At its core, Twitter is just three fairly simple things.

1. A simple way to post short status updates.
2. A list of people who’s post you follow.
3. A timeline that mashes the posts from those people together into one stream.

Every piece of the puzzle was there long before Twitter. For posting we had, and still have, blogs. For following we have things like blogrolls, remember those? And the timeline is just a river style feed reader.

The indie web movement are trying to recreate this, but I think what they/we lack is a turn-key solution for new users to get all this. The pieces are there, but they need to be combined.

Today I learned more about an upcoming service that I’ve been keeping my eye on for some time, that will bring these pieces together in what looks like a great way. Exciting times!