Oh, Wired. Continuing to destroy your credibility by insisting that a single client among dozens is a killer application if you use a certain website in a certain rare use case.
Audio from the talk will be available on http://2009.dconstruct.org/podcast/ soon.
Filtering information is not a new idea at all.
Twitter is the #13 site globally according to Alexa. Does that mean that a Blogger app would be more of a killer app than a Twitter app? What about a MySpace app? MSN? Windows Live? Google? If I told you that the iPhone's killer app was a Google search, wouldn't that sound stupid?
But Wired isn't just saying that. They're saying that Tweetie, one of a hundred Twitter applications, is a killer app and that the other applications aren't. Furthermore, Tweetie is a killer app if you use Twitter with multiple accounts. That is an incredible weird rare fringe thing. I'd bet most Twitter users have a single account.
Now do you want to attempt sarcasm again? Because I'll warn you: Not only do I know more about what I'm arguing than you do, I'm a better snarker than you, and I will tear you to little fucking pieces.
I remember when I joined HN and routinely felt dwarfed by the intellectual discourse here. Now I say something and the response is likely as not bullshit like yours. I feel so goddamn old.
The funny thing is that ubernostrum joined HN just a few weeks after you did.
Additionally, I see nothing wrong in them pointing out Tweetie, even though it is one of billions. Design and user interface is a very important layer to take into account, especially with these iPhone apps, and Tweetie's design is very intuitive, in my opinion. Design has much to do with an app being killer as its underlying technology.
The iPhone is killer, but when Wired is making the argument of "Instapaper justifies your owning an iPhone", it hurts the argument a lot to add "just as much as this Twitter app will". Tweetie is nothing ultraspecial. Instapaper might be. It hurts to compare it to a web site client.
As for "discourse", well, I've been active here for a while and lurking for longer, and my first impression was that HN was a site that syndicated TechCrunch articles. Took me a while to realize there was anything other than an echo chamber here, and I'm still not entirely sure about that.
I've already responded to this. Wired implies that Tweetie is a killer app if you use Twitter with multiple accounts. That's an edge case even among Twitter users, and Twitter is not an enormous web site. It's like saying the Facebook app is a killer app because it's gorgeous and provides near-full site functionality right now. It is, and it does, but say I'm writing an article about an app that I'm claiming "justifies" your entire app purchase. It doesn't help me look serious when I go on to say "Oh, also this one Twitter application is just as justifying. Seriously, accessing Twitter like this is as important as being able to store and read articles offline."
just as I expect that people who believe in the myth of the Wonderful Hacker News Comment Community will downmod all such comments into oblivion
It's not the sarcasm that isn't welcome. It's the sarcasm when dealing with subjects worthy of discussion. You know? Here we're talking about something that's provoking a good deal of debate, so your sarcasm is actively harmful to the discourse. If we were talking about some ridiculous subject, then sarcasm is totes coo'.
As for "discourse", well, I've been active here for a while and lurking for longer, and my first impression was that HN was a site that syndicated TechCrunch articles. Took me a while to realize there was anything other than an echo chamber here, and I'm still not entirely sure about that.
Shit like this isn't even snarking. It's just you being an asshole. Come on. We're all venerable old men here, we can afford some courtesy.