```json
{
    "title": "identi.ca and Penalty of Success",
    "url": "https://performancezen.com/2008/07/03/identica-and-penalty-of-success/",
    "datePublished": "2008-07-03",
    "dateModified": "2008-07-03",
    "language": "en-US",
    "description": "The latest \"rage\" flooding through the social-media world is identi.ca, a Twitter-like micro-blogging service that is built on open-source servers and code. As with anything that becomes an overnight sensation,…",
    "author": "spierzchala",
    "publisher": "Performance Zen"
}
```

# identi.ca and Penalty of Success

The latest "rage" flooding through the social-media world is [identi.ca](http://identi.ca/), a [Twitter](http://twitter.com/)-like micro-blogging service that is built on open-source servers and code.
As with anything that becomes an *overnight sensation*, the problems of success tend to follow. Using [GrabPERF](http://grabperf.org/), I have been monitoring the HTML download time of my [personal message stream](http://identi.ca/crazycanuck). The results have been interesting.
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/spierzchala/2633979563/](http://www.flickr.com/photos/spierzchala/2633979563/)

Much has been made of social-media *leaders* that says that this is a clone, and that it is slow, etc. But, as has also been noted, it is:

 A one-person operation
 open-source code
 willing to admit that it needs to grow.

So, one-day never makes a performance trend. Over the last week, in my day job, I have watched a large online retailer suffer a similar fate to this newcomer to the social-media arena.
And if everyone who was willing to wait for Twitter to recover waited ten seconds for identi.ca to catch up, then there is a good chance that it may stand a chance of becoming a true competitor, pushing performance improvement.
[Plurk](http://plurk.com/) was a non-starter for the twitterati. [Jaiku](http://jaiku.com/) has lost momentum, and is failing Google in the same way that [Orkut](http://orkut.com/) did. And [Pownce](http://pownce.com/)...what is that?
I hold out high hopes for identi.ca, if only to keep Twitter truly honest.