Reactions to story from ReadWriteWeb - Web Apps, Web Technology Trends, Social Networking & Social Media

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  Looking At Twitters Latest Bump Differently

  http://shegeeks.net/looking-at-twitters-latest-bump-differen...
  44 days ago in SheGeeks · Authority: 390

  Today, I hopped online to news that people were noticed that their number of Twitter followers/followings were completely out of sync. Louis Gray is reporting a significant loss along with a ton of other people, myself included. However, lets really
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  Twitter must be run by a bunch of Clowns

  http://www.geeknewscentral.com/archives/008123.html
  44 days ago in Geek News Central Technical News and Informational Stories · Authority: 306

  Clowns are supposed to make one laugh, they are not supposed to run companies. Twitter continues to be one screw up after the other. This morning I woke up to 300 less followers because these clowns dont have the common sense to test their new anti-spam
• 

  The case of Twitter's missing followers

  http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9998595-2.html?part=rss&...
  44 days ago in Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone - CNET · Authority: 242

  Nothing could have caused more uproar in the blogosphere about Twitter than followers suddenly disappearing. We have all complained about and tolerated Twitter's downtime issues, but seemingly losing your hard-earned followers is something that users
• 

  Around the Web 7.24.08: Microsoft fumbles, Facebook connects, hackers target Google, Apple

  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/07/around-th...
  44 days ago in Technology | Passive-aggressive phone-tag from Slydial | Los Angeles Times · Authority: 878

  -- Who's next in line to run Microsoft's struggling online business? Go ask Steve Ballmer (pictured right) -- or not. Boomtown -- AdMob has got mobile advertising down. TechCrunch -- Opposing Views gives people something to talk about. CNet -- Analyst
• 

  The case of Twitter's missing followers

  http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9998595-2.html?part=rss&...
  44 days ago in Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone - CNET · Authority: 3,257

  Nothing could have caused more uproar in the blogosphere about Twitter than followers suddenly disappearing. We have all complained about and tolerated Twitter's downtime issues, but seemingly losing your hard-earned followers is something that users might not stand for. In an update on the issue on Twitter's status blog, the company said that they are working on restoring the correct follower/following counts. They go on to say that, "Even after this recovery is complete, your counts may appear lower than previously...The counts we display on your profile page are not always up-to-date...when we remove spammers from the system (which we've been doing a lot lately), the follower counts are not updated in real-time." Even though it's great that Twitter is trying to sort through its problems with spammers, decreasing someone's number of followers is going to cause some backlash if it is not communicated properly. The removal of followers, due to spam, may have even gone unnoticed if it wasn't for this larger issue highlighting it. (Credit: TwitterCounter.com) Sarah Perez, at ReadWriteWeb, speculates that the problems arose due to a malfunction of the "Twitter anti-spam bot." As you can see in the image above, I lost 13 percent of my Twitter followers in one fell swoop. Other users have reported a drop in followers still as high as 28 percent, although it appears that the problems are being fixed even as we speak. Even if Twitter is able to fix this problem, it is clear that confidence in the company is shaken. The ever-enthusiastic Louis Gray chimed in, saying, "Every time I think they've captured the market on a single route to failure, they find another way." There is no doubt that Twitter's service is a crowd favorite and everyone is dying to see them succeed and break into the mainstream, but they just keep shooting themselves in the foot with incidents like this. Individually, these sort of problems are tolerable, but when they are all lumped together, like they have been with Twitter, people are not going to stand for it. If Twitter fails, it's not going to be because of other sites like FriendFeed. It's going to be because of themselves. Update We just received an update on the situation from Biz Stone, over at Twitter. He writes, "Some users lost followers as a result of an error during a database upgrade. We replaced followers last night and will be replacing followers today. This is not related to the spam initiative we blogged about the other day." At least Twitter is hard at work trying to remedy the situation.
• 

  Social Media Marketing on Twitter and Squidoo

  http://optimizeyourlife.net/social-media-marketing-on-twitte...
  42 days ago in Optimize Your Life · Authority: 4

  Last week was a very interesting week when it comes to social media marketing. It seems like 2 new heavyweights of social media are emerging, Twitter and Squidoo. Since I joined Twitter in June the buzz has been getting bigger and bigger. Twitter has seen an immense increase in new members and all big names of online marketing are catching up too. This has also causes major issues like long periods of downtimes (the whale). Last week a major breakdown occured when all over sudden peoples followers were deleted and nobody was able to use Twitter for a whole day. Since Twitter lives by a constant stream of new messages this caused quite an uproar in the Twitter community. Despite the trouble Twitter is still a great tool for networking and online marketing. If you have considered joining Twitter there couldn’t be a better time. For starters 2 new free Twitter guides were published last week. One is an ebook by Joel Comm and the other a video guide by Harris Fellman. Both seasoned internet marketers. For advanced twitter users Twitter Squeeze opened is doors. This membership site shows Twitter users how to be more effective on Twitter and how to use it as an effective online marketing tool. Since the price is $20 until the end of July (it will go up after that) it was a no brainer for me to sign up. So far the content is great and I am very excited to learn more advanced Twitter marketing strategies. Another social media site that is gaining momentum in the online marketing community is Squidoo. Squidoo is a great site where users can publish free webpages (lenses) without any html knowledge. This website is especially good for targeting long tail keyword phrases in the organic search engine rankings. I haven’t really used Squidoo a lot even if I knew how effective it is. I just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t waste my time. Well last week another great ebook was released that finally answered all my questions about Squidoo and also offers a step by step manual how to effective market on Squidoo. The ebook is called “The Secret Cash Machine On Squidoo” and I can recommend it to anybody that wants to learn how to use Squidoo to make money online. With all these new developments in social media marketing I am curious to see what comes next. If you want to follow me on Twitter click here.
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  Sind alle Twitterer wieder da?

  http://www.zweipunktnull.org/blog/?p=136
  42 days ago in » zweipunktnull · Authority: 45

  Während heute der alltägliche Twitter-Wahnsinn bezüglich der Downtimes wieder mal seinen Lauf nahm und man es fast schon gelassen zur Kenntnis nimmt, war es doch kürzlich erst noch wesentlich hektischer. Grund waren geheimnisvolle Follower und Friends, die sich scheinbar in virtuelle Luft auflösten. Was von Twitters Seite aus als Verbesserung des Spam-Schutzes gedacht war, entpuppte sich als furchtbares Eigentor, als der Aufschrei der User durch die Blogosphäre hallte, dass man seine Freunde und Follower verliert. Heute geht es uns allen schon wieder ein wenig besser. Nachdem man feststellen musste, dass es gar nicht so einfach ist, aus dem Gedächtnis seine Leute zusammenzutragen, hat Twitter den Karren selbst aus dem Dreck gezogen und die Daten komplett - wie es scheint - wiederhergestellt. Letzte Zweifel bleiben natürlich dennoch und daher bin ich ziemlich froh über den Tipp, den Cem bei Kosertech ausgegraben hat. Demnach - und da hätte man echt vorher mal drauf kommen können *g* - legt man einfach nur sowohl für seine Friends als auch für die Follower ein Backup auf dem Rechner an. Loggt Euch bei Twitter ein Gebt diesen Link ein bzw klickt ihn hier an: http://twitter.com/statuses/followers.xml Speichert diese Datei als XML-Datei Öffnet die XML-Datei mit einem Programm wie Excel oder Open Office und schon habt Ihr Eure Follower auf dem Schirm. Solltet Ihr mehr als 100 Follower haben, gebt für die 2.Seite http://twitter.com/statuses/friends.xml?page=2 an usw. Die gleichen Schritte wiederholt man nun auch für die Friends und zwar mit diesem Link: http://twitter.com/statuses/friends.xml und schon hat man seine kompletten Twitter-Daten auf dem Rechner und kann geschmeidig die nächsten Überraschungen aus dem Hause Twitter abwarten Vielen Dank nochmal an Cem Basman fürs Finden und Bereitstellen dieser Info in seinem Sprechblase-Blog
• 

  Where have all the "twammers" gone? (Twitter Spammers) Hope they don't go to FriendFeed ..

  http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/07/where-have-all.ht...
  43 days ago in Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media · Authority: 594

  Twitter counter On Thursday, a colleague, Rob Cottingham, asked me via Twitter "Are they real people being dropped? Or does Twitter do periodic sweeps for spammers and wipe 'em all at once?" It made wonder what happened to Mr. PharmacyMan who used to follow me on Twitter and seems to no longer be amongst my followers, along with 300 others. CNET published this article reporting on two reasons why followers are going down. Apparently there was a database glitch where followers were dropped (that was fixed). The other "Twammers" are twitter spammers. Here's the official update from the Twitter Blog and more analysis from Read/Write Web. In the NpTech FriendFeed Room, Marnie Webb pointed to and commented about this post about the recent Twitter issues, "Why Twitter Must Die." The post talks about how Twitter's loyal fans have stuck around through technical failures (like Fail Whale): While this looks like simple codependence, Twitter’s users haven’t stuck around through the service’s flailings out of blind loyalty, brand attachment, or gratitude. They’ve hung on for something quite tangible: their commnities. On Twitter, users create their own communities over time, choosing to follow or be followed by others. This is the secret sauce of social media. Each user’s community is different and unique to the service. In fact, to the user, community is the service. Earlier this week, I participated as a guest on an NTEN Webinar by John Kenyon and when we discussed Twitter - there were questions about whether it is best to use Twitter as to distribute information about your organization's programs or as a conversation tool. That's a conversation happening in other nonprofit spaces on the Web. I've analyzed my use of Twitter and its impact on my blog and I have found the latter approach to be far more effective in building an audience for my blog (RSS subscribers) and other efforts. But yet I worry about having a community linked to a platform. So over the past few months, while I'm still using Twitter, I also do a lot over at FriendFeed. (Alltop recently created the Frienderati - the list of the 100 top users - if you're wondering who to follow) Jeremiah Owyang (who also wrote about the Twitter dropping followers issues) shared an insight about his own Twitter/FriendFeed patterns. If you’re creating, or critiquing a lot of social content on the web (or are a creator/critic/collector/joiner), you’ve probably noticed that it’s disjointed – content is spread all over the place. If you are regularly creating, rating, ranking content on more than 5 social websites, you should also consider aggregating all of that on Friendfeed. He goes on to point out the conversational or discussion orientation at FriendFeed -- the commenting on threads and rooms. I've really been enjoying the FriendFeed NpTech Room (thanks Jcolman). Right now the noise level is lower than Twitter and there is more conversation around the intentional items shared. I'm also finding a few other rooms related to my interest of value. As Chris Baskind points out in his post about Twitter, platform, and community: There are plenty of great alternatives to Twitter these days, and more in the pipeline. Move your communities over. Create new ones. If you’re on more than one platform, all the better. But clinging to Twitter’s smoking ruin is both servile and counterproductive. You and your community deserve better. Our future communities on other services deserve better. Twitter must die. Are you investing in community building on Twitter alternatives? Why or why not?
• 

  Where have all the "twammers" gone? (Twitter Spammers) Hope they don't go to FriendFeed ..

  http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/07/where-have-all.ht...
  43 days ago in Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media · Authority: 460

  Twitter counter On Thursday, a colleague, Rob Cottingham, asked me via Twitter "Are they real people being dropped? Or does Twitter do periodic sweeps for spammers and wipe 'em all at once?" It made wonder what happened to Mr. PharmacyMan who used to follow me on Twitter and seems to no longer be amongst my followers, along with 300 others. CNET published this article reporting on two reasons why followers are going down. Apparently there was a database glitch where followers were dropped (that was fixed). The other "Twammers" are twitter spammers. Here's the official update from the Twitter Blog and more analysis from Read/Write Web. In the NpTech FriendFeed Room, Marnie Webb pointed to and commented about this post about the recent Twitter issues, "Why Twitter Must Die." The post talks about how Twitter's loyal fans have stuck around through technical failures (like Fail Whale): While this looks like simple codependence, Twitter’s users haven’t stuck around through the service’s flailings out of blind loyalty, brand attachment, or gratitude. They’ve hung on for something quite tangible: their commnities. On Twitter, users create their own communities over time, choosing to follow or be followed by others. This is the secret sauce of social media. Each user’s community is different and unique to the service. In fact, to the user, community is the service. Earlier this week, I participated as a guest on an NTEN Webinar by John Kenyon and when we discussed Twitter - there were questions about whether it is best to use Twitter as to distribute information about your organization's programs or as a conversation tool. That's a conversation happening in other nonprofit spaces on the Web. I've analyzed my use of Twitter and its impact on my blog and I have found the latter approach to be far more effective in building an audience for my blog (RSS subscribers) and other efforts. But yet I worry about having a community linked to a platform. So over the past few months, while I'm still using Twitter, I also do a lot over at FriendFeed. (Alltop recently created the Frienderati - the list of the 100 top users - if you're wondering who to follow) Jeremiah Owyang (who also wrote about the Twitter dropping followers issues) shared an insight about his own Twitter/FriendFeed patterns. If you’re creating, or critiquing a lot of social content on the web (or are a creator/critic/collector/joiner), you’ve probably noticed that it’s disjointed – content is spread all over the place. If you are regularly creating, rating, ranking content on more than 5 social websites, you should also consider aggregating all of that on Friendfeed. He goes on to point out the conversational or discussion orientation at FriendFeed -- the commenting on threads and rooms. I've really been enjoying the FriendFeed NpTech Room (thanks Jcolman). Right now the noise level is lower than Twitter and there is more conversation around the intentional items shared. I'm also finding a few other rooms related to my interest of value. As Chris Baskind points out in his post about Twitter, platform, and community: There are plenty of great alternatives to Twitter these days, and more in the pipeline. Move your communities over. Create new ones. If you’re on more than one platform, all the better. But clinging to Twitter’s smoking ruin is both servile and counterproductive. You and your community deserve better. Our future communities on other services deserve better. Twitter must die. Are you investing in community building on Twitter alternatives? Why or why not?

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