Comments on: Why I’m leaving Twitter…Follow me on Plurk!

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:28:20 +0000

Well, it’s further proof that people are sick and tired of web advertising and invasive “networking/masterminding” garbage. I think this is a GREAT move for Twitter. It’s a small social networking medium, not another avenue for more and more SPAM.

By: Patrick Curl

Patrick Curl — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:46:51 +0000

@Marina Martin: On your advice, I’m doing that today, and I quite like it, I might need to switch. Now’s as good a time as any to leave Twitter for another service, if I must say so myself. Thanks for the tip!

By: Marina Martin

Marina Martin — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:50:55 +0000

Have you explored Identi.ca yet? I have also pretty much stopped using Twitter, but there’s nothing stopping Plurk from running into the same problems. Identi.ca is open source, which means anyone can add a feature or fix a bug, and it’s also federated, which means you can install a version on your own server with your own particular featureset but still seamlessly following people on other Identi.ca instances. It’s got a pretty vibrant community already and a new feature is coming out every few days.

If you are there, you can connect with me at http://identi.ca/marinamartin.

By: Carol Deckert

Carol Deckert — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:09:23 +0000

@memsom I appreciate and understand what you are saying about email being a far better method of holding private conversations. My point is this, when someone follows me, they obviously have an interest in what I am saying or doing. If I am unable to follow them back, they have no idea of my interest in getting to know them. I want my followers to know that I am open to building new relationships and will follow them as well, in an effort to see and hear what they are doing and saying. Great ways to develop a conversation if both parties know a little about what the other is doing. That’s my whole point in this. Limiting how many people you are able to follow greatly inhibits the ability to network. Networking only works when it is a win/win and by curtailing the following by the other party it is not a win/win situation.

Thanks for taking the time to point out your view and to respond. You have provided me an opportunity to explain in a little more detail about why I want to have the following capability restored to my twittering. http://www.RUNLancaster.com promotes effective/efficient networking to build relationships and in my opinion, Twitter is greatly reducing this opportunity by not allowing me to be effective or efficient in following others that are interested in me.

By: Carol Deckert

Carol Deckert — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:03:12 +0000

@memsom Thanks for your comments. I am sorry that you are unable to make sense of my website. I own/operate a face-to-face networking/masterminding/business building group locally and am looking for facilitators to operate the same type of group for me in other locations. The focus of the group is to form lasting, professional relationships that will lead to referrals of business to one another’s contacts spheres of influence. Face-to-face groups consist of no more than 20 participants, one per category exclusively, meeting on a weekly basis to learn more about how we each conduct our business and what we can do to help solve our clients’ pain. During our meetings, we focus on one individual member, allowing him/her to present the way(s) they do business and how they help their customers and then following that presentation, the group brainstorms ways to help that person increase the amount of business he/she is already receiving and suggest ways in which we may be able to help (in the manner of referrals). The website is set up to explain why it is important to build relationships and help others before expectation of personal payback (netweaving) and to provide educational information on networking and netweaving.

I am also a Netweaving/Networking coach and can assist you in getting started with your social networking online and offline. I can work with individuals or groups to help you learn to efficiently and effectively build your business by word-of-mouth.

In addition to that, an online networking group will be formed later this year that will be formatted just like my weekly personal meetings and will operate under RUNIntl.com. Thisversion when launched will be modeled the same way, except for the in-person interaction will be replaced for an online forum/discussion type group - most likely in a Skype room.

If you have any further questions, I would be happy to answer them - feel free to contact me directly at carol@runlancaster.com

I appreciate your question and the opportunity to explain in more detail about the services I provide.

By: Tw-Hitler, and the Fall of Twitter! A Hitler / Twitter Parody…Very funny.

Tw-Hitler, and the Fall of Twitter! A Hitler / Twitter Parody…Very funny. — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:08:25 +0000

[...] Why I’m leaving Twitter…Follow me on Plurk! (20) [...]

By: memsom

memsom — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:40:59 +0000

@Carol Deckert what, exactly is it that your company does? I found your website confusing, terse and obtuse. Maybe it makes sense to a US reader, but it really made no sense to me. Wjhat quantifiable service do you provide?

I’m not trying to be offensive or anything, I’m honestly interested and confused to what it is you are providing as a service.

By: memsom

memsom — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:33:05 +0000

@Carol Deckert you can @ message as many people as you like - you don’t need to follow them to do that. If they @ message you back, you get their reply. Simple as that. If you are needing to have private conversations and dm’ing a lot of people, email is probably a more appropriate medium, don’t you think?

By: Carol Deckert

Carol Deckert — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:56:36 +0000

Weâ€™re starting with a few limits based on various parameters, and weâ€™ll be adding more as time goes on. We reveal some limits only when you reach them, and tell you about others in advance. Twitter applies limits to any person who reaches:

1,000 total updates per day, on any and all devices
250 total direct messages per day, on any and devices
100 API requests per hour
Maximum number of follow attempts in a day

Above is what the Twitter regs are now, but look at the last one - does it specify what the maximum number of follow attempts in a day is? I am NOT a spammer, I am a NETWORKING COACH - how can I message anyone when I cannot follow them - makes no sense to me! I am annoyed - the Customer Service message I got today said to “unfollow multiple people and then my permission to follow will be restored!” How dumb is that? I follow people because I want to engage in a conversation and get to know them. Do I “talk” to 2,000+ daily - no, that’s crazy to even think I would. But the opportunity is there, should I want and/or need it. I never have spammed anyone, usually have conversations with others and once in a while post an appropriate link. I believe I may have posted my blog (via TweetLater) in the very beginning for those that I followed so check it out, but then I realized that was not the right message to be posting so I changed it. I wasn’t blocked when that was happening. I can’t figure it all out, makes absolutely no sense to me. Since I am not able to follow any new people, I have approx 60 new follower that I am unable to follow back. From a networking point of view, it looks like I don’t care and am not interested in them - WHICH IS NOT TRUE. How do I get that message out? I’m tweeting that my following limit is blocked, but how do I know that everyone is seeing it?

By: Stop Twitter Spam » Update on Twitter’s Following Limits

Stop Twitter Spam » Update on Twitter’s Following Limits — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:10:20 +0000

[...] the people who have been impacted by these follow limits continue to be frustrated.Â Some are even giving up on Twitter and moving over to competing services such as [...]

By: memsom

memsom — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:40:29 +0000

@Patrick Curl: the point is directly related to the spam bots. Firstly, have you ever noticed that a lot of the spam bots seem to bulk up their content to look legit by re-tweeting other people’s content? Doesn’t that bother you? I have almost a 1:1 ratio of followers. Most of them I know well enough to trust. The ones I don’t like the look of, I block. It’s the fact that I have to block spammers on a regular basis that bothers me. For every 5 - 6 new people that follow me, around 4 are spam bots.

By: Giania

Giania — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:23:08 +0000

They only provided a single point of contact for a job, and expected a service which has frequent issues and downtime to be that single point of contact? That’s incredibly irresponsible of them. If that’s the kind of reasoning skill they possess, they would probably be a miserable client.

But you didn’t really address the problem I have with, well, your problem. There appears to be no documentation at Twitter about Twitter actively preventing people from following other users, or this quota that you and Carol seem to have encountered. Does official documentation regarding that change to the service exist?

By: Patrick Curl

Patrick Curl — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:13:59 +0000

@memsom: can’t you just NOT follow those who follow you? If I follow you and you want to follow me - great, but if you don’t…then you’re not spammed, isn’t that right? So I don’t get the point….

By: Patrick Curl

Patrick Curl — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:13:02 +0000

@Giania: It’s not missing followers I’m talking about… Yesterday I was wanting to apply for a consultancy job to someone who posted it on twitter for social media… but I couldn’t message them because I couldn’t follow them..

By: Patrick Curl

Patrick Curl — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:11:41 +0000

@Josh Holloway: My point is that I will no longer be supporting them… and I will be working to build my network on the other networks, and when those networks surpass twitters, then I will pull all my works from their. But I do still get traffic from them..

Right now, I’m the biggest advocate for a twitter alternative that everyone can agree on, whether it’s plurk, or friendfeed, or something else altogether..

By: Patrick Curl

Patrick Curl — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:09:45 +0000

@Laurel Ruma: So the rules don’t apply to Scoble? Twitter is spam proof already, you don’t have to follow me if I follow you… I follow people so I can form more conversations, I use tools to help follow and get more ideas for blog posts.. It’s a huge limiting factor, I don’t send out blatant ads to twitter, just my blog posts, and my conversation / updates.. I think I have more to talk about than someone who tweets they just crapped. I mean seriously… People diss the karma aspect of plurk, but maybe twitter should have some, so that those who contribute quality content won’t get blocked. I’m not the only one experiencing this..also I like to follow those who follow me, but I can’t even do that…

By: Laurel Ruma

Laurel Ruma — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:09:11 +0000

I must use Twitter in a different way than you do, but I totally disagree with this post for the following reasons:

1) My Twitter ratio is good and manageable; I can actually read most of my tweep’s tweets over the course of a day. This is what Twitter is for, I have no sympathy for someone who’s ratio is 5:1 and the complain they can’t follow more people. I want some real reasons why you follow 19,000 people.

2) Like Facebook, if your ratio is sky high *and* I don’t know you, I think twice about following you back or accepting your friend request. I want to know the people in my network, because knowing leads to trusting.

3) I’m tired of everyone wanting a little bit of me just to improve their numbers. Web 2.0 apps are to help connect people who want to be connected.

4) Scoble is Scoble. The only “Twitter famous” person I can think of is the lady who was in the middle of an OB/GYN exam during the most recent LA earthquake and tweeted about it.

5) Twitter isn’t going anywhere. I can’t wait for more features that refine and amplify the people I want to listen/talk to.

6) FriendFeed is far superior to Plurk. And it has a better name.

7) Long live spam rules. Less fembots, more people.

Laurel

By: Josh Holloway

Josh Holloway — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:00:37 +0000

If your updates are still going to Twitter in some form or fashion, you’re not “leaving” Twitter. In fact, most of the people who claim to be “leaving” Twitter are not actually leaving because they’re doing the same thing! You leave Twitter when you have no presence there anymore, no posts going to it, nothing. But you realize that because of the community that is present there, it still has value to you.

I don’t blame you for wanting to try another service, but my personal opinion is that you’ll be back.

By: Giania

Giania — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:58:22 +0000

You cite no official notice that Twitter has implemented spam measures that prevent users from following other users. Please provide documentation.

There was a noted issue a week ago regarding following due to a database issue, it seems.
http://status.twitter.com/post/43448013/followers-and-followings-restored
And two weeks ago
http://status.twitter.com/post/43329900/updated-follower-following-counts
and here also
http://status.twitter.com/post/43317134/missing-followers

At best, there is a blurb on the dev blog suggesting there might be limits:
“Chris Kilmer and Tembrooke both ask if putting some limits on what users can do in our system would help, and they’re both right. We have some limits, and we’re adding more. Legitimate users should never notice them, but these new limits should help mitigate the worst case failures and attacks.”

By: memsom

memsom — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:47:00 +0000

Okay, this is my take: THANK GOODNESS THEY ARE TACKLING THE SPAM. I have to block 5 or 6 spammers a week. It’s getting ridiculous!! Going to block people is tedious. I could go private, but I don’t want to disappear. Twitter works fine for what it was intended for - simple way to track friends and follow a few people who are in the media/interesting. When you have more followers and follow more people than it is humanly possible to keep up with, you are abusing the system. Period.