Do you ever give even a single glimpse to twitter public timeline? For jaiku I won’t ask. The map thing in the first page, with the updates popping from every part of the world, is kinda cool to watch for 10 secs, but no more. Identi.ca? Nah!
So what is the use of the public timelines anyway?
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We need them because they are the first thing a new user sees. It lets newcomers get a feeling of what this service is about, how people usually behave in it, and the possible uses of it.
To put it in a different way: if you don’t have your own (and friends’) timeline, the next best thing is the public timeline.
@vrypan Why can’t a flash movie serve this purpose? Think of the server loads that the public timeline causes and the educative outcome of its existence and you will agree with me that it doesn’t worth the cost.
Not an everyday use, but a public timeline on a service like twitter may be useful to determine who did something first on a certain subject. Sort of like the old days when people were photographed with a newspaper showing the front page and date clearly, just to prove a certain position in the (general) timeline.
I am sure though that the above is not what the twitter public timeline is designed for.
@adamo Valid point!
@nikan: Well, this is up to the developers to decide. Does it matter in resources? I don’t know. After all, it’s just one of the millions of pages a service like twitter has to render.
There are smart ways to create it using less resources than the rest of the pages that are personalized. Plus, you get the RSS feed apps like twittervision.com need.
Oh, and if I were a twitter developer, this would be my favorite page. A “console” where I see what is going on. An overview of the universe I created.
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