Why do we make an exception for Twitter? I think it boils down to a simple answer – we love the service.

That said, I just tried to log in and my account(s) are showing zeros again.

This is not the first time this has happened on Twitter, and in fact the first time I witnessed it a few months ago I had a bit of a panic – I can say with a fair degree of confidence that Twitter will resolve this problem shortly but it does not help my cause as I continually champion the service both in my own life and also with my clients.

So the question boils down to why tolerate all this from Twitter when for most of us, if any other service we used was down anywhere near as much (Outlook, Gmail, Facebook etc.) we’d be quickly looking for another solution?

Twitter is a bit unique, it almost operates as a real life social media experience, as such both the behavior and the expectations of the audience are very different. The openness of the platform in particular seems to be the big calling point whereas most of our other “digital entry points” are very focused on “opt-in” Twitter lives in a different place where you are very likely to engage with strangers who are only one click away, and ultimately that is the power of the platform.

While this post was never going to be a rant, it also wasn’t initially intended to be a fanboy piece either, but I guess for me at least Twitter has that effect. Team Twitter – keep up the great work.