They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and if that's the case then Twitter must be one of the most lauded sites around. The micro-blogging site allows users to send updates (or Tweets) of 140 characters or less - to accommodate mobile phones and their limit on the length of text messages - and has enjoyed a spectacular rise in popularity. In fact, it was the huge surge in users in its early life that created the biggest problems - and the most criticisms - for Twitter as their servers struggled - and often failed - to cope with the massive demand its users created.
However, help has never been far away as opportunist webmasters have looked to copy Twitter's formula to steal some of its members and give relief to the burgeoning Twitter servers. German sites were the first to try it out with many hoping to cash in on Twitter's success - Frazr, Sloggen, Wamadu, Faybl and 1you were all similar enough to be classed as clones. According to news site TechCrunch Duduku was another that tried and failed as the website was quickly put on eBay in an attempt to claim back some of the start up costs.
Other sites have taken the basic Twitter principle and tried to do something different with it. Gospelr has the same basic set up but it has been developed for the Christian community, Blip aims to bring together music fans and allows people access to streaming songs and the ability to create their own music station, while Twatr was set up for people with a heavy adult interest (although this site, despite its great name, seems to have disappeared now).
Koornk (a distorted Slovene word for a chicken coop, apparently) is the latest micro-blogging site to hit the net and it's as close to a duplicate site as possible. Both the function and the design (including colour scheme and a bird as a mascot) of Twitter have been mirrored and users have been left wondering what the difference really is.
With so much attention being focused on Twitter, it's no surprise that Facebook coveted the site as and although Twitter are standing strong in their attempt to remain independent they might want to watch out for one of their clones making good use of Facebook's vast sums of money.
