The Open Road

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June 2, 2008 11:35 AM PDT

If Twitter weren't bad enough, now there's open-source Twoorl

by Matt Asay
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So, less than .0000000000000000001 percent of the world uses Twitter. Even fewer get any value from it. (Note: I am not among that group.)

Now, to make it even more obscure, there's a new, open-source Twitter called Twoorl. I have nothing against Twoorl (other than its a clone of a service that I already dislike), but given how narrow the Twitter network is already, Twoorl's will be even smaller.

With that said, at least now someone will be able to tweak the source code to turn Twitter into something useful. Like how about a better way to contact someone other than "@mjasay: Aren't eggs in the morning great?"

Open source isn't a panacea: It can't take bad ideas and magically turn them into good ideas, any more than it can take bad code and magically turn it into good code. But it can enable smart people to turn the basic Twitter idea, using Twoorl, into something useful. Like a way for me to keep tabs on my kids, or narrow my audience for certain "tweets," etc.

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About The Open Road

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to the Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is general manager of the Americas division and vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

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