Yes, it’s true. We are a fickle impatient bunch of early adopters looking for things to be there when we need them and work like we want them to. We do have patience with cool, new technologies and apps, but that patience quickly thins when it is tested too frequently.

Yes I am a fan of Twitter. But, using Twitter can be frustrating at times. All too often, I’m forced to wait, sometimes without satisfaction, in order to hit the site when I’m away from text or IM updates.

Twitter isn’t a mission-critical application, so reading the updates from the community or sending information to them isn’t going to make or break business per se. But the frequency of server issues with Twitter is starting to make the LOL Cats less and less cute and funny, and more annoying, error by error.

But don’t get me wrong. Twitter is still a relevant app and I will continue to use it. The purpose of this post is to show you what happens when your errors, hiccups, trip-ups, start to fuel customer adoption for your perceived competition.

In this case, Jaiku is inadvertently benefiting from Twitter’s little stumbles. While I personally believe that Twitter and Jaiku are only similar in their ability to channel life streams and truly represent two unique market opportunities, they are perceived competitors.

Earlier, I noticed several new “friends” (within minutes of each other) in my Jaiku list, which caused me to question what was different about today than any other day.

Then I found an article by Duncan Riley of TechCrunch, which instantly solved the mystery. It was not so discreet in its positioning and intent simply by judging the title, “Making The Switch From Twitter to Jaiku.”

Riley cleverly and passionately claims, “I thought I saw a putty tat. I did, I did see a putty tat! These famous words were never the last from Tweety Bird, but for a growing number of Twitter users they will be. The last thing they will see before giving up on Twitter will be the Twitter server cat, the default screen when the service is completely down.”

Photo Credit: TechCrunch

In the TechCrunch comments however, Michael Arrington added his voice to the conversation, “I’m actually a loyal twitter user and won’t be leaving. The downtime is more charming than anything else. This isn’t exactly a mission critical app. “

Shortly thereafter, Calacanis posted, “Twitter is how I stay in touch with my core, most dedicated, peoples…. that last week has been really hard for me. Please let me pay you…please.”

They’re right. For some of us (well others more so), Twitter represents the vein in which the IV of business and personal relationships are fed. However, there will be some who don’t care. What can’t be underestimated however, there will also be those who simply give up. And, therefore, that represents a tremendous marketing challenge for the folks over at Twitter. Our attention spans are simply finite and they grow thinner everyday.

And let us not forget the last exodus sparked by Leo Laporte’s departure to Jaiku over potential copyright issues.

While again, Jaiku is a more elaborate application, it can at its minimum, serve as a Twitter alternative. At its full capability however, Jaiku serves as a complete microblogging platform that can aggregate disparate streams, while also faciliating social threads around relevant topics that you post.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Twitter is simple and it’s beautiful that way. And its community is well established and some of the most amazing people thrive from reading and sharing information through the Web, mobile text, IM, etc.

Jaiku is a bit more involved. For one, it’s almost a profile aggregator of sorts, allowing you to bring in feeds from other sources, including Twitter, blogs, del.icio.us, flickr, etc., so that your updates traverse across your multiple online personae through one social, integrated personal stream (or flow). It also allows comments on individual posts to continue threaded conversations, which is better suited to those seeking more meaningful engagements and conversations – well as deep as a nanoblogging platform would allow (and promote).

Either way, the community is agitated. And somewhere down the line, there will be a boiling point. The key for Twitter is to either diffuse that scenario or to continue its customer service strategy of using cute cat pictures with funny LOL Cats captions.

Here are a several interesting comments straight from Twitter.
jowyang Twitter = too many cat images. (jeremiah owyang)

sarahmeyers ARGGG to twitter’s server! Makes me mad!

lanehartwell boy twitter sucks lately.

caseymckinnon Aw fuck… Twitter is waning again, got a server error a second ago.

Veronica Twitter vs. Jaiku Prizefight on CNET (Veronica Belmont)

caseymckinnon The problem with Jaiku is that I never remember the name! It takes me a hesitation of about 5 seconds before I can type in the URL!

JasonLBaptiste twitter is just a ploy to make icanhascheezburger even more popular. they never meant to build a scalable web application

JasonCalacanis omg this is great… veronica rocks!

Oh, and for additional updates, follow me on Twitter and Jaiku

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Organized by Joel Sacks, CNET and Marketing Strategist at BuzzShout, and Myles Weissleder, SF NewTech Meetup celebrated yet another new milestone of over 600 members.

The November SF NewTech seemed to come up pretty quickly this time. And, it rained again (October’s event greeted us with rain as well) – let’s hope this isn’t a pattern!

As usual Myles kicked things off to what had to be the largest turnout yet. The event attracted the usual faces, with some new additions as well, including CEOs, founders, VCs, programmers, bloggers, and a reporter (Rafe Needleman of course.) Quick tangent here, I think it’s very cool that Rafe takes the time to stay tapped into the community.

The only thing that I would like to see improved for the next meetup is the removal of all PowerPoint decks. Demos are cool and. I’m there to see new tech. Slides are boring and very 1.0.

First up…iStumbler.com

Alf Watt, iStumbler.com

Myles described it in advance, “Alf is one of my oldest friends in San Francisco. He has been working on his revolutionary wireless discovery tool for Mac for a long time and he’s excited to share it with us. It’s called iStumbler and it’s pretty damn cool.

iStumbler is a wireless discovery tool for Mac OS X, providing plugins for finding AirPort networks, Bluetooth devices and Bonjour services with your Mac.

—-

Bart Myers, GUBA, the grand daddy of online video

Sort of a cross between Bittorrent and YouTube, GUBA is an online entertainment destination where users can browse, download, share and buy user-generated content, as well as hundreds of movies and TV shows. Their site advertises movies for $0.99 and TV shows for $0.49.

Using, GUBA, GUB’ers (just made that up) can download content to their PC, iPod, PSP, and other portable devices. Users can watch videos in Flash, QuickTime, Windows Media formats, and can stream videos in their home network using Windows Media Center and Apple’s Front Row technology.

Founded in 1998, GUBA is privately held company and headquartered in San Francisco.
When asked, Why GUBA, Myers replied, “We’re cooler. It’s not just a place to get a movie, it’s a place to find entrainment and watch it, when you want to, how you want to.”

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Veronica Belmont, Molly Wood, CNET TV

CNET TV is striving to become a popular destination wit its unique design and personalization features, which includes a virtual remote control, a “draggable” interface so users can move things around, full-screen playback, playlists, and customizable channels and backgrounds. With more than 30 original videos produced each week and a library of thousands of videos,

CNET TV gives people a single destination to easily find the latest videos on their favorite technology products and topics. Video features include the Buzz Report, Car Tech, Insider Secrets, Prize Fight and First Look from the Lab that help consumers figure out what gadgets to buy and how to get the most out them.

It also makes a selection of the site’s popular video content available for distribution on television.

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Mital Poddar, Swapthing.com

Based in Cupertino, SwapThing enables the swapping (trade and barter) of any combination of items and services between consumers and small businesses, as well as direct purchases. SwapThing is swap-based, as opposed to auction-based, allowing completely private, one-on-one negotiations. SwapThing offers free registration and listing for items, with a low transaction fee of $1.00 for each exchange of goods.

The company also introduced SwapServices, which allows small businesses, service providers, and independent professionals to advertise their business, swap services, and save money.Mital also mentioned that the company’s Swapcircles equals its secret sauce.

a SwapCircle is a community of individuals who identify with a particular activity, locality or other commonality. SwapCircles provide a new way to swap goods and services amongst trusted swappers with similar hobbies or interests. SwapCircles are customizable with a group’s logo and mission, as well as displaying the items listed by the members under one umbrella, and also provide a private forum for members to talk, swap, and share ideas and stories.Currently, there are over 50,000 swappers using SwapThing, and over 3,000,000 items and services listed.
When asked about the biggest swap she knew about, Poddar replied, “A Maserati for two jet skis!”

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Joost shreve, Everytrail.com

A last minute addition to the line-up, Everytrail.com was created by a small group of passionate travel and outdoor enthusiasts, out of dissatisfaction with current solutions to share trips with friends and likeminded people.

EveryTrail is an online platform that enables hikers and adventurers to visualize their travel and outdoor activities and even share them with likeminded people all over the world. Users can easily upload GPS data recorded while out on the trail and even add photos and notes, to create a visual record of their outdoor activity.

I see this for having huge opportunities not just for hikes, but also boating (throughout the delta for example. What a way to chart a course, without having to buy an expensive chartplotter. Of course, mountain bikers, skiers, snowboarders, kayakers, etc. can benefit from this technology as well.

The service just needs the ability to provide a printed map service, which according to Joost, are on the way.

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Vic Podcaster, Joanne Wan, and Ben Wan

James Yu of BuzzShout

Scott Beale of Laughing Squid and Vic Podcaster of HotfromSiliconValley

In the shot, Stowe Boyd, Rafe Needleman, Niall Kennedy

For additional pictures, jump over to flickr.

This month’s event was sponsored byFutureWorks PR for emerging companies (Andrew Lane Wines)

Jacobs & Ferraro, LLP Tech-focused legal firm (beer and snacks.)

The Forbin Group Infrastructure design solutions for business (pizza) Joel Sacks and CNET for the space!

Tags: everytrail sf newtech meetup scott+beale scottbeale niallkennedy niall+kennedy vic+podcaster vicpodcaster hotfromsiliconvalley cnet rafeneedleman rafe+needleman stoweboyd stowe+boyd ben+wan benwan joannewan joanne+wan swapthing istumbler futureworks cnettv cnet+tv guba buzzshout joel+sacks james+yu veronica+belmont