Got A Question About Twitter For Biz Stone?

1.What did you envision when you came up with Twitter?
2.Has it met your expectations?
3.What have been the impediments to meeting those expectations?
4.What has been the most creative adaptation to of the "Twitterverse?"
5.How much time does the average Tweeter spend on Twitter each day?

Sent by Anthony Hunt | 1:55 PM | 7-1-2008

Does Twitter plan to loadbalance the app so that it can overcome Ruby-on-Rails inherent stinginess with regards to simultaneous connections?

Sent by Known Human | 2:00 PM | 7-1-2008

Can I get my Twitter feed to replace my "update" in Facebook? What if I want to reply to someone who is not following me? I think this is not an option? So BPP comments, but I never get to reply! Pretty frustrating.

FYI, Twitter is the MOST awesome technological tool in the world. Tweets from Mars, Chengdoo, etc. Very cool. I LOVE the twitphone option and use twitpic almost daily.

Sent by T. Weiss | 2:06 PM | 7-1-2008

One more thing, who came up w/the awesome image of the little birds carrying the whale when the whole system is OVERLOADED, sadly on a fairly routine basis? It's really cute, and makes the situation a lot more bearable.

Sent by T. Weiss | 2:09 PM | 7-1-2008

@T. Weiss -- to reply to someone, use the @ convention. For instance, you could write, "@bpp Have I got a story for you."

Your message would show up in in our replies (provided the Replies button is working that day). Personally, I love Replies.

Sent by Laura Conaway, NPR | 2:13 PM | 7-1-2008

"What is Twitter, and why should we care?"

Sent by Will G | 2:19 PM | 7-1-2008

What doesn't Twitter stay up and running for more than a few hours at a time? Why isn't it stable? Is it simply scale, or is something else going on?

What is Twitter doing to address the stability problems?

Why doesn't Twitter release number of user stats (or do you, and I missed it...)?

Currently, Twitter is a free service -- do you eventually plan on charging us to use it? Or will the financial model be ad-based? Or something else?

More a suggestion than anything, but Twitter needs to build in a "trust" model -- that is, when people follow me, I would want to know if we have followers-in-common. That would help me decide whether or not I should follow back, or if I'd be interested in what they have to say.

*** Most Important Question ***

What the hell are those spambots? Where do they come from? And why do they all look like they're from the cover of Maxim???

Sent by Carlo (cscan on Twitter...) | 2:40 PM | 7-1-2008

Does Twitter have a business plan to monetize the service? If so, what does it consist of?

Sent by Matt Mueller | 2:51 PM | 7-1-2008

. . . or a variation on the previous question "What does Twitter mean for the average women or man on the street (i.e. what is its perceived cultural significance?)"

Sent by Will G | 6:25 PM | 7-1-2008

@T. Weiss: the whale cartoon is by graphic designer Yiying Lu, and it's become known as the Fail Whale in the Twitter community. There's even a Wikipedia entry about it.

Sent by andy carvin, npr | 9:41 AM | 7-2-2008

When I started using the Internet in the early 90s, anonymity was the norm. Now there seems to be a split between people (such as myself) who always use "screen names" in public forums and don't reveal too much personal information and people who like to post everything about themselves and everything they do on sites like MySpace and Twitter.

What's going on here? Is there a trend away from anonymity? Why do some people prefer to be anonymous (even when they're not doing anything embarrassing) and some people like to be self-revelatory?

Sent by Edvard von Nodlestrausen | 11:04 AM | 7-2-2008

@andy carvin and some awesome t-shirts.

Sent by known human | 11:19 AM | 7-2-2008

Please share an honest prognosis of continuing instability and scale/overload issues and sense of timetable. In other words, when can we expect to no longer see the fail whale?

Sent by Paul Chaney | 11:16 PM | 7-2-2008