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A prosperous homework assignment on Twitter∝

The goal of the homework assignment was to design a system that would create a behavior change in a group of test subjects. The behavior change that I picked was getting people to follow me on Twitter.

I guessed that if I programatically favorited people’s tweets, they would get a notification about it, and might decide to follow me. It worked, and it worked well.

Myles Recny is pretty impressive. Favorites are fare game if you ask me (read the comments if you want an insider look on Hacker News’ vitriol and anger on spam favorites, which literally makes no sense). If I had this as an assignment, I would be pretty lost.

Carbon∝

Carbon - Twitter client app

Carbon is a modern Android Twitter client. It looks great. I set my Carbon to use three panes, one for the regular Twitter timeline, one for mentions and the last for direct messages (all four I get per year). The app is consistently dark, which is great on a phone with a black bezel and for those indoors all day. Tapping on a tweet brings up a side-pane that tells you information like client sent from, time, and gives access to in-tweet links, replies, reweeting, favoriting and so on. Of course, as standard these days, it has a conversation view which has a novel design effect when used. Long pressing on a tweet in the timeline will open a smaller in-line interaction bar for tweeting and replying too. There’s a great favorites tab too, which is handy for reviewing the news you’ve saved through the day. Pulling to refresh makes the entire timeline slide back away from the top of the screen which looks stunning visually. I have extensive screenshots detailing Carbon. Seriously, look at them.

While all of this is great, there are two sad aspects. The first is that I cannot simply share a tweet by long pressing into the in-line interaction bar — there’s no sharing action there. I have to tap into the tweet pane and then share that’s also hidden in the menu button. I frequently share to Evernote and Pocket. The second is that this application is free. I would pay for something this great — maybe $2 or $3.

The genesis of Twitter applications that I have used is long and difficult. I started, as did everyone, with the native Android app, then I moved to Tweet Lanes in Spring last year. That fell away when the developer, at the hands of Twitter, saw no market. I migrated to Tweetings by Thanksgiving last year. Tweeter is a great medium, but the app is what makes the messages in the medium possible. No client is the end all, be all, so this isn’t the last, but it may just become the current.

Twitter needs bigger IDs∝

Facebook went through this transition a few years ago with its users without a single person in the real world noticing. Developers nailed it. This isn’t rocket surgery. They’ll nail it here too.

TweetLanes status∝

It’s sad that TweetLanes, a great Twitter app for Android, will basically end active development. Twitter’s decision essentially forces me to do one of two things: begin using their pretty horrible app on Android or alternatively, stop using Twitter.

So the choices we make matter here.

Tweetbot for Mac

The release of the astoundingly great Tweetbot for Mac came out yesterday. But along with it, the $20 price tag caused horrendous outrage. Here are my thoughts.

I have seen people compare Tweetbot’s price to the update between 10.7 and 10.8 — let’s get this straight; that upgrade was for the price of the new features. Your Mac already had a completely stable and usable OS; 10.8 just added features and minor refinements. Tweetbot’s price covers a complete feature that was not present previously nor subsided by relatively high hardware prices.

Angry Birds is priced in tiers, cheap on iPhone, mid-range on iPad and the most expensive on OSX. As far as one can tell, the price is related to the screen size, which is fair, because each gets progressively more expensive. Tweetbot, though, is the same price on both its iOS versions for iPhone and iPad: $2.99. The Mac version costs $20. That’s a huge difference.

The stated reason, I guess, is that Twitter messed everything up for Tweetbot when tokens for users became limited. Limiting tokens put a hardcap on the number of users an app could have, which means a hardcap on the earnings from the app. To make up for the smaller set of tokens for Tweetbot, they decided to have a high price for the app. I wonder about this though: with the price so high, what will happen when the beta testers (while the app was free) don’t actually go out and buy the app, but leave their Tweetbot token to languish? Or does the released version use a different token?

Update

Neal Young sent me a link to clarify about the token situation.

If you’ve used the Alphas/Betas and have decided not to purchase, please do us a huge favor and Revoke access; that frees up extra tokens for potential customers (the betas will expire anyways).

$20 for a Twitter seems high, but I wouldn’t mind an alternative. Paying the developers $10 for a great looking and well working app seems fine for correspondingly priced apps on iOS, and paying $10 to Twitter for less ads, more tokens and maybe more friendliness.

Just so you know: I bought Tweetbot.

Obscuring Twitter clients, by Twitter∝

If Twitter kills IFTTT then you can not only say goodbye to my blog’s twitter and The Nexus’ twitter, but potentially thousands of other automated accounts. Sure, we’re not there yet, but seriously, a few pixels of space for another company or service wouldn’t hurt Twitter at all – but this is just more bad press, which definitely does.

Tweetbot alpha pulled∝

Tweetbot intends to make money from their software, and their software only works when they have enough user tokens to distribute.

This Twitter situation is getting utterly ridiculous.

Tapbots: Don’t Panic∝

Tweetbot for Mac is coming out soon, Tweetbot for iOS isn’t going anywhere. So sit down, grab a towel and let’s go over some of these API changes.

As long as Tapbots’ okay with it, I am too.

Critical Mass Makes It Fun∝

Dan Frommer on Dalton Caldwell’s App.net:

The real question, of course, is whether enough people will use the new service to make it fun and interesting. Social networks become exponentially more useful and valuable as more people join. And I don’t think most of the people I follow on Twitter give a damn about switching to a new Twitter — especially one they have to pay for.

That is what everyone thought when Facebook emerged and the critical mass was on MySpace. Twitter has not had a competitor steal away its mass yet.

What piques my interest is this:

Then, of course, the problem of living up to your promises. (One potential problem is that this is still one company controlling everything.)

I envision a Twitter-like service more akin to WordPress.org and WordPress.com — people that want to leave it to someone else will run on Twitter-like.com and those that want to take the experience into their own hands can run on Twitter-like.com installations. (Please note: I have no idea what I am talking about.)

Weekly Twitter Chronicles for 2011-03-20

  • After using Android on the Opitmus for a month, I miss the retnia display on the iPod touch the most. #
  • The Ï€ is a lie… Happy Half Tau Day! http://t.co/YIjs0hN via @tauday #
  • At work. Excel 2 tonight. #
  • Steps to update website: boot linux vm, ssh into dev server at home, checkout files, edit files, ftp finished files to remote server. Done. #
  • @nealyoung I want one for Windows. #
  • I'm looking for a website that used -webkit-mask-image, had changing Studio Ghibli images as the masks with 100 as the foreground. Ideas? #
  • Are there any special text editors for writing short stories or books for Windows that are any good? #
  • How do I install Ruby, Gems and Rails on Ubuntu? Seriously, too many versions and not enough updated information. #
  • This is why an OS should modularized. Apps should not do things that cannot be undone. #
  • I wish there was a news channel designed for smart people. Oh wait… #
  • The final work day. #
  • That is the ends the last day I work until April. #
  • @davidwalshblog Took too long for still too much memory. #
  • I was playing some music through VLC off my internal HDD. The music stopped completely when I opened a tab in Chrome. Something wrong? #
  • @lizettegagne I had a problem with it yesterday with what appeared a delay in updates too when it did come back. #
  • My song on the bus. On and off. That's excellent. #
  • Windows 7 Service Pack 1 is only 892mb. #
  • Why does the windows live installer need to close all my programs to update messenger? #
  • An alternate Facebook. It might just be another clone but let's hope not. http://bit.ly/fzP1ml #
  • Amazon has made the art of spending money effortless. #
  • I know I can expect a new iPhone every year, I know when to expect it too. With others, I don't know anything. I can't plan then. #

Weekly Twitter Chronicles for 2011-03-13

  • Busy tonight. School, might visit Murray and finally work. Oh and studying calculus. #
  • Just learned about mask-image from CSS3. Really nice for making scalable text with a texture. #
  • I want an HTTP header for "Old Content". So search engines will realize that it's old, eventually, and shouldn't be promoted as much. #
  • Launch now, a nap soo and finally work later. #
  • Back from work. On the menu, a pizza. #
  • Lock down. #
  • Quite real too. #
  • @nealyoung. Not sure. Nobody's saying anything. #
  • Lock down over. #
  • Pokemon Black has arrived. http://t.co/C1KNNd3 #
  • There is a wifi network called "FBI SURVEILLANCE VAN2" by my bus stop. Very odd. #
  • @nealyoung Win. #
  • And my song starts playing the radio on the bus the moment I walk on. Fantastic. #
  • "You can Google search on youtube for…" – teacher. #
  • First time that I've ever used a sticky post in WordPress. #
  • On channel 5 news, they did a segment where they showed off this cool new website "stumble upon" that's like "channel surfing". #
  • "A" as in "Palm Tree". #
  • Thesaurus.com suggests words that don't exist in Dictionary.com. Clever. #
  • Laughing. Spectacular laughing. #
  • My blog needs 19 views to break yesterday's traffic record. Seriously. #
  • Sore hands from too much TypeRacer. Lots of fun though. #
  • Quarter of the way to getting that iPad. #
  • @JakeWythers Mostly for development. #
  • "Hey look, grills." "Girls? What kind?" "… hot ones." Dad and I. #
  • @davidwalshblog It's like that but it is encrypted anytime it's being synced. #
  • That just ended 14 hours of quiet. #
  • I'd expect Google Docs spellcheck to follow the same logic Google Search uses for fixing misspelled words. It doesn't. #

Weekly Twitter Chronicles for 2011-03-06

  • How can I enhance the search capabilities of Ubuntu? I need to index tons of files and external drives. #
  • This web design class should learn jQuery. It's easy enough for them and it could immediately be integrated into their "sites". #
  • Amazon Student – A clever way to entice Amazon Prime on kids, http://amzn.to/hHq8HS #
  • My friend's new slightly defective kindle. http://t.co/hJGwiM4 #
  • Reading the live coverage of the Apple Event. I wanted video. #
  • Did we really need 18 different iPads? #
  • Finished the keynote. #
  • A little rude but: are there trending Republican developers out there? #
  • Is the iPad 2 worth buying? #
  • @Bluebie Very good! #
  • I'd love Android 2.3 for this LG Optimus. Copy/paste is kinda important. #
  • Dual screen, Windows 7: Flash just stayed open fullscreen while I started working with another window. I'm pleased with that recent update. #
  • I think someone said that we wasted the term 'personal computer'. #
  • Today, we March Fourth! #
  • I don't care if you don't have new code to push. Commit even just the copyright update once a year. #

Weekly Twitter Chronicles for 2011-02-27

  • That iPod touch camera seriously needs an upgrade. The pictures are terrible quality and very tiny. #
  • If anyone is building a computer, 8gb DDR3 1600 Corsair memory for $105 from Newegg. Fantastic deal. http://bit.ly/g3JcEC #
  • I'm very impressed that ntfs-3g is included with linux distributions these days. #
  • Well, Vistaprint. As cool as your 250 free card offer is, I'd have to pay for shipping. Sorry. #
  • I only would pin a tab if it were important. So Chrome decided to make them smaller than all my other tabs. Right. #
  • @leolaporte Welcome back! #
  • So much snow. #
  • The difference I notice most is the screen resolution between the Optimus and thr iPod touch. #
  • That extra day off was great but I'm still tired. Too much snow. #
  • It's hard to believe that authors were mentioning Netscape as a common browser is 2006. #
  • Can I force the Kindle 3.1 update? #
  • My web design teacher admitted he hasn't had good luck with "divs" and likes "tables" better because of some background problem he's had. #
  • I did not take the AMC. #
  • Someday, I couldn't care less about tech news. Other days that's all that's there. #
  • Is there a way to get Twitter for Android to work while twitter.com is blocked, similar to how Twitterrific works even so? #
  • I finished yet another book. It was fantastic. Next release on 11/11/11. Clever. #
  • @nealyoung Very nice. #
  • At IHOP. Pancakes. #
  • Finished at IHOP. Now to Radioshack for a new phone for my dad. #
  • Requested an @xydoapp private beta invite. Get one. http://t.co/dlWooYW #
  • There's a word that means "a color that is darker then black" that I believe starts with "f"? Any ideas? #

Weekly Twitter Chronicles for 2011-02-20

  • It's like being a kid again. Diving into PHP and that fresh spring air. Amazing. #
  • Tonight's class is supposed to be "Online Job Search Basics" but we need a class for "How to show up for Class". #
  • For this class, it would be impossible to be more boring. Oh wait… #
  • Heading to afternoon classes at Saint Paul College. #
  • Phone hunt. Oh, very soon. #
  • I won. – sent from my Android. #
  • This LG Optimus V is pretty great. #
  • Yesterday, I broke the 600 view barrier for the first time on the blog. #
  • It's not out everywhere, but gmail now comes with a fancy top navigation bar. #
  • fafsa.ed.gov refuses to allow Chrome 9 through because it's an incompatible browser; Chrome 6 and 7 are fine though. #
  • I never finished Against All Things Ending. I was afraid of running up against the ending. #
  • It seems to be raining today. 50f is great but rain is bad. #
  • Even if you're not a designer, if you were sitting through this class, you'd be freaking out too. Pointless classes, misuse of tables… #
  • The server has been online continuously for a remarkable 39 days. #
  • Any suggestions for twitter clients on Android. I miss Twitterific and Twitter for Android isn't that great. #
  • Going to visit my middle school later day. #
  • That was an easy geography test. #
  • My "web design" class is using tables for design. In IE8 and Chrome 9 tables do not render like Dreamweaver does. Firefox 3.6 renders close. #
  • @nealyoung Care to elaborate? #
  • Visited Murray. #
  • After a few days, I do miss having to slide my phone. Just a little. #
  • My school blocks twitter but I can get/send tweets with twitterific on my ipod. Any method for Android? #
  • Cleaning my office. It feels so good to make things right. #
  • I didn't think the Moto Xoom was coming out so soon. Apple release scare maybe? #

Weekly Twitter Chronicles for 2011-02-13

  • Starting the week now. Five days of fun. #
  • Ubuntu 11.04 alpha 2 isn't going too well. #
  • Seems like gmail has had problems for me all day. #
  • @firefox Are you going to have another download day? #
  • @astolwijk Happy birthday. #
  • Tonight at work is Social Networking for Parents. #
  • The class was canceled so I'm free tonight! #
  • @Matt_Petschl Good find. #
  • @nealyoung How much is that .me domain? #
  • @nealyoung Very reasonable. #
  • That was an interesting calculus test. #
  • I gave her the ring. #
  • Now, to ask her to dance. #
  • The Mall or America website is stunning. #
  • At the mall of America again. #
  • The cheapest way to ride rides at MOA is a pass for about $20. Absurd. #
  • The conclusion is: you really have no idea what you are thinking now and seriously have no idea what you are thinking in the future. #
  • And that is it. #
  • The last two hours. #