So many of us have been frustrated with Twitter’s server issues that we’ve been casting around for alternatives. The thing is, there’s nothing quite like it. Sure Friendfeed has more features for integration, Pownce is prettier and has more features, and Plurk is… well, it’s just quirky enough to be sorta interesting.

But how do you choose from of all these options?
Let’s talk about “Lifestream Aggregators”. These are sites that pull together some of your feeds or personalities and let them mingle together, offering you a much easier way to keep on top of the various services. Lots of Twitterers have migrated to FriendFeed. Scoble could be considered the leader of the migration but I hate to compare myself to a lemming so let’s just say it was a logical choice.

FriendFeed allows you to pull in your friends’ Twitter feeds as well as over 35 other sources, so you can be knee deep in their lives and businesses pretty quick. It also let’s you build “rooms” as a place where your friends can hold threaded discussions.

But FriendFeed doesn’t satisfy that micro-blogging urge. so what else? Well there’s Jaiku, (now owned by Google) which offers micro-blogging in 140 character increments just like Twitter, but it also lets you comment on your own messages as well, so if you need to be verbose you can (please, just don’t). Jaiku also lets you add icons to your discussion and import your own web feeds.

Then there’s tumblr Tumbler is really great for sharing the little snippets of goodness you find as you wander the web looking for really useful stuff. You can add graphics, video or audio files, and customize your template to give it your own style, and they’ve done a great job at creating ways to interface with tumblr. You can post via IM, with a "tumblet" dashboard widget, from your phone wiith Vimeo or SMS. Importing your feeds from other life-streams is a snap.

Tumbler allows you to create groups too, so it’s a good environment to set up for group projects or user groups. tumblr is clearly where the designers hang out, among others.

Then there’s Pownce. Pownce isn’t Twitter either and they will be happy to hear it said. Although there is a pretty cool micro-blogging feature, you can use it to send files to your friends, and if you pay for your account you can send files up to 250 MB.

And last to the party, but picking up steam fast is Plurk. Plurk has a unique visual time-line that’s quirky but in a cute way. You can add images, icons or video to your posts, but rather than mingling with all the other Plurkers, you have the option of viewing your friends plurks or your own. It’s really intended to be more of an online journal than a microblog. Just like good ol’ IRC chat, you can get blocked for flooding, a control that Twitter could certainly use.Plurk also uses Karma to instigate frequent use (Like Reddit). The more you use it the better your Karma. The more Karma you have the more features you get.

To be honest I got on Plurk last week and found the interface and the chore of adding my friends to yet another micro-blog too much to face. The fact that it doesn’t work on my Mac with Firefox is an added headache. I could use Safari but I’m pretty attached to all my plug-ins, so fergeddaboudit. Who knows. Plurk may take off.(It’s just been acquired by pheltup) A lot of the Twitterati are Twittering they’e Plurking and vice-versa.

Thing is none of these sites can replace Twitter. It has it’s following for a reason and none of the other sites quite fit. It has it’s own simple style. Craigslist remains popular because they stayed true to the original simplicity and goals of ads and community. Hopefully the same will be true with Twitter. I think I’m going to wait it out a while and see. Frankly I’m up to my eyeballs in apps at the moment. I’ll let you know which ones I settle on for good, but in the meantime, if Twitter’s up I’ll probably be posting.

My links- friend me!

Twitter http://twitter.com/jfouts
FriendFeed http://friendfeed.com/jfouts
Tumblr http://jfouts.tumblr.com/
Pownce http://pownce.com/jfouts/
Plurk http://www.plurk.com/user/jfouts

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 8:26 am and is filed under Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.