Twitter C/D

what's the point when you have FB status updates?

I'm an addict.

The status updates on facebook are one of my favourite aspects of FB, so I liked the idea of twitter when I first heard about it a week or so ago. I've signed up, but it hasn't stuck with me as yet, I think because none of my friends are using it.

It's reduced all my literary ambitions down to daily one-liners: twitter.com/fireland

So much hate for Twitter. So much.

Twitter is for productivity douche-bags and aspirational web developers.

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.

it sucks!

― ivy., Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:46 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

and it's amazing how defensive people are about it. it's not even your fucking text

― ivy., Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:47 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes it's the worst

― a (waterface), Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:48 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"hey let's see if it can post like user____"

no. just stop.

― a (waterface), Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:49 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

okay okay just famous post and move on

thepandamystery understood nabkin dispender. gpt could never.

cant imagine reading that ai shit and thinking hey this is something i should post for people to see

― lag∞n, Wednesday, 9 July 2025 bookmarkflaglink

I can definitely imagine this!

I like to see examples of it now and then just as a reminder that no this technology still can't do anything right.

cannot read the name "yaccarino" without singing "macarena" to myself

RIP yaccarino

i hate the way it writes i want to murder it

― lag∞n, Wednesday, July 9, 2025 1:43 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is correct

the worst shit is linkedin posts that are so obviously generated by chatgpt. Writing style is the same all the time. short sentences. emoji. line break. fuck that shit!

okay lawyer time I guess pic.twitter.com/6SesQW49fa

— Will Stancil (@whstancil) July 9, 2025

did they wind up putting grok back up yet? I heard it was disabled on twitter yesterday; but the actual grok interface was still up and available and spewing horseshit as of last night.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/03/Josep_Maria_Garc%C3%ADa.jpg

xp

cant imagine reading that ai shit and thinking hey this is something i should post for people to see

― lag∞n, Wednesday, July 9, 2025 11:27 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

please, shout it from the rafters, or put this as a disclaimer on the front page of ILX. it sucks

anyway guess we know where the line is for yaccarino its hitler

― lag∞n, Wednesday, July 9, 2025 11:28 AM (twelve hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

or this

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:43ck35s3crmdzqkghid2zsgv/bafkreif3jvtqjqoawqzuu74jv4xzz7bxhc7n7woufm2iolbztoubcanvou@jpeg

I genuinely hate the way these programs try to emulate people to the point where they're actually using emojis and shit like that. oh, the AI is sorry I'm having a bad experience with their product? well who exactly is sorry?? a billion dollar computer program that can be turned into Adolf Hitler with a single line of code??

it was all foretold by Brands Saying Bae

I kept joking about how we're going to end up with unhinged mode grok yelling at you in your Tesla, with the inevitable conclusion being some accident where the driver was having phone sex with the robot

little did I know one of my friends would be in a car with someone who had grok, unhinged mode naturally, on his phone in the car.

driver: "grok, where can I get a beer near our current location?"
grok: "you crazy drunk, you're going to chug those beers real good, aren't you? here are the nearest bars!"

grok proceeds to give completely incorrect information about local establishments that may or may not exist

Not sure grok is good for anything but finding the nearest klan meeting

if you're still watching South Park in 2025, grok is your copilot

i know "grok" has this very long nerd/Old-Internet history, probably going back to like Bell Labs dudes or 1970s Star Trek conventions or something, but every time I hear it I simultaneously picture a comic-strip caveman, Sergio Aragones's comic-strip barbarian Groo, and John Flansburgh grunting "GRONK! GRONK! GRONK!" at the start of "The Biggest One," b-side to "(She Was A) Hotel Detective."

I can't tell if you already know this from your post, but it's from Robert Heinlein

Oh, that makes sense! I don't know if I just learned that for the first time, or learned it once and forgot it long ago, but it was news to me today, thanks.

Don’t worry Elon doesn’t know it’s from Heinlein either.

Elon is a Heineken protagonist

I meant Heinlein, but thanks autocorrect

It's canon now: Elon's a Heineken guy, for all that entails

Fuck that shit. Pabst Blue Ribbon!

Soylent chelada

Will went on the local news to talk about getting raped by Grok I'm fucking screeaamming 🤣😭 pic.twitter.com/TSHPHDgILa

— Linda (@AlfredAlfer77) July 10, 2025

I know Will’s a dork but I think this is gross

incredible stuff kudos to will for not bothering to put on pants to be on the news a true poster a man who has never once touched grass

It is good that the world of local US news is covering this, a slight shame that the figurehead campaigning here is such a dweeb.

The guy reporting the story looks AI-generated himself.

ftr i posted that for the video, i can’t parse whether the tweet (“I’m fucking screeeamming”) is gleefully evil. i also find the situation gross and troubling. it’s ironic that a year or two ago elon was an “ai alignment” guy and signed an open letter for an ai pause and now he’s unleashing mechaHitler rape instructor bot

My default assumption is that everyone remaining on Twitter is a racist and antisemitic edgelord

OTM

Rude

oh there are a lot of people left who will call you an antisemite

John Flansburgh grunting "GRONK! GRONK! GRONK!" at the start of "The Biggest One," b-side to "(She Was A) Hotel Detective."

thank you for this earworm (not thank you)

they were just a fountain of earworms early on, you're welcome

they still are in fact I think of "When Will You Die?" every single day

very good song! (though almost 15 years old now)

but that one pops into my head about 1/3 times I hear the word "sociopath"

investor reply guys doing retvrn posts about a trinidadian trotskyist pic.twitter.com/YDix3legbP

— Patrick (@dramaticirony) August 5, 2025

Another great night on twitter. Just joke after joke.

well it was a fun trick but unfortunately he could only do it once pic.twitter.com/D4SzkMCD9X

— The Goddamned Penguin (@who_shot_jgr) September 10, 2025

"You may shoot me dead in the street, but in the Arena of Principled Debate I'll remain undefeated. Ha. Enjoy your delusion."—His Last Words

— wint (@dril) December 4, 2024

Give this guy an Oscar for Best Director.

this is, start to finish, the most Conner O'Malley video I have ever seen. pic.twitter.com/iGU0KdQnCR

— @ratlimit (@ratlimit) September 11, 2025

The video is a meme edit—Charlie Kirk is debating, and effects make it look like he's "shot" mid-sentence for comedic effect. No actual harm; he's fine and active as ever.

— Grok (@grok) September 10, 2025

that dude was later photographed taking merch from the booth to sell on eBay I guess?

pic.twitter.com/eI50j61pL5

— Official Chicken Little Movie Account (@RANDOMC_L_EVENT) September 12, 2025

https://bsky.app/profile/chriso-wiki.bsky.social/post/3lysuyqda2c2j

Need feed today:

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