If a service launches based on another service that's always broken, does it make a sound?

A message came across my Twitter feed this morning, posted via TwitterFone.  This service allows you to call a local number from your cell phone and record a short message, which is then auto-transcribed into text and posted to your Twitter feed.  Don’t get too excited, it’s invitation only right now.  (Here’s a sample message)

As a million and one different twitter-based services pop up, Darwinian forces will pull some into mass circulation as others become relics you can eventually laugh at your friends for inviting you to join.  So far twitpic and twitterberry seem to fill acutal niches (autoposting photos and twitter access from your BlackBerry, respectively) and - all knowledge gathered via my own anecdotal spidersense - these seem like they’re here to stay.  Tweets sent from desktop apps like Twitteriffic also seem to have some fans, but most standalone software appeals to the more niche market of those that want to cross post items from another RSS feed (twitterfeed) or Pownce (Twhirl).  Like any evolutionary process, my guess is that the more specific the software, the more likely it is to die out as the environment changes.

We all recognize the uses for Twitter itself - for entertainment, microblogging, networking, pushing information, etc etc etc… - but we have also all encountered that damn whale (apparently a stock photo) and vast spans of downtime.  So how can any service, especially one that relies on a technology as imperfect as voice recognition and gives up the super-fast, super-discreet traits of its parent, expect to develop a large and loyal userbase?  Getting a tweet to post in its entirety is important to many people; do you know when you’ve spoken 140 characters?  It’s like multiplying fractions…. if Twitter is up 95% of the time (random generous number) and you send 10% of your tweets as voice messages, and 50% of those are translated correctly, and half of those have enough in the first 140 characters to generate a click-thru… does it really matter?  If you usually attempt to tweet a message every 30 minutes you’re awake (let’s say 18 hours), that still works out to .855 successful TwitterFone tweets a day - in otherwords, maybe a single tweet hits its target.  Is that enough to perpetuate its existence?

If you have an opinion, tweet it out.

The Embarrassment of Crowds

Last.fm tracks the songs you listen to and lets others browse your playlists, favorites, etc.  While the thought process  should be (insert your own madlib words where indicated) “Oh, I listen to [Styrofoam], too, [jonathanyoungblood], what is this other music you have that I have not heard of?  I like it!” … the reality can be more like “Oh, I used to listen to [Fischerspooner], too, [Ariel Waldman]*, like four years ago.  And how did those three repeat plays of [Paris Hilton]’s [Stars are Blind] sneak into your playlist?  Rough night??”

So people delete things that make them seem not quite as hip as they would like.  Enter this page, which aggregates the most deleted tracks and artists.  Not surprisingly, Britney Spears’ Piece of Me takes top honors, but The Beatles and Radiohead?  Can’t we all just admit that it’s ok to like something, even though other people like it too?  And that yes, their second album might, in fact, be better?

*Please note that Ms Waldman’s last.fm profile is empty.  I just like to use her as an example as often as possible because (1) she has a profile everywhere which I frequently stumble across and (2) she was totally rude to my husband during a pownce customer service dispute.  The Fisherspooner reference actually refers to her current muxtape.