Why Twitter is Wrong about @replies

Recently Twitter made an announcement that they were changing the way our tweetstreams worked. They say it’s because the old way was too confusing. It wasn’t all that confusing to me, or to anyone with half a brain and an attention span surpassing that of a 6 week old puppy.

Here’s what happened:

When you sign up for twitter you are (or, you WERE) given an option with regard to reading the messages of the people you chose to follow. You could either:

• read everything they wrote (including messages to people you don’t follow)
• read only the messages they send to the general public and those directed specifically to you (called @replies in twitter-speak.)

The first option works like this: I follow  my friend “Joe” but I don’t follow “Jane.” because I don’t know her. Joe says to Jane “@Jane hey what’s going on tonight? Did you want to go see this show? <insert link to show>.” I can see this message, and I realize that Jane’s a big fan of my favorite band. I can reply to Joe that I am already going to that show, and I will meet him there, and I can check out Jane’s tweet and maybe choose to follow Jane too, since we seem to have something in common. Connections formed. Social networking just happened. Hooray.

The second option means that I would have never seen the conversation at all and may have skipped the show because no one I knew was going. Boo. Maybe I stay at home and slice my wrists open in the tub because no one understands me. You never know.

Now Twitter has removed the ability for us to choose the first option, meaning that I can no longer see conversations that are happening unless I already follow both of the parties involved. Those conversations are invisible to me, as if they aren’t taking place. Since Twitter is ostensibly a service dedicated to networking and building connections between people, this makes absolutely no sense. Especially as what they took away was not mandatory before, but something people could easily turn off for themselves.

Twitter needs open @replies for two reasons:

1. Reading one side of a conversation between someone you know and someone you don’t know is a good way to get to know new people. Taking this feature away prevents new connections forming spontaneously. Consistently seeing what looked like funny/interesting messages directed at one person would make me interested in following them. It’s probably how I also gained most of my followers too, since they saw their friends talking to me. If you think about this in meatspace terms, it’s like being out at the bar and seeing your friend having an animated discussion with someone you don’t know. If that looks good enough you’d probably want to walk up and join them, and be introduced to the new person, right? Well, the way Twitter has now configured things, it’s like every time your friend walks away from you at the bar to talk to someone else, they become invisible – as does the person they’re talking to. So you’re left standing on your own with a watered-down drink in your hands, wondering why there’s no one cool to meet in this place. Wow, that’s really sociable of you, Twitter. Now, I could make periodic visits to my friends’ pages, checking who they’re following, clicking each person’s avatar to read their recent tweets (if their stream is even public) and deciding whether to follow them or not. But realistically, I won’t do that. And I could wait for people I follow to tell me specifically to follow other users – but many times they won’t do that. I certainly never pimp out any of my friends or tell other people to follow them.
2. Some of Twitter’s most-followed members converse with a larger audience via @replies directed to people that the rest of their followers don’t already follow. Taking this feature away breaks the communication model for those users. Take @neilhimself (Neil Gaiman) for instance. He is a big Twitter user at the moment, and has more than 300k followers. People ask him lots of questions, and he is kind enough to reply to many of them. Of course he doesn’t want to reply to the same question over and over, but it was easy enough to follow his stream and see that he tweeted @ someone else about the book signing you were interested in, or why he didn’t get a haircut, or whatever. If you have a look at his tweetstream, it’s 90% @replies to his followers. Yeah, that means he tweets a lot, and I have to filter out a lot of noise. But at the same time, I also learn the answers to questions I didn’t even know I wanted to ask. It’s impractical for Twitter to assume that all of us will start to follow all 300k followers of his, just in case he answers a question, posts a great link or recommends a book or a song or a site  in a reply directed to someone else.

What they should have done.

What Twitter SHOULD have done is implement selective open replies. Let users choose how much they want to read from each of the people they follow. I have been craving this feature for a long time, because people use Twitter in different ways, some of which are interesting to me, and some of which aren’t.

• There are some people I follow who use Twitter mostly as a broadcast medium. They post interesting observations and cool links, and they have some limited back and forth discussions with other interesting people. I want to continue to read their all of their tweets, so that I can eavesdrop on these interesting conversations and find new people to follow.
• There are other people I follow who use Twitter more as an IM client, constantly @replying everyone in the universe, and seemingly about the dullest things in the world. There are people whose individual tweets I like, but I have nevertheless unfollowed because they @replied too many people that I didn’t know or want to know. For those people I would like to turn off following @replies unless I follow both parties already.

I am not a programmer, I don’t know what offering these options would take to implement. But I do know that dumbing things down is only going to piss people off and cause extra problems when users try to circumvent the system. Right now you can get around the @replies thing by adding some extra characters in front of the person’s name.

For instance: if you don’t follow @superbadgirl, and I start out a tweet with “@superbadgirl” the system recognizes that as an @reply and you won’t see it. However if I say “To: @superbadgirl” or “Dear @superbadgirl” or even “: @superbadgirl” then it WILL show up in your stream, because the system just sees that as a normal tweet of mine, in which I mention another person. While this is helpful to ME, because I like to see @replies, it’s going to piss off some people who follow me, and had purposely turned off @replies. Now they have no way to turn this off, because I am doing it manually. They don’t want their streams clogged up with my tweets, and I understand that. But I am nevertheless angry because I can’t read what I want to read. And aggravating your users by preventing some of them reading what they want to read, causing them to force other people to read  a bunch of shit they don’t want to read is FAIL, Twitter – big time FAIL.

This is poorly thought out, poorly communicated and very, very aggravating. I expected better of the people at Twitter, and I am shocked that they did not better assess their members usage patterns before implementing this change. A 10-person focus group would have raised all the same concerns I just expressed here, and taken maybe an hour out of someone’s day.

WTPF Twitter? Get your shit together.

Twitter Cops

Twitter Cops

Twitter Issues?

Someone contacted me tonight to ask why I had removed her from my twitter feed. Only thing was, I hadn’t. For some reason she was getting the message that she wasn’t allowed to see my tweets, even though I had her listed in my followers. She re-sent a request to be added, I re-added her, and all is well and good. However, I am now paranoid that this has happened to other people who follow me, and rather than asking me what happened they’re all “What is up with that crazy bitch? Fuck her!”

So I haven’t recently removed anyone from my twitter feed, if you’re getting a message I did it’s a mistake. Let me know and I will correct it, OK?

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-30

• Carpets = steamed. Bookshelves = dusted. Days at home = not as glamorous as they’re cracked up to be. #
• I would like suggestions for a new playlist — songs which sound all romantical on the surface, but are actually about stalking. #
• One of my personal faves in this genre = “Goodnight and Go” by Imogen Heap http://tinyurl.com/7mptfu #
• Although I am also partial to “Funny Little Frog” by Belle and Sebastian http://tinyurl.com/a26ksu #
• Question is, do we include The Cure’s “Why Can’t I Be You?” or is that just purely about stalking, hold the romance? #
• Ugh. Let candle wick get way too long & smokey. Good news=smoke alarm batteries still good. Bad news=2 dogs now trying to crawl up my legs. #
• Is there a utility to strip the formatting from MySpace pages when you look at them? If not, someone plz invent one, as there is much need. #
• Oh good! More stalker songs. Am assimilating into playlist. #
• http://tinyurl.com/3994zj Ali Krauss, getting her stalker on “Now you tell me that you want to leave me. But darling, I just can’t let you.” #
• OK, that’s two recent book titles that don’t pass the snicker test. 1) “My Attainment of the Pole.” and 2) “I Rose Like a Rocket” #
• Yay! Dave and Kristin are out too! #
• OK, that was super fun! Who knew all the people I liked to talk to hung out in the bar on Mondays? Having a full-time job is for suckers. #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-29

• Dishes=done, laundry=almost done. Kitchen=clean, Feehan book=devoured. Still have overwhelming feeling of FAIL b/c I haven’t yet left house. #
• Running errands. Only store that carries every single thing I want/need is Dierberg’s Brentwood, which is currently nuts to get to. Damn 40. #
• Arsenal Schnuck’s could burn to the ground for all I care. Awful mix of shit no one could ever want + total lack of anything I want + morons #
• The “Shine on Me” Video has erased most of my anger. Tonight I will only punch in the face every 3rd person I see, instead of each one. #
• Every guy in this bar is wearing an identical hat, and all their girlfriends are clones. #
• Also, there’s one excitable guy who keeps yelling HO-LEEE SHIT!!! Everytime someone he knows walks in. #
• Excitable guy sez- “I saw her and I was like ‘WHOA!’ But she was like ‘whoa.’” #
• There is a douchey-hat store somewhere in StL that has taken a major blow to its inventory. #
• That show was freaking packed. Can’t tolerate that crowd + that noise. In and out in 2 seconds, now we’re at my house, watching 300. #
• I’m going to bed & I am turning off my alarm, b/c I don’t have to get up this week! Thank you, fickle labor gods, for your meager blessings. #
• Shhhh. Some of us were trying to sleep in. #
• Royale video on KMOV, complete with annoying ad and terribly forced anchor joviality. http://tinyurl.com/92lbmv #
• There was a series of childhood books that featured pemmican. The Little House series? It’s also eaten at 1:32 in the “Shine on Me” video. #
• I’m no engineer, but I see some inherent issues with the design of this Lego masturbation machine.(Relatively SFW) http://tinyurl.com/7tfntp #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-28

• Awake again. Who the hell ordered up a hurricane for Christmas? Show some consideration for the rest of us, why don’t you? #
• “Weatherproofing” hair stuffs have been accessed & liberally applied. Now it’s all on you John Freida. Let’s not have a repeat of yesterday. #
• Bluebird = massive signage FAIL. Indecipherable logo doesn’t add to your mystique, bra. #
• Awake. Wondering how my house gets so dirty when it’s just me here. Maybe the dirt fairies have been in overnight. #
• Ha! This morning LastFM recommends that I add the band “Stellamara” to my library.http://tinyurl.com/8xfn8a #
• Dear hoosier neighbor: That car will not run, no matter how many noisy things you do to it every GD wknd. Plz give up & stop being annoying. #
• I should be steaming carpets and starting the laundry. Instead I am going to lay on the couch and read new books.Suck it, housework. #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-27

• Lunch w/ @narcise then bank now bookstore. Going to 44 & Lind rather than Brentwood. #
• Back from shopping. New Feehan, bargain Julian Barnes and a new calendar. No Anne Taintor, which is some BS, but I got an Edward Gorey. #
• Humidity, my mortal foe: You think you are clever, sneaking up on me mid-winter. You laugh at my crazy hippie hair. But I’ll outfox you yet. #
• Cannot get my shit together to go out. Must. Go. Do. Something. With. Hair. Srsly. #
• Buncha fuckin’ weirdos. Should never get here ahead of @todderickv on an Eric night. #
• What is the cover for @evad23 show tomorrow? #
• Looks like we’re skipping the Lucas shithouse. #
• Fucking hiccups are some BS. #
• Ugh. Want to go home. Hiccups gone at least. #
• Home. Bed. Bed Bed Bed. OMG Bed please. #
• Woke at 5:30 with major case of brain-immobilizing paranoia. Fought it, slept more. Woke at 7:30 with charley horse. Inauspicious day start. #
• I am on some weird, jet-laggy, dog-induced sleep cycle. I am going back to bed for awhile. #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-26

• Presents opened, no one stabbed anyone else. So far so good. #
• Left house with two bags of loot to give to others. Came home with three bags of loot given to me. Don’t know if that’s a win or a lose. #
• Happiness = one glass of eggnog, three dogs to cuddle, a million lit candles and 1940′s Christmas movies. #
• Awake and wandering aimlessly around the house. I will find a project though. Just you wait. #
• Does anyone know if I am likely to blow up my house by installing my new thermostat? Is that a hardish kind of task that requires an expert? #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-25

• OK in the last two days I’ve done an it’s/its, a their/they’re and a material/materiel. WTF fingers & brain? Don’t abandon me now. #
• Nap=completed. Mother=successfully guilted. Last minute Walgreen’s run, then to @todderickv’s. May do Mangia for drinks and/or dinner. #
• At Mangia for dinner. @todderickv has received his report card, and has a 3.45 friendship GPA. #
• Dinner was delicious. Staying for a drink, then going to look at xmas lights with the top down! #
• Home again home again. Going to cuddle with these little dogs and watch some xmas movies on the teevee before an early night. #
• http://tinyurl.com/9fgqeg Happy Holiday-You-Celebrate-If-You-Celebrate-Anything! Packing up the pack and heading to NoCo for hours of fun. #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-24

• Trying to get my freaking work mailbox < 300MB so I can send messages again. Nice warning IT guys! (It was 700MB) #festivusfeatofstrength #
• http://tinyurl.com/97kkcs Something to keep in mind for all you January jurors. No sex while sequestered. #
• Oh sweet! We all get to go home early! #
• I am home! Home! And I don’t have to go back to that place for many, many days! Life is sweet. Now to take a nap and get rid of headache. #
• Once again, two hours spend downloading and installing updates has crushed my desire to actually do anything creative w/software. #
• Being *technically* able to sleep in doesn’t count for much in the puppy world. They think sleeping in is for suckers. #
• http://tinyurl.com/a8l67c I don’t feel as if I live in this sort of a place, but I guess I do. StL is insane. #
• I just watched the movie “The Darkness” w/Anna Paquin. I am officially terrified of Lena Olin. Again. #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-23

• OK, so poltergeist drain has healed itself overnight. Water gone, draining fine now. Was this a precursor of major plumbing badness to come? #
• http://tinyurl.com/9mastu OK this is hilariously wrong. (Video, some swearing, otherwise SFW.) #
• Saw a few people sliding around on my way to work. Didn’t think it was too bad myself, but I assume it’s going to get worse, so be careful. #
• OK, so Happy Festivus! Who wants to air a grievance, and/or display a feat of strength? I am pondering which is my most pressing grievance. #
• Doctors and other health care workers: You have been assholes and jerked me around all year. Next year is payback. #festivusgrievance #
• Filling out @todderickv’s annual Friendship Report Card. Unfortunately this year has seen him decline in several key areas. #
• It’s a shame really, @todderickv has the potential to be an exceptional friend, if only he would apply himself. #
• http://tinyurl.com/7aah5f Oh holy crap. EffYouPenguin has addressed Fennec foxes. I am slain. #
• Oh goddammit. @UnclePilot is prematurely reflecting on his blessings. Wrong holiday! Today is for bitching. I am making a note in my book. #
• I have successfully recreated the artwork for the Friendship Report Card. If you want a .pdf, DM me your email address (if I don’t have it.) #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-22

• Turned heat down to 65, but it’s so cold downstairs it stayed on all night anyway. So hot in bedroom I was sweating w/o covers. I <3 winter! #
• http://tinyurl.com/7hgzeo Excellent article on holidays & loneliness from Salon, w/absolute phrase of the week: “obligatorily gregarious.” #
• Email to idiot explaining patiently and gently how insanely fuckwitted his ideas are = sent. #
• Dear admin asst from other dept: You have about 5 more minutes of hanging out distracting my staff before I go mental on your lazy ass. #
• This asshole is starting to play hardball. Now appending an ellipsis to each usage of my name in email. Must. Maintain. Sanity. #
• Desk = mostly cleared off. Email = mostly cleared out. Stack of projects on my desk is tidily arranged, if nothing else. #
• Trying to design a stupid flyer, while ill-feeling and on vicodin. My day is very soft around the edges. I can go home soon? #
• Hrm. Vet called, said blood counts are good, I should start to wean Jake off the prednisone. But it’s the vet I hate, so I don’t trust him. #
• My only goal for this evening is to construct and decorate my gingerbread house. And maybe drink some Bailey’s during the process. #
• Does it count as drinking alone if I leave my instant messenger on? #
• Ummm, is there some reason why both sides of my kitchen sink would suddenly stop draining, at once? #
• Dear my house. Seriously. WTF? #
• Gingerbread house done! Sink still farked up. Glamor of home ownership, so long gone. #
• OK so 4 people vote I try some plunging action. Will try that tomorrow. Does anyone know if my dishwasher is likely to have it’s own drain? #
• OMG I misused my “it’s” in that last tweet. Maybe that Bailey’s did have an effect. Can I live down the shame of misused “it’s?” Stay tuned. #
• My back hurts. Tomorrow is my last day of work for the year, thank the FSM. I am going to bed and dreaming of magical drain clearing. #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-21

• Holy shit, it’s colder than a dead witch’s left tit out there. And now my hair is smokey smelling again. Bah. #
• OK, mid-morning nap completed. The wind is apparently trying to blow my dogs into the next century. Now for breakfast. #
• I am watching the most amazing online screed from one of my favorite nutbags. 8 minutes of pure crazyguy rant. #
• Now I’m listening to Julie London “Hot Toddy.” I still don’t know that it’s enough to tempt me out of doors though. This weather is some BS. #
• Leaving in about 30 minutes to pick up a hot slice of @todderickv and go to @theroyale for early dinner. Feel free to join us! #
• Can’t believe I am leaving the house in this BS freezing windstorm. #
• Trying to do a twittervention on Dave, but he still refuses to come to the dark side. #
• Dinner @theroyale was delicious. Sweet potato chips, FTW. #
• Home now. Got a bunch of groceries. Took a Dierberg’s reusable bag into Schnuck’s, to my eternal shame, but didn’t seem to faze anyone else. #
• Can’t wrap my head around the fact that I have to work tomorrow and Tuesday. Break should have started already. #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-20

• Going to bed. Party tomorrow w/work-sponsored drinking, even at breakfast. Don’t think I will drink, but hoping we get to leave early. #
• My vote for most surreal/creepiest ebay auction of all time. (via Craftastrophe, SFW) http://tinyurl.com/6qwg2d #
• I am going to walk up there and destroy that man with the pure waves of fury emanating from my brain. Fuck his retarded fucking fuckery. #
• He makes me SO MAD I CAN’T WORK. Surely there’s a flaw in his logic somewhere? FUCK this fuckwit. #
• Everyone here today is on some kind of wacky-making drugs. I have never had to avert so much nonsense in such a short time span. #
• Off to holiday party with coworkers. Better than a kick in the face, but still not expecting fun. #
• Back from holiday party. I won $50! So that’s drinking money for tonight. Or at SG prices, tonight and tomorrow, and possibly next Friday. #
• Afternoon off, bitches! Going to fight the crowds and do some shopping. #
• Giant giftbuying WIN. Not even too crowded. #
• Wow. Brentwood to southside via Manchester is the suck. #
• What? No ‘thank you’ wave, you cell phone talking motherfucker? I should run into you on principle. #
• Home. Massive shopping excursion. All loot carted into house. Almost completely done with gift-buying, but need to go lie down for a bit. #
• http://twitpic.com/udh2 – Guy at work gave me this b/c it was too small for his dog. Too small for Chelsea too. Anyone have dog less tha … #
• Ready to go out, but kind of just want to stay home with my dogs, cuddling on the couch. #

Daily Miscellany 2008-12-20

• All of you stay at home effers. For serious. OK maybe you chose right. Ppl getting weird. #
• Home. I think there was extra drink in my drinks. @gatewaygroupie @todderickv and @sgthotpants know what’s up. OMG. Bed. #
• Off to wrangle all three chihuahuas to the vet for the chaotic WIN and the financial FAIL. #
• Home! Everyone happy and seemingly healthy. As of Monday Jake is off another med, which brings him down to 2. Much amusement w/all 3 at vet. #
• Napping on couch versus going out for last holiday gift. What to do, what to do? #
• ♪♫ Listening to “I Should Get Up” by Teddy Thompson on @Favtape http://tinyurl.com/ayuhrb #
• My neighbor had a tree taken out, and I have the whole thing on my security camera video. Watching now, feeling vaguely spy-like. #
• Apparently a lot of the science of taking a tree out involves leaning on my fence and strategizing. #
• Wrapping presents and watching The Bourne Supremacy. My head hurts. #
• Presents mostly wrapped. Pondering bed. It’s as windy as all hell out there. #