Twitter Without Replies

Published
by
philcrissman
on June 24, 2008
in microbloggy
.

As is no doubt well covered, Twitter has been without the “replies” feature for some time tonight.

So, now what? I realized within a few minutes that the main reason I spend any time on Twitter is to check the replies tab. Yes, I push stuff out there, everyone does; but that’s only part of the point.

Twitter was conceived as a sort of “presence” service. I’m doing this. I’m watching that. I’m at home, work, I’m sleeping, I’m sick/tired/well/happy/bored/confused/apathetic. I don’t think that it’s difficult to argue, however, that Twitter became a lot more than that, and that the real attraction of Twitter is the conversation (or, at least, the pseudo-conversation).

I’d feel comfortable saying that the @ replies are what made Twitter avoid being merely a curiousity, and turned it to a killer app.
Continue reading ‘Twitter Without Replies’

WWDC Casualty: Summize

Published
by
philcrissman
on June 9, 2008
in Asides
.

While Twitter is weathering WWDC, Summize’s WWDC coverage is giving a “500 Server Error” page, as of this writing.

A prettier way to see WWDC updates from Twitter is Twistori/#wwdc, which seems to be running fine.

UPDATE: Perhaps I spoke too soon; Twitter has been having a few troubles; but, it’s back now, so… kudos to Twitter, again.

Replies Are Optional

Published
by
philcrissman
on June 9, 2008
in microbloggy
.

WWDC was evidently creating quite a load on Twitter… you might have noticed that the Replies tab was actually disabled for a while this morning (I was not quick enough to grab a screenshot; oh well).

Wait… replies? Yes. I guess they’re optional.

That said, it is working now, and twitter seems to be fine, so far.

Ping.fm Invite Code

Published
by
philcrissman
on June 9, 2008
in microbloggy
.

If you’re interested in trying out the Ping.fm service, which allows you to update multiple microblog-type sites in one fell swoop, you may want to visit the Ping.fm sign up page, and use the code “tastyping”.

I’m not sure yet if I will be using this much; I rarely want to post the same thing to every site I use… and FriendFeed’s aggregation of other sites also makes this a great way to have a lot of duplicates in some areas. But for some, it may be useful.

What do you think of this sort of thing?

New Twitter Limitations

Published
by
philcrissman
on June 9, 2008
in microbloggy
.

Jeffro reports there are new Twitter limitations on following and updating.

I’d echo yes, this seems like a good idea.

So far, my feeling is still that Twitter’s core user base will not abandon ship while they are fixing their architecture and in other ways resolving their issues. A bad sign for Twitter is that I’m increasingly seeing people use a different service as “their new Twitter” (see Leo Laporte’s first comment in this FriendFeed discussion). However, a stable, robust Twitter could still win these people back, I think.

FriendBinder Sends You Away

Published
by
philcrissman
on June 6, 2008
in Asides
.

I like FriendBinder so far. The ability to see all my people’s updates from different sites in a plain chronological list is very cool.

What I’m missing is the interaction… I can see any and all updates in status people have made, things they’ve written… but to actually comment on or in any way respond to any given item, I need to go to another site.

Having said that; I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I’m reminded of Dave Winer’s statement that the best way to have a site that people want to go to is to send them away:

People come back to places that send them away. Memorize that one.

So maybe FriendBinder’s static display of updates is not such a bad idea. I guess time will tell. As it is, between the bacn (:sigh, yes I’m actually using the term) and sites like FriendBinder, I’m finding that I don’t actually ever need to visit Facebook at all, unless I actually need to respond to something there that I can’t do from anywhere else. To me, that is valuable.

On Noise

Published
by
philcrissman
on June 6, 2008
in Asides
.

Read/Write Web talks about noise… Link

Twitter Groups

Published
by
philcrissman
on June 5, 2008
in microbloggy
.

Mashable reports Twitter is working on groups.

I’d welcome this feature; I predict, however, that we’re going to hear a chorus asking why work on a new feature, given issues the service is already having?

Then again, I wonder if people spending time only in groups, in smaller subsets of followers/followees, might actually lessen the load on the server?

Discrepancies

Published
by
philcrissman
on June 5, 2008
in Asides
.

Discrepancies

Our Webserves: They Has Discrepancies.

Published
by
philcrissman
on June 5, 2008
in microbloggy
.

Our webserves. They has discrepancies.

I’m telling you, this blog writes itself.