10 reasons why Twitter sucks

I’ve been using Twitter since April 22 and can honestly say the service is by turns great and a load of crap.
It’s much easier to come up with a list of negatives than positives for the microblogging service. So here’s my list of 10 reasons why Twitter sucks:

1. Too much inane chatter. People with nothing interesting to say can now boast that their frivolous comments about breakfast cereal or whatnot are on the Interweb.


2. Conversations between Twitter users are nearly impossible to follow. Too many posts where you see only one side of the conversation. Not worthwhile for anyone beyond the two people doing the chatting. Use the direct message feature, people.


3. Too much media hype. Desperate to stay relevant with new technology and be on top of the “next big thing,” mainstream media have overdone it with coverage of Twitter.


4. The marketers have taken over. Companies selling marketing tools, adult dating services and other things are everywhere on Twitter these days. Big name companies like Dell and Amazon.com are actively pitching deals on the service.


5. People who follow hundreds or thousands of Twitter accounts. They can’t possibly read that many tweets. Most likely they hoping for a lot of reciprocating followers to boost their egos.


6. There’s no way to see live posts from the masses. It would be interesting to eavesdrop on what people are talking about in real time. It would be like seeing the heartbeat of Twitter. You have to rely on Twitter’s Trending Topics or search by keywords. I'd like a button to click to see what people are talking about right now.


7. Actor-model Ashton Kutcher has nearly 2.7 million followers on Twitter. That’s got to be a sign of the apocalypse.


8. A cat named Sockington has 824,000 followers. That’s not good. Remember serial killer David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz. He listened to his neighbor’s dog and look what that got him.


9. Fake celebrity accounts. Stephen Colbert, Megan Fox, Tina Fey and Christopher Walken and others have said that widely followed Twitter accounts under their names are not theirs. (Twitter has been slow to roll out Verified Accounts.)


10. Twitter has no business model. Media execs attending a gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho, this week dissed Twitter. News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller and Liberty Media Chairman John Malone expressed doubts about Twitter’s potential to make money. (See New York Times article.)

I’ll follow this article soon with 10 positive things about Twitter.

Photo: T-shirt available online from MySoti.