The Twitter IPO is today.
While Twitter often directs me to resources I find valuable, I cannot say that I find Twitter itself as that useful.
I have two complaints:
1) The control of audience should be placed in the hands of content producers. From the perspective of the consumer, so many messages come across as cryptic and inane. Often this is because the consumer is participating in only part of a conversation. Sometimes, the producers just assumes everyone is interested in their spur of the moment brilliance. WASSUP
Focusing on a subset of messages using hashtags seems an inadequate solution.
2) 140 characters is not sufficient for meaningful conversation. It may be sufficient for shallow interchanges – nice to maintain relationships but not sufficient to get real work done. 140 characters is also sufficient to direct readers to more informative content.
Google+ has a more flexible and productive format. It may require more effort that many are willing to allocate, but the ability to express yourself more completely and to route content to a specific audiences make it more useful.
I do understand the need for chit chat. Perhaps a compromise might be to use different platforms for different purposes.