Blogging, podcasting and Twitter. Which one is a private corporation?

I’m really thrilled with all the attention identi.ca is getting. Identi.ca is a new open-source microblogging platform. I think we’ve all felt a need for more competition in the microblogging field - rather than depending on a single microblogging company (Twitter).

I’ve also been disappointed with the lack of progress with Twitter. I’ve complained before that while most new applications suffer from feature-creep, Twitter suffers from feature-sleep. They’ve done almost nothing to make the service more useful or compelling since they started. It seems like all their time is spent trying to keep up with the growing demand for their servers.

Feature Idea for identi.ca

Respond to direct messages via email

In Twitter, you often get direct (private) messages sent to you via email. But to respond, you have to log back into Twitter and message that person. If someone is direct messaging me - it means they want to take the conversation off-line. There should be an option in identi.ca to allow users to take their conversations off-line and respond to direct messages via email.

Update: Go read Hugh McGuire’s post, “Why identi.ca matters” - this is basically the post I wanted to write.