Today's news that Facebook has acquired FriendFeed has me wondering whether Twitter could be the next Pointcast. My guess is almost every Twitter user has a Facebook account already and assuming Facebook executes well (big assumption), FriendFeed affords them an opportunity to develop new features and functionality and tighter integration over time that could eat away at Twitter's user base.
Some of you may recall Pointcast, the immensely popular and incredibly hyped push technology for news and content. I'm notgoing to get into Pointcast's entire history but if you're interested read the Wikipedia profile here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PointCast_(dotcom). In summary, the following happened:
- Pointcast's push technology was all the rage and a user base developed that on a relative basis is larger than Twitter has today
- The media elevated Pointcast beyond the reality of what it had achieved in its short life - similar to Twitter
- An offer was made by News Corp. to acquire PointCast at a similar price to the rumored offer by Facebook for Twitter and promptly turned down (to be fair Twitter was rumored to be offered stock only)
- Pointcast started having technical issues keeping the service functional and tired out its user base over time; Twitter continues to be plagued with similar issues
- After numerous missteps Pointcast essentially disappeared as more relevant offerings came to market to provide the content users craved
The big question of the day is did Twitter peak too early? Should they have sold at the height of the buzz? Over the last 2-3 months I've had several agency execs tell me the Twitter craze is dying down with brand marketers and they're advising clients to not spend much of their marketing dollars around the Twitter ecosystem.
There are many differences between Pointcast and Twitter (too many to name) that could lead to a better result for Twitter but I can't get Pointcast out of my head every time I think of Twitter.
Who knows what will happen from here but I'm very interested to see things play out as a bystander.
NOTE: AS I PUBLISHED THIS POST ON TYPEPAD I RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE:
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COINCIDENCE OF THE DAY!
