An Open Sourced Twitter Emerges: Identi.ca

Date July 2, 2008

One of the conversations that stemmed from our “Twit-Out” a few months ago was, “Can we save Twitter with open-source?” My response was the following:

I agree that Twitter could use some help, but I don’t know if opening the source is the main solution. I do believe, a healthy dose of stiff competition encourages innovation. [...]

Identi.ca

Today, I joined Identi.ca. Is it YATC (Yet another Twitter clone)? Sure seems like it on the surface. Identi.ca offers a timeline view identical to Twitter, limits your updates to 140 characters, and it offers Jabber/Gtalk posts and updates. If that ain’t a Twitter clone, I don’t know what is. Here’s what the founding company, Control Yourself ,has to say:

Identi.ca is similar to existing microblogging sites such as Twitter, Jaiku, or Pownce. Unlike those services, Identi.ca’s underlying software is available under an Open Source license. Identi.ca is also the first service to support OpenMicroBlogging, a standard for exchanging short messages between microblogging sites. Identi.ca also makes public user data available under a Creative Commons license in standard formats.

That’s a great quote because it clearly outlines a huge differentiator from Twitter: Identi.ca is open sourced. I stand by my original assessment that it’s not clear whether an open sourced Twitter will actually be a better Twitter, but I will watch it very closely. Another point that should be noted about Identi.ca, is that it supports OpenMicroBlogging. The software that runs Identi.ca, called Laconi.ca, allows users to run their own federated instance of the software. This has made advocates of a federated Twitter, like Dave Winer, very excited about the possibilities. I have went on record to say that a federated architecture is not also guaranteed to produce a successful Twitter, as there have been many stable non-federated messaging systems. They all had a sound design. I’m not saying it won’t work, I’m stating that it’s not a silver bullet. Either way, it’s happening now that Identi.ca has entered the space. With juggernauts such as Winer “excited” about it, it can only be a good thing for developer momentum.

So what are my thoughts about Identi.ca so far? My day 0 impressions are:

  • It’s slow. Not surprised at all by this. The user base is increasing a blistering pace, and I’m sure their developers are adjusting. The source is out there, so before you complain too much about it, go fix it! :)
  • The RSS is horrible. I attempted to import the RSS into my FriendFeed stream, and I got a title like “bwana posted a status 6 minutes ago”. It reminds me of the FriendFeed RSS before they addressed it. Easily fixable, but still annoying. Update It has been fixed.
  • No API. I imagine that will be coming soon, especially since the project is open sourced, but for now, there’s no other way to post and receive messages other than the website and Jabber.
  • No search. Since there’s no API, there’s no search since the site doesn’t provide it.
  • No “Replies” area. If you’re looking to follow conversations in the same manner as Twitter, you can forget about it. I hope you were a Twitter user in the early days, because following conversations is exactly that. It’s a bare timeline that you need to scrape for meaningful replies. Deja Vu?
  • No mobile options. No SMS, no mobile interface, and no means of posting except from the browser

    • According to their FAQ, many of my gripes are “coming soon”. Given the age of this service, I cannot declare it a success or failure just yet. If anyone else does, I will greatly question their motives. I do think that the addition of open source and a possible federated Twitter make it a service to watch in the coming months.

    Twitter, it’s time to get stable right now.

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    Category Posted in geek



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    • July 2, 2008 at 4:45 pm PF Thaler
      that's the way to go..twitted is an utility and open source Is the way to go to guarantee availability
    • July 2, 2008 at 4:53 pm Naor
      registered as well
    • July 2, 2008 at 4:57 pm Eric Ortega
      ericortega is on there
    • July 2, 2008 at 5:00 pm Fred Yankowski
      It's PHP based, which disappoints me for some reason. But the code looks pretty clean.
    • July 2, 2008 at 5:03 pm Matthew Wayne Selznick
      I'm there - mwsmedia
    • July 2, 2008 at 5:03 pm Bwana McCall
      Port it to python :) http://laconi.ca/
    • July 2, 2008 at 5:22 pm possible248
      Open source and Twitter? I think I smell awesome.
    • July 2, 2008 at 5:24 pm Naor
      and i thought that pownce will benefit ...(from twitter whale)
    • July 2, 2008 at 5:50 pm Alejandro S.
      I hope this works
    • July 2, 2008 at 6:19 pm Eric_T
      Time to test another site.
    • July 2, 2008 at 6:35 pm Andrew Bashore
      Why built another website? There already is Pownce, Jaiku, and Plurk.
    • July 2, 2008 at 6:57 pm Gez
      How long before @SteveRubel declares FF dead and identi.ca the new google? ;D
    • July 2, 2008 at 7:21 pm Frans
      I'm just curious how the distributed part works, how do I connect my install of laconica with yours? So that I can see your feed on the friends timeline of my install. Or is that not how it is supposed to work?
    • July 3, 2008 at 10:22 am Ontario Emperor
      Does anyone have an answer to Fran's question?
    • July 3, 2008 at 10:26 am Mark Trapp
      This is the spec for OpenMicroBlogging: http://openmicroblogging.org/ I don't think it works like that, Frans. The idea behind it, as far as my understanding goes, is that there's a protocol to allow you to write to identi.ca's data store, and eventually identi.ca will support other microblogging services that use the OMB protocol, but it's not federation.
    • July 3, 2008 at 10:26 am Mark Trapp
      I'm pretty sure everyone's wishing, out of thin air, something that identi.ca is not. All it's really doing is implementing a standard like REST, JSON, or whatever; it's just standardizing the fields so you don't have to guess or rely on a specific API for each microblogging service. I guess you could federate based off of it being interoperable, but it's nowhere near that. For one, identi.ca is the first service that I know of that even implements OMB.
    • July 3, 2008 at 10:43 am Justin Coleman
      fd
    • July 3, 2008 at 10:49 am Charlie Anzman
      Bwana - You do a good job explaining the potential on your blog. Thanks
    • July 3, 2008 at 10:51 am Ken Sheppardson
      Suppose you have an account on server A and you want to follow somebody who created an account on server B. You can subscribe to the remote user, and your server (A) will contact server B to set up a remote sub. After that when the user on server B posts an item, it's also posted back to your server. Sync/decentralization is handled on a user-by-user basis.
    • July 3, 2008 at 10:56 am Ken Sheppardson
      I'm sure Laconica looks very much like Twitter did two years ago when it was just starting out. Simple SQL tables on the back end, basic UI functionality, no API, etc. Twitter's had two years to work on this full time, and they haven't been worried at all about building a distributed network. I'm all for open source, but I'm skeptical. It's not obvious to me that a community-based effort can catch and pass a venture-funded, full-time team with two years of operational experience.
    • July 3, 2008 at 11:00 am Mark Trapp
      Ken, you highlight two huge misconceptions of this hype: 1) it's not federated yet. It's not even close to federated. and 2) it's not a community project. To make changes you either a) have to get identi.ca to buy into it and push it to http://identi.ca, or b) fork the project and run your own instance. This isn't the power of the internet working against the machine. This is a locked-in cathedral style development. Only one party has access to the final release (the server on which identi.ca resides)
    • July 3, 2008 at 11:31 am Cyndy
      Yay Mark! Yes, yes, yes. While anyone can GET the source code, any major changes have to come from a main hub for separate instances to work together. There's always this misconception of Open Source that it's this completely democratic process and anyone can just do whatever they want.
    • July 3, 2008 at 11:39 am Mark Trapp
      Exactly, Cyndy! You have a huge problem open sourcing a software-as-a-service, especially one that needs to interact with all other copies of itself: there is no way to run a bazaar style development without compromising the security of the main distribution points. It REQUIRES a single development team controlling the project scope and direction. Maybe the guys that run identi.ca are the next Linus Torvalds or the next rms or esr, but the law of very large numbers suggests they probably aren't.
    • July 3, 2008 at 11:39 am Mark Trapp
      What does that mean for everyone else? The exact same scenario as Twitter. One development team who contributes the vast bulk of the code that makes it into the final release. You're still at the mercy of the design decisions they make, and the preliminary reports about the nature of the code does not bode well.
    • July 3, 2008 at 12:22 pm Greg
      It seems very slow
    • July 3, 2008 at 12:23 pm Chacha
      I definatly think that Identi.ca is extremely slow in loading
    • July 3, 2008 at 12:36 pm Shawn Farner
      AKA this is not a big deal :) This is the argument I was trying to make earlier but couldn't. This isn't a revolution, it's just a company using everyone else to try and improve their Twitter clone.
    • July 3, 2008 at 12:44 pm Bwana McCall
      After the server move (if your DNS has caught up), the speeds have improved. It's day 2. I'm treating it as such.
    • July 3, 2008 at 12:47 pm Bwana McCall
      I'm confused. Where in my article or in these comments is anyone calling this the next big thing? Why are there so many quick to shoot it down? Seems like a lot of assumptions are being made.
    • July 3, 2008 at 12:50 pm Bwana McCall
      If you want more details of the architecture, join the identica room where this has already been discussed - http://friendfeed.com/e/fb158b6c-b907-43be-ae45-e1530256549f/THE-ONE-MILLION-DOLLAR-question-about-Identica/
    • July 3, 2008 at 12:52 pm Wolfsbayne
      i'm not a fan of being forced to accept creative commons licensing where my content is concerned.
    • July 3, 2008 at 1:01 pm Cyndy
      Mark, I give you a +10. I felt like I was spitting into the wind on this one.
    • July 3, 2008 at 1:02 pm Cyndy
      Bwana, I'm quick to shoot it down because a PHP app with a database back-end is going to end up as the same mess as Twitter. Adding the shiny "open source" tag doesn't make it any cooler OR more stable. It just makes Dave Winer happy to jump on the bus.
    • July 3, 2008 at 1:06 pm Nathan Eckenrode
      @wolfsbayne you aren't being forced- you don't _have_ to use the service, CC is part of the feature set of the service- some people prefer freedom of content- and as always you still have the freedom of choice.
    • July 3, 2008 at 1:08 pm Bwana McCall
      You're assuming way too much. My article's tone was simply to watch it because it's the first major effort that I know of that's open sourced and is testing the waters of OpenMicroBlogging. The point is not whether it'll fail or not, the point is that is taking a different direction. I stated many times that I don't believe open source or federation will automatically equal success. It's ok to use it and not be gung ho that it's going to kill anything.
    • July 3, 2008 at 1:10 pm Bwana McCall
      And yes if Dave Winer is happy, it'll get attention. Whether that's right or wrong is irrelevant to my point.
    • July 3, 2008 at 1:36 pm Wolfsbayne
      @nathan i think it was implied by my post that i wasn't going to use it because of CC. thanks for telling me i don't have to use it. lol!
    • July 7, 2008 at 4:59 pm Shivanand Velmurugan
      I think the "Replies" feature is out now. Time to update your article. :)

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