Though both major players on the internet, you’d never think that the micro-blogging platform and the (very unmicro) editable encyclopedia would ever have a reason to compete. Leave your preconception at the door, my friend, but fear not – because they’re being equally ridiculous, as both bring out dedicated devices for their services.
That, unfortunately, is the TwitterPeek – a device that exists solely for the purposes of allowing people to emaciate a summary of their current activities into 140 characters and put it up for the world to see, as well as displaying recent bursts of largely irrelevant information that nobody bothers to read unless their written by Stephen Fry (guilty, as charged). Given how much Twitter pushes their mobile services, and the huge market of smartphone apps for Twitter, it baffles me that they would seriously think that a dedicated device – lacking any other functionality besides to tweet – could be successful. Whether or not Twitter will stop promoting or, worse still, remove their mobile features, such as the ability to tweet just by sending a text – something that I, as a blogger sans smartphone, rely upon to tweet. For the most part however, this won’t change anything, even if twitter apps and mobile tweeting is stopped – smartphones have browsers that can be used to tweet just as if at a computer.
It’s a cute device, I’ll give them that, and I can see how it might be useful – but consider that the device itself will cost £60 for only six months free service, followed by paying a terrifying $60/month (an “international plan”) – if you tweet only once a month, this comes to around 50 cents per letter. However, for a lifetime service plan you pay £120 – meaning that you can get lifetime tweeting for the same as around price as two months – or be stuck paying half the cost of the device (in Sterling) per month for life.
Reading this, I was dumbfounded at the cost and the belief that Twitter seem to hold that people will actually buy it – which is incredibly and so obviously, wrong. But then, in a double-whammy, I read immediately after of another online service showing equally terrible business skills:
Alas, this is the WikiReader, an ebook reader like device that contains a condensed version of articles on the Wikipedia website, but has no network connection or automatic update features – so whatever they’ve put on there remains as is until you download the semi-annual update, a painful and tedious effort, or spend £18/year to have updates posted to you on a microSD card, on a device that itself costs £60. That’s the most obvious drawback, but the condensing of these articles removes images, tables and the contents menu, so scrolling through the article to find what you want is your only option; with no backlight. It’s touchscreen and it’s general look make it look interesting and useful – and it’s size means that it could, feasibly, be used as an education tool; where it not that I seldom meet a teacher who likes Wikipedia; my slightly barmy former English Lit teacher remains the only exception.
Most people have already become accustomed to searching Wikipedia on their smartphones, and practically all web-enabled devices can now handle a full Wikipedia page, images galore, with no problems at all. Why would you pay to get an out-of-date, un-intuitive device to display an uncategorized wealth of information that you have to trawl through and read from a tiny screen?
Though they have different functions and so not necessarily competing, this will invariably show which type of service is suited to a dedicated device, microblogging or e-ncyclopedia (a word I just made up), the truth is that neither are, but we’ll see how the two analyse sales (if there are any) and if we get a TwitterPeek 2 or a WikiReader S, I’ll eat my keyboard.
In conclusion, neither wins this fight, they’re both ridiculous. If I had to say which one will sell more (1 sold in total as opposed to 0 still counts as more), then I’d give it to the WikiReader – simply because I can see more of an application for people without smartphones and for schoolkids, but both are going to be disasters in their own right, nobody would honestly pay out for something like these devices over a smartphone – which is more feature-rich for about the same (if not lower) price. Twitter has been flying too high up and the oxygen’s gotten thin, whilst Wikipedia has been sniffing digital ink too much.