When I started blogging in 1994 the consensus was "there's no new software for the Mac." So when you showed reporters new Mac software it didn't register.

We're all in a perpetual haze, we see what we expect to see. We expect there are no new Twitter apps, so even if there are, we don't see them.

I tried an experiment in the summer. I developed a few software snacks, useful tools for people who use Twitter seriously, to see if there was any life in the Twitter platform. I think they're good stuff. Useful. Filling necessary gaps. But except for one article in TechCrunch about Little Pork Chop they didn't generate any interest in the press, where the consensus is as it was with the Mac 20 years ago. No. New. Apps.

But as we saw with the Mac, this can be turned around. I think it's worth it to do so. Twitter still has unique capabilities. When it started I hoped it would be an Internet-scale notification system. It's even more possible today, because of its stability and ubiquity. Many of the people I'd like to have on my network are already on Twitter.

If Twitter wants new apps, it seems to me, they have to tell people there are new apps, bang the drum repeatedly to penetrate the fog. That's the way the human mind works.

Technically, there's nothing wrong with the Twitter platform that a little developer support and evangelism, marketing and love, couldn't solve.