Twitter lacks vision? but we like it simple!

An inteview where the new Twitter CEO admitted he felt the company was low on vision and a story on Netizen claiming that Twitter “was kneecapped by its poverty of vision” just got me thinking that maybe Twitter doesn’t need vision. Not for its users’ sake anyway.

Third parties have been quick to jump in to do cute things with Twitter. The fact that the core company just sits there and lets creative outsiders knock up great stuff like Tweetdeck is actually positive. Twitter apps will do anything from mapping snowfall to psychoanalysing your tweets, to helping co-ordinate rescue missions in emergencies.

It’s fun, it’s social, and the fact that the core company sits back and just provides an open platform is core to its appeal.

In these “oh Twitter isn’t going anywhere” articles, they often get compared to Facebook. But while Facebook is phenomenally successful, stunningly ambitious and always driving through change, it’s nice that Twitter is more open, more relaxed and lets face it, a bit less scary. I admire Mark Zuckerberg, but thinking of him having complete control of a lot of a lot of my personal data is just well, a bit freaky.

What will he do next? I don’t know…

Also Facebook’s rapid development always favours its own innovations over any from creative third parties.. so while Facebook’s third party apps (apart from the odd game here and there) have never been useful, Twitter’s really are. In the long run I think that third party innovation is more fun.

So Twitter’s lack of vision may be a problem for the company and the investors, but for the users it’s really, just fine. We like it the way it is, Dick, honest.

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