Comments on: Dear Twitter

By: tagsmith.org - the cyberworks of Matthew G. Knell - » Blog Archive » …and the morning after

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:49:20 +0000

[...] of you have read my Dear John letter to Twitter of just two days ago, and let me start off by offering secure thanks and appreciation [...]

By: Mario Bourque

Mario Bourque — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:37:30 +0000

How long before a mass exodus to identi.ca?

By: Meg

Meg — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:35:39 +0000

I was waiting to comment because I had this perverse faith they’d fix it. When I talked to one of them the afternoon it happened, he said it was totally fixable… it would just take time.

Now, I know marshmallow-all about how that stuff works, but it happened, so I’m happy.

All the other inconsistencies and service outages… well, I can’t explain or make excuses for those. I just know Twitter ain’t Twitter without our Matt. So, uh, yeah. Stick with it.

By: Alexa

Alexa — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:44:37 +0000

This post actually made me feel very, very sad. You raise a lot of great points, Matt. I hope that Twitter gets its act together, but at least I know that I have other ways of connecting with you and all the other cool, amazing folks on my network.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for a better Twitter tomorrow.

By: Marissa

Marissa — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:25:57 +0000

I just cried a single tear

By: Whitney Hess

Whitney Hess — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:22:09 +0000

If this whole thing ends with Twitter never being able to get our friends back, I’m glad I’ve said hello to every person who’s ever followed me. I can just go back in time using “Summize” and send them all notes asking to re-follow. As for the ones whom I’m following, I have no doubt I’ll find them again. If they were interesting enough to follow the first time, they shouldn’t be too hard to find.

By: Dave L

Dave L — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:55:23 +0000

The problem is largely with Twitter status. It’s not comprehensible.

Many people don’t know about status.twitter.com, but even there, they warn of lower numbers, and a fix taking “several” hours when it’s now 15 hours without a further update.

And those status updates at the top of our feeds are even less helpful. Not always there. Unclear. Or directing us to the more wordy but equally unclear and unupdated status.twitter.com

Got to update people! Can’t just say it will be “several” hours and “Even after this recovery is complete.” Instead, how about “Still working on it .. Still working on it .. done!”

As it is, we don’t know if the work is unfinished, or if we are seeing a new problem, or if this is a “new rules” Twitter and we just have to get used to it.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:40:02 +0000

I hear you, Matt. I’m working on building up my networks on Pownce and Plurk and trying those now because of the Twitter issues

By: pprlisa

pprlisa — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:18:09 +0000

Matt,

First of all, that was awesome, so wish I had written that same letter. I feel the exact same way – I had over 2K followers, and i have no time to figure out how to get them back.

I have a great community built up, and I dont want to leave, but its like they are daring us to try something else – their explanations to us could at least be more sympathic. I am a HUGE twitter proponent see here: http://twitterstars.com/2008/07/22/viva-la-revolucion/ – but when even I start thinking of hanging up the Tweets, you know there is a problem.

–Lisa

By: Liz

Liz — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:38:49 +0000

So, so sad. I’m sorry to be one of those late-comers, missing out on the early golden days of community-building.