Should Twitter go silent?

Twitter went from being the ultra-hip, high-flying service to semi-defeated in the span of just a few months.

I personally went from nay-sayer to enthusiast in the blink of an eye. I enjoyed seeing what my friends were doing and found that most of us could communicate effectively within the 140 characters.

One of the first guys who I followed was Rafe Needleman, who is a friend (and my editor in the past) and is a very informed consumer of technology. Rafe is calling for Twitter to shut down and remodel. While that sounds great in theory, it's unfortunately not very practical.

Rafe's point is that if the service wants to be the utility it is, it can't be flaky, which I agree with. However, I think that Twitter is better off limping along keeping it's users engaged--at least to some extent.

Maybe I am talking out of both sides of my mouth here---my last Tweet said that "Twitter is dead to me without IM and SMS" but I would really like to see the system be successful. Technology aside, that brand is way stronger than any of the other me-too's that have shown up recently.