Image by Mickipedia via Flickr

Twitter is a great platform for making short announcements, or to send a quick reply to one. But as a conversation platform, Twitter is sorely lacking. And yet people keep trying, and then take offense when others point out the obvious – that Twitter conversations are awkward, hard to follow, and unnecessary, thanks to services like FriendFeed.

Have you ever tried to have a conversation on Twitter? I have. The biggest problem with a conversation on Twitter is that it's very hard to follow, especially if you follow a lot of people. It gets even worse if you get a lot of replies. Trying to trace a conversation afterwards is a bit like putting Humpty Dumpty back together; even with Twitter Search it's much more like a forensic investigation than a recollection.

When you have a large group of people you follow and are followed by in Twitter, it's quite possible that different people will reply to different posts, and all at the same time, too. Most people find it difficult to manage several conversations at once in-person, and that's with all the context you'd need to keep each conversation sorted out. In the world of plain text, and with a platform that doesn't let you specify just what you're replying to, two simultaneous threads is all you need to cause utter confusion.

And then, what do your followers think, when you have five, ten, perhaps more posts in a row simply shooting messages back and forth between conversers? Remember, Twitter is about what you're doing, or what you're thinking about. It's not about who you're talking to. And some people get pissed off when they see a lot of replies going by to other people and not to them.

FriendFeed, however, does a much better job of promoting conversation. Since their system allows comments for replying to particular posts, following a conversation is easy: it's all on one page. And because of that, managing multiple threads is simple too; while your mind still has to context switch between each conversation, since each is segregated from the others it's much easier to do than when you try to converse on Twitter. And lastly, since you can ignore conversations you don't take part in on FriendFeed, there's no worries about getting yelled at by more literal-minded folks on Twitter.

Now, before you get ready to flame me, keep in mind I'm not saying that Twitter is bad, or dying, or anything like that. For sending quick messages, Twitter is great. It does that job admirably, and I hope it keeps doing it. But if I want a conversation about something, don't be surprised if you see a link to FriendFeed in some of my tweets. And if you try to engage me in conversation in Twitter, you better be prepared for me moving the chat to FriendFeed, as well.