Web
See the disclaimer.
Some points:
1. Twitter is not a medium.
Twitter is a privately owned company that provides a microblogging service. There are others but Twitter has done the best job of popularising this new lightweight niche of online social interaction. Twitter is the new Blogger.
The interwebs were not built on the back of proprietorial services. Innovation emerges from the competition and symbiosis of an ecosystem – at every level. The ecosystem of services and clients on the back of Twitter is dizzying and works to fill in the missing features from the platform such as photos, threading, groups, filtering and url shortening. Users create multiple accounts to present different aspects to themselves and many clients support this.
2. Twitter is a bottleneck for innovation.
One start-up with very finite manpower and an obligation to investors can do only so much, however well intentioned.
Once the microblogging ecosystem is not dependent on the limited output of Twitter then we will see a far richer range of possibilities. Twitter cheerleaders that ignore an totally open are actually holding back this renaissance.
I dislike Facebook’s ‘negative pressure’ sucking everything in but admire its sophistication and widespread penetration. I think it still has plenty of room for improvement in reflecting real social dynamics.
Google has many smart engineers but is not so good at designing services to make them sticky. Google Video vs YouTube, Orkut vs Facebook, etc.
Social Networks are not Social Media
As far as I understand it, Social Media is for organisations who are interested in being more open and responsive to people.
Social Networks are for people who want to use technology to maintain and build relationships. No-one gets paid to teach people how to use MySpace.
Social Media can interact with Social Networks but is clearly represented as a brand. Most people are not brands.