New site Twingr offers the chance to set up your own microblogging community on a hosted platform – unlike previous options like Laconi.ca, which required you to install the service on your own server.
It seems like a no brainer, but I think there’s one major flaw in the service – critical mass.
One of the successful implentations of Laconica, is Leo Laporte’s TWiT Army, fed from the TWiT Netcast Network, and therefore having enough of a community and interaction to ensure a reasonably constant flow of updates. Meanwhile, there are several options for corporate enterprise solutions, notably Yammer, as a hosted microblogging platform.
But Twingr is external facing, and relies on people wanting to create a group fo sufficient interactivity to seperate itself from the crowd – yet not wanting to host the service, and therefore removing any options to monetise it.
For those small groups, a more general service like Ning would probably offer more scope for interaction, allowing you to upload images and files etc, as well as messaging and forums, meaning a stronger community from a smaller number of participants.
And there’s also no scope to check out and join existing groups, meaning that duplication and confusion may lead to ever smaller splinter groups – is there a need for microblogging for a group of 5 friends who already communicate via IM, Twitter, Facebook etc?
Having said that, if you’re interested, here’s the introductory video – and if you do use it, I’d be really interested in hearing how you get on: