getting it” goes to contributor Matt Lawson, who becomes my hero of the day for commenting:
“Ha! Its not ugly……
“This is 1st stage of development. You dont worry about beauty when building web apps. You grow and change the idea and it morphs and comes alive. As it becomes something that can be turned int a real product you then ass all the templating and graphics and make it all pretty. So it is really not good to concern yourself with graphics and styles in phase 1 of development.”
Thank you, Matt. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Let’s hope there are many more Matts than MJs and Sens out there, or a tiny thread is doomed from the start – because it doesn’t look good enough. Just think, if MJ and Sen had had their way, we’d still be using Yahoo!, and Google would have never got off the ground.
As a test, I’ve started my own threaded discussion on atinythread.com – feel free to join in.
