Twitter: A Passion Play

I'm not sure if the title of this post should be Twitter: A Passion Play or The Passion of Twitter. In either case the music should be written by Stephen Sondheim. Whatever the case, for a communications medium that incorporates messages no longer than 140 characters, Twitter is sure getting quite a few words written about it lately, and with quite a bit of passion behind them. More to the point, a debate over whether or not Twitter needs to be decentralized and/or how to scale it is spilling out with enough passion

Most of what I'm reading and listening to seems to be of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" persuasion, and I happen to find myself thinking that myself. If you want to do some reading about this far beyond the 140 character limit here's a a quick list (provide your own Sondheim music as background):

Cliff Gerrish: A Venezuelan Moment?: The Gillmor Gang Considers Nationalizing Twitter

Steve Gillmor: The Blood Brain Barrier

Karoli: Twitter, Techcrunch and Tornadoes

Alex Iskold: Twitter and the Architectural Challenges of Life Streaming Applications

I'm not sure Sondheim could do much with that last one, but maybe. I'm sure he would have fun with Cliff's use of the words rhizomatic and arborescent though.

And if reading isn't your thing, you can listen to a three parter of the Gillmor Gang on the topic. I wouldn't use background music here at all.

I think, but don't know for sure, that Dave Winer started the decentralization discussion, over the point that, "We all trust the owners of Twitter, but they're human, even with the best intent, we all are taking a risk that the network could disappear at any time. And unlike the Internet which has huge amounts of redundancy built-in, if there's any redundancy in Twitter, none of us outside the company know about it." That came after yet another Twitter failure, if I'm not mistaken.

Twitter is becoming a lot of things to a lot of people and as chaotic as it may seem at times, it is quickly becoming very Sondheim-like in its complexity. At times the constant ebb and flow, (strike that; there is no ebb, just flow, unless you turn it off), runs at you with a melange of thoughts, ideas, conversations, pitches, questions, and comments that all blend together in what may at first bang on the senses is a cacophonous waterfall, but after some self surrender begins to make terrible sense, to at least a few senses.

Twitter, like Sondheim, still seems to be an acquired taste, with or without Johnny Depp. More to the point it is like Sondheim's Fosca, horrendously ugly in both appearance and attitude,  but at the same moment beautifully and seductively entrancing in an odd and life changing way. The off center is attractive.