Twitter C/D

I used to use Twitter quite a lot, but Facebook status updates reach a lot more of my friends, and I can do them from my phone as easily as a Twitter so I've kind of abandoned it.

I think Twitter is good for publishing interesting links and news and things, and for asking advice from the microblogosphere, but for the latter you'd need a whole load of like-minded followers and it's hard to get there.

I think I will have to use it for a while before I decide if I love it or hate it.

There was this thread, by the way:

twittervision

we've def. had a twitter thread before because i remember checking out the twitter homepage to see what the fuss was about, and i just happened to see alba make an update. then i told him about it here.

dats it

TWITTER: I don't get it

CIO/KIU: using ilx like twitter

I just spent another fifteen minutes going down the rabbit hole with this shit clicking on follower avatars
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080423.jpg
the text of the last panel could possibly be sold as a t-shirt

the weather alert stuff and airport delay announcement feeds seem vaguely useful but it remains the absolute dumbest shit I've ever seen since friendster

I mean what use is something that's supposed to provide low-bandwidth status updates on EVERY STUPID PIDDLING THING EVER IN THE WORLD if it also happens to be breaking constantly

identi.ca is ugly and has a terrible name, as with squoink and jaiku and whatever else, which just goes to show you what actually matters

http://www.soup.io/

IT'S THE NEW TEEVEE

let me make sure to get back here and write you guys some more about how I feel about the web's direction in a little bit

yeah I still think it is all weird and gross

"the microblogosphere"

http://www.the-trukstop.com/miscellaneous/socialmediacrity/warbbler.png

I use Twitter to keep up with a very small handful of friends (FreakyTrigger mob mostly) so mine is mostly a collection of stupid injokes that come to my mobile. I like that a lot, saves me having to text loads of people at once, but it freaks me out when I see random strangers following me. I have to purge my followers list about once a week.

I used to use Twitter quite a lot, but Facebook status updates reach a lot more of my friends, and I can do them from my phone as easily as a Twitter so I've kind of abandoned it

this is a shame, because your minute-by-minute update from "control" was fucking genius. for the few minutes it lasted.

you'd need a whole load of like-minded followers and it's hard to get there.
This is the key, really. Twitter got some ferocious use at wwdc, and was v. good for finding out what was giong on where, and what sessions to leave, etc, but it doesn't work so well if you've just trucked up in some random place.

There's a twitter client for iPhone that might help with that though -- it shows you all the updates from folks in your location.

this is a shame, because your minute-by-minute update from "control" was fucking genius. for the few minutes it lasted.

People were complaining!

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1640#more-1640

as usual

the end of twitter in the UK? er: yes, as far as i can see. i don't want to have to *look* for tweets. i want them to come to me:

Hi,

I'm sending you this note because you registered a mobile device
to work with Twitter over our UK number. I wanted to let you
know that we are making some changes to the way SMS works on
Twitter. There is some good news and some bad news.

I'll start with the bad news. Beginning today, Twitter is no
longer delivering outbound SMS over our UK number. If you enjoy
receiving updates from Twitter via +44 762 480 1423, we are
recommending that you explore some suggested alternatives.

Note: You will still be able to UPDATE over our UK number.

Before I go into more detail, here's a bit of good news: Twitter
will be introducing several new, local SMS numbers in countries
throughout Europe in the coming weeks and months. These new
numbers will make Twittering more accessible for you if you've
been using SMS to send long-distance updates from outside the UK.

Why are we making these changes?

Mobile operators in most of the world charge users to send
updates. When you send one message to Twitter and we send it to
ten followers, you aren't charged ten times--that's because we've
been footing the bill. When we launched our free SMS service to
the world, we set the clock ticking. As the service grew in
popularity, so too would the price.

Our challenge during this window of time was to establish
relationships with mobile operators around the world such that
our SMS services could become sustainable from a cost perspective.
We achieved this goal in Canada, India, and the United States.
We can provide full incoming and outgoing SMS service without
passing along operator fees in these countries.

We took a risk hoping to bring more nations onboard and more
mobile operators around to our way of thinking but we've arrived
at a point where the responsible thing to do is slow our costs
and take a different approach. Since you probably don't live in
Canada, India, or the US, we recommend receiving your Twitter
updates via one of the following methods.

m.twitter.com works on browser-enabled phones
m.slandr.net works on browser-enabled phones
TwitterMail.com works on email-enabled phones
Cellity [http://bit.ly/12bw4R] works on java-enabled phones
TwitterBerry [http://bit.ly/MFAfJ] works on BlackBerry phones
Twitterific [http://bit.ly/1WxjwQ] works on iPhones

Twitter SMS by The Numbers

It pains us to take this measure. However, we need to avoid
placing undue burden on our company and our service. Even with a
limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter
about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada,
India, or the US. It makes more sense for us to establish fair
billing arrangements with mobile operators than it does to pass
these high fees on to our users.

Twitter will continue to negotiate with mobile operators in
Europe, Asia, China, and The Americas to forge relationships
that benefit all our users. Our goal is to provide full, two-way
service with Twitter via SMS to every nation in a way that is
sustainable from a cost perspective. Talks with mobile companies
around the world continue. In the meantime, more local numbers
for updating via SMS are on the way. We'll keep you posted.

Thank you for your attention,
Biz Stone, Co-founder
Twitter, Inc.
http://twitter.com/biz

I never understood why anyone would want tweets pushed to them. I get excited when I receive a text. I don't want to find it's some spazz like me telling the world they've found an odd-coloured bogey up their nose.

it would be nice, when the iphone's push service is switched on, if twitter would push messages down to twitterific - this would solve the 'excited when I receive a text only to find it's about a bogey' problem

If my phone had let me assign unique message alert tones to numbers like it does with ringtones and voice calls then the problem might have gone away.

Maybe the fundamental problem is that I'm not interested enough in other people.

most of twitter is exquisitely described in metaphor by that news story about the inflatable turd named "Complex Shit" blowing away and breaking actual stuff that matters

of course being me I would say the same for pretty much everything "web 2.0"

actually, i'd follow a tombot twitter feed. furious cynicism at unexpected moments could be fun.

i guess twitterific might step up to the plate here, but then again: it can't run in the background on the iPhone, can it?

(this, incidentally, is my first ILX post from my shiny new iMac.)

creepy

13.28
cozeny Wondering out loud what we'd need to start a UK group SMS system and take Twitter's market: Ruby developers, time, money, and Red Bull... ? 9 minutes ago from web

13.37
Hi, cozeny.

tweetsms (tweetsms) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out tweetsms's profile here:

http://twitter.com/tweetsms

You may follow tweetsms as well by clicking on the "follow" button.

Best,
Twitter

tweetsms
http://www.tweetSMS.com will be available worldwide across almost all carriers. We also plan to deploy an ad-based service for free updates.
38 minutes ago from web

@PurpleKitchen check out www.tweetsms.com about 2 hours ago from web in reply to PurpleKitchen

just uploaded http://www.tweetsms.com to help all of those international SMS users! about 2 hours ago from web

Used it cause I was excited (are you still an early adopter a full year after the SXSW explosion of use?), then didn't for a few months cause I didn't really see the point, now I'm usin it again cause I've had some new local friends start following me.

Good for questions, link-sharing, Microemo bursts, etc.

I have a friend who uses this to read his friends' feeds, so I basically only see it from the angle of a person who is constantly checking his phone while I'm trying to have a conversation with him. The first time I heard of Twitter was from him when I finally got exasperated with his constantly checking his phone.

Maybe I'm the one with the problem, but I can't really think of anyone in the world interesting enough for me to want updates on their activities throughout the day. I'd say the only people I could imagine wanting to twitter could be: Drug smuggler, violent prison inmate, Slash-in-his-heyday type rock star, and a dog (if they somehow managed to translate its thoughts into English text).

don't use it, don't know anyone who does, but i check this one all the time: http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix

i very very rarely check it on my phone. does mobile use seem to be the prominent use?

SMS functionality seems to be its USP now that Facebook status updates have taken the mainstream microblogging space.

As I said above, people using it for pushed news bulletins and question-broadcasting rather than personal what-i'm-doing stuff is another application.

(I think you can now do Facebook by SMS in America, actually, but not here)

SMS is a fucking trilobite technology

I followed @johncleese back when his followers were in the double digits.

Seriously someone FedEx me a fucking medal already.

how the fuck are they planning to make money? Also, they could easily have charged for this in Europe, and at least started making some actual income for a change.

so: brightkite, then. anyone played about with it much? i'm not sure i can particularly be arsed, TBH.

Twinkle is useful to see if there's trouble on my tram line or the local cafe is on fire.

ON IPHONE

Brightkite seems particularly marvelous, actually. Like Twitter with upgrades.

mildly diverting for a bit

http://joshblog.net/projects/roktok/roktok.html

well, it would be if only folk would stop talking about coldplay and radiohead

oh

it combines the top artists from last.fm (coldplay, radiohead) with twitter

no potential to divert at all now

"Alternate HTML content should be placed here. This content requires the Adobe Flash Player. Get Flash"

Man I fucking hate flash

I'm on this goofy thing now:

http://twitter.com/NedRaggett

ned why are you not on the nanowrimo thread

hie thee hence

I am now following: http://twitter.com/therealbritney

‪brent is enjoying winter ❄️‬
therealbrent.bsky.social‬

There has 100% been a vibe shift on Twitter this week — apolitical and sports people are talking about Minneapolis and even a lot of right-leaning Finance Bros are like “you freaks have lost your minds.”

Whether that is representative of anything in the real world is TBD but it’s noticeable.

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kdnm573img27wgmf4hq6pxmj/bafkreid2vfqoahoizycxvqonw6ggnsczocvwusgfoix4tpcbqqlsewesjm@jpeg

https://bsky.app/profile/therealbrent.bsky.social/post/3mc5qaiz5hc2d

Did the following feed become algorithmic since the last time I was there? It's still only people I follow but the timeline is no longer reverse chronological and I'm seeing the same tweets again and again?

Yeah, following timeline is becoming slowly worse and harder to use in the last month. Newer posts take longer to load..

There's a drop down on the Following tab, it defaults to "popular" but you can reset it to "recent"

jaymc otm, Substack is a very different and less immersive experience than twitter, for the better. And blah.substack.com/feed.xml should still work?

xp thanks

ah thank you!

It was annoying the hell out of me too

are we all part of the generation that snapchat somehow missed because I feel like not-extremely online people mention snapchat on occasion

i thought snapchat was for sexing?

that's certainly one use! I wonder if all the people who used it 10-15 years ago left and now it's just swingers

snapchat has 3 times as many users as twitter!

i do not know a single person who uses it, except my sister briefly 15 years ago

Teenagers use it to bully other teenagers.

I actually thought Snapchat disappeared a decade or so ago

the one good thing about Twitter now is seeing people like JD Vance get ratioed hard whenever they post particularly braindead shit, suffice to say people are done playing nice with these fucks

luckily the good ones get posted to Bluesky so you don't actually have to go over there

The ratio-ing doesn’t matter to them because all they are comments from blue checks.

snapchat is how everyone not yet in university communicates with each other

I've been looking at a lot of the Twitter accounts from the FAFO crowd and they only seem to post, exclusively like, Loomer-esque invective, as opposed to the lefty crowd who will at least occasionally post their opinions on, like, Marty Supreme or whatever. People scream "BOTS" but I don't think bots are sophisticated enough to do that many posts without sounding uncanny. The realist in me thinks that obviously people wouldn't want their pictures and home lives next to klan rhetoric, but you can still have other opinions on an anonymous account. The cynic in me thinks these people just have no interior lives? The conspiracy theorist in me thinks there's some posting factory overseas where people just sew discontent all day (but who would be paying for that and why?)

It seems simple enough that someone could build an AI tracker that blocks accounts that only post political takes, or at least one that blocks that weird little big-eyed anime guy avatars that have replaced all the Roman statues

some of the big maga accounts were shown to be based overseas tho not nearly all of them, i think ultimately it comes down to the right being grifters all the way down, theyre posting purely politics because they see it as a money making venture, whether thats an overseas content farm or a guy in utah trying to sell illicit testosterone pills theyre all on the take its just how that culture is

like mega churches are breeding grounds for mlm scams, half of mormons are grindset sales guys, everyones is on the socials trying to juice their stats to the point that they can get some brand deals, its just where the right is at

"A Friendship Forged in Winter Fire"

Renee Good and Ashli Babbitt. A tribute.

One example of what AI is good for, making politically harmonious murals human artists would refuse to make. pic.twitter.com/HC7EWnP70g

— Dain Fitzgerald (@DainFitzgerald) January 11, 2026

“Dain”

Whiney: https://www.wired.com/story/trump-boosting-maga-x-accounts-operating-overseas/

We definitely have home-grown all-American lunatics but normal people outnumber them, if not in the intensity of relentless posting.

lol "human artists would refuse to make" learn how to paint a mural if you care so much bitch

i deleted my twitter but i still use the restaurant bot account to look at things on there occasionally which is nice because when i want to make an obnoxious reply i cant bring myself to do it because the restaurant bot wouldnt it only posts restaurants

Is Restaurant Bot on Bluesky?

lol "human artists would refuse to make" learn how to paint a mural if you care so much bitch

It's kinda fair to suggest chuds might very well deface a mural like that if it showed up in reality.

That is not an issue for an ugly AI picture but there's...other problems.

Is Restaurant Bot on Bluesky?

― ICE = Tonton Macoute (Boring, Maryland), Monday, January 12, 2026 11:47 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes tho its not my account someone ported my code over which is fine w/me

https://bsky.app/profile/restaurant-bot.bsky.social

i appreciate having a friendo <3

I struggle to understand the brain of someone like that Dain fucker, who seems to think these dead women are action figures he can make kiss and make up in the afterlife, and that the values they believed in and put into play have no voice in their story. Like all these rightwing online AI-praising turds, consent is surplus to their story, it's all just another blase lol posing as clueless earnestness, or maybe just clueless earnestness. That mural is incredible offensive to me. Babbitt does not become a saint because she's dead; Good does not become someone who would embrace Babbitt because she's dead. It's a perversion, created by a man.

people are saying twitter is down but its working for me

Are you Elon Musk?

yes

Where's my child support check?

ask grok

do NOT use the word “child” in a grok prompt

lol

uh no the other thing

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:lss244cnzeoicm3p3nrg5ovh/bafkreigtncd565vzwyjdwvz7taz2qc7flqeho4zpwtbvi2bzeclfu6zoty@jpeg

oh man, a lot going on in that screenshot

Community notes can still bang:

"Hulk Hogan actually spends his time at the cemetery because he has been dead since July 24, 2025."