Comments on: TwitSpace: A Twitter UI Improvement That Ruined It

By: andrewhyde

andrewhyde — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:59:54 +0000

very well put!

By: andrewhyde

andrewhyde — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:59:07 +0000

I agree with you, it is easy to follow idiots.

The point is that this leads to a poor user experience. I have 5 emails from the same person trying to follow me, and when I don't follow back, unfollowing me and then following me again. If this becomes common place, it sucks for everyone.

By: andrewhyde

andrewhyde — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:59:54 +0000

very well put!

By: andrewhyde

andrewhyde — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:59:07 +0000

I agree with you, it is easy to follow idiots.

By: Colin

Colin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:39:18 +0000

One of the beauties of twitter is that you can just ignore the people who follow you. The number of people who follow me is twice the number of people I follow myself. I block the occasional annoying spammer but mostly I don't care. All my posts are public anyways and have been since the beginning so what do I care if some dorky social media guru wonk in kansas is following me and 10,000 other people.

If it bugs you that random idiots can follow you then make all your posts private. Privatizing your posts has been part of the twitter UI from the beginning for just this very reason.

By: Jmartens

Jmartens — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:34:10 +0000

Interesting observation about the UI change and its effect on spam. I hadn't noticed it myself but now that you point it out, it makes perfect sense.

By: hubs

hubs — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:53:19 +0000

Twitter stated in their API instructions that this change in the user interface would happen a long time ago. The UI change is somewhat recent, the fact that it was going to happen isn't.

By: Elena

Elena — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:06:33 +0000

In my estimation, the points you bring up about twitter “spammers” are less the fault of a UI change than the fault of human tendencies toward egoism, self-importance, and pure old fashioned greed on an ever-growing Twitterized scale. Personally, I'm so over reading about how twitter can be used to push and market one's brand, and to make one lots and lots of money. The great thing is that I don't have to read those people's “updates”. I simply ignore or unfollow. I'm much more interested in keeping up with journalists and contributing members to our community than self-inflated social media experts. Hope you're not down too long.

By: anthelios77

anthelios77 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:57:41 +0000

That is true. I guess what we will be left with in the end is word-of-mouth.. I see ill in people gaming the system with bots and stuff but luckily it can be kept out of my sphere of the Twitterverse. And hopefully the serious folks will not game the system cause they want the good followers. Quality over quantity!

By: andrewhyde

andrewhyde — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 07:26:39 +0000

I think this is part of a larger conversation about the community of twiiter (very interesting) and the twitter app (very bland and unresponsive).

Ball is in the users court to voice their opinions on the subject matter. Then it will be in the companies.