More About Applications

Another week and other new applications and some theory too. This morning I posted a tweet with Twitlet, it’s a one-way only interface so basically I can only tweet with it. I can however include shortened urls through the use of the hashtag #link or #this. This application is comparable with for instance BigTweet which is also one-way only. Both interfaces can be used to empower users for specific needs. The great advantage of one-way posting is not being disturbed by updates from people I follow, so I can quickly update my Twitter status or say something, like I also can through sms.  Another application I used lately is Ubiquity, which is much more than one-way posting. It’s a experimental Firefox extension with which I am able to tell Firefox what I want to do through giving commands into an input box. So I can update my Twitter status but not read updates from other, I can easily look up something on Google (maps), Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube or translate a word or send an e-mail to someone. Posting a tweet in Ubiquity is very easy, I just press CTRL+Space, in the pop-up I only need to type tw or twi and the text of my tweet and press enter. In the next pop-up I enter my username and password and hit enter again.

One of my favorite and most used applications is TwitterFox, it’s a two-way application, which basically means that I can easily post a tweet but also read tweets. Two reasons why I like this applications so much is because it divides tweets into regular tweets, @replies and direct messages. It also has a subtle blue t in the very right corner of my Firefox window.

An example of an Adobe Air desktop application with multiple features is TweetDeck, where’s it’s possible to divide friends and their tweets into separate columns. Tweets can also be filtered into columns on the basis of a topic or keyword. Users can be the architect of their own adapted Twitter extension, ‘enabling the user to control application of the computer’s capabilities to his own service’.[1] Here I take TweetDeck as a computer controlled environment in a dialogue or negotiation with its users. Another useful feature of TweetDeck is that whenever @artgrrl has been used in the middle of a tweet instead of at the beginning, it does show up in the column @replies, although not always. Maybe I should experiment more with TweetDeck or the Twitter API.

What I like about the Twitter API, is that users can escape the rules that are imposed to them. In other words I like software that has some user interaction, where users have some kind of agency or control. ‘This interest in participation follows from a general feeling that architecture, particularly housing, has been inadequate and unresponsive to the needs and desires of its users’.[2] The trap with applications can be that we do away with one system, or a certain set of rules, and impose another on users, which is a criticism on Negroponte’s ideas on computer architecture.

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[1] Engelbart, Douglas, William English. ‘A Research Center for Augmenting Human Intellect’ in: Wardrip-Fruin, Nick Montfort. The New Media Reader. London: MIT Press, 2003: 239. <http://www.manovich.net/vis242_winter_2006/New%20Media%20Reader%20all/16-englebart68-03.pdf>

[2] Negroponte, Nicholas. ‘From Soft Architecture Machines’ in: Wardrip-Fruin, Nick Montfort. The New Media Reader. London: MIT Press, 2003: 355. <http://www.manovich.net/vis242_winter_2006/New%20Media%20Reader%20all/23-negroponte-03.pdf>

Twitter in the Media

Lately there’s a lot of news about Twitter in the media, not just about money or politics but also general information like in the Dutch TV program ‘Eenvandaag‘. Since I follow some journalists I can keep track of this. Through my e-mail I get daily updates on news items on Twitter because I subscribed to Google alerts, the thing is that I cannot read them all, or blog about everything. When I blog this it’s already old news but I’d like to create a small overview for myself and maybe there’s something some readers don’t know.

At the end of last year Facebook offered Twitter 500 million dollar in stocks and this offer was declined, Twitter said that the actual value of the stocks was much less than the promised 500 million. Does this mean twitter thinks they can get more money? Do they want to develop their site to the next level? Now they got a new investment and need a plan, what will their business model look like? They do have a revenue model contest coming up. I guess should do something with this information. They do have a present market share that surpassed Digg for the first time.

Then I would like to mention some old things where I still think about and have to put into perspective. There were some users on Twitter who posted tweets on the terrorist attack in India and they were requested by the local police to stop tweeting about this. I still have to find out who tweeted this and what was so dangerous about it, as terrorists would know what was happening too through Twitter. So civilians are closer to the news than journalists are. On another event a user (jkrums) was on the spot before any journalists when an airplane crashed in the Hudson river and tweeted;

http://twitpic.com/135xa – There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy. [1]

After this tweet the regular media knew how to find Janis Krums and he was asked for several interviews. The question is, is twitter becoming a major source of news-while-it’s-happening?

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[1] <http://twitter.com/jkrums/status/1121915133>

Thesis Proposal, 1st version

Important possibilities in Twitter are being reflected in the variety of platforms, websites, devices and programs that can generate messages that are being sent to Twitter itself and then simultaneously and real-time being distributed to several (other) websites, devices and programs. Why is there such a growth in external applications? This research is giving an overview of applications and the use of spam and linguistics within Twitter. The features this website offers and the uses of the RSS feeds have many possibilities and implications. What are its relations to older technologies and what are its uses, could Twitter be a remediation of older technologies or do we need new concepts?

Characters in 140 Characters

Besides dummy names there are other accounts (I use this word deliberately as these are not regular users) that are worth mentioning. Some accounts are not displaying RSS feeds but are written by real people although they do not tweet as themselves, they tweets as a character. Or they only tweet a certain activity like bad things happening to them or about food. I have a few examples so far I’d like to share here.

One of the characters is the Dutch @buurvrouw, she’s a middle aged single woman who has bad luck every day and tweets them. The nice thing is that she has a certain level of interaction with other users who are real or at least more plausible. Then there’s the Dutch @juffrouwjannie who asks every midweek morning who would like to have some coffee. Later in the morning she will asks for the second or third round. She also has a high level of interaction with followers about coffee or cookies and is very consistant in her role. Twitter becomes more an mutual office this way. This character is based on a character from the Dutch TV series Jiskefet. Another Dutch girl is @NichtjeChelsey who’s a teenager who’s not too bright and tweeting funny oneliners. This account doesn’t have enough tweets yet to say more.

Other interesting accounts are @newrafael and @injuries, the first only tweets what he eats and is very consistent in this. The only thing I do not like here is that he doesn’t tweet every day and when he does it’s multiple tweets in a row. The other account only tweets injuries, usually once a day but there are no updates since December 16th. These two accounts I consider to be a form of art and they show other things that can be done with Twitter. The assignment ‘what are you doing’ can be taken very literally or can be read as ‘what’s happening to you’.

@replies and RSS feeds

While looking at tweets for some months now I have a theory that tweets encapsulate some meta data in them. Inside the tweet there is already data about the time when it has been posted, information about the application with which it has been posted and from whom and maybe in reply to whom. Tweets usually show up in RSS feeds and thus can be displayed on other sites, like I have done with mine at this blog and on Livejournal.com. On the first site all @replies are visible although I do not like that, on the latter these are not visible. Also on Facebook only my regular tweets are showing, though retweets do show up there and I delete them manually from my feed.

There are a few and maybe many accounts on Twitter that use RSS feeds only and thus retweet tweets of other users. For example accounts like @haikutwaiku or @needsex are just collections of RSS feeds of other people and thus violating their copyright. If there is such a thing like copyright on Twitter. If I would search for a certain keyword the retweets of these accounts do not show up and therefore I get the idea there must be some extra information encapsulated in these tweets. When I have my ideas more clearly I will contact the people behind Twitter about this.

Other accounts I find interesting are collections of P2000 announcements from fire fighters that are taking place in Amsterdam or other major Dutch cities. These are shown on for example @p2khaaglanden, @p2kgooi, @p2kamsterdam, @p2kflevoland, @p2krotterdam and @p2kutrecht. These accounts do not use RSS feeds though, but a combination of PWD and ActivePerl.

Escape from Twitter Rules

One of the key points in Twitter is the rule which users are being forced to use, the 140 characters, which is the maximum length of a tweet. The question comes up every now and then if this limit should expand and what would users do? Would they adapt or run? Is this system-imposed size limit a critical feature? One way to escape this rule is using Twitblog. Another things that makes Twitter different from social network sites is the limit of characters for the description of the user, the limit of one url, no date of birth or gender information field and only one picture. The easy way to escape from this rule is create a custom background for Twitter with for example TwitBacks or Photoshop. This way a user can display additional pictures, write more background information about themselves and add contact information, like @moriesbel does. Other great examples, all by graphic designers can be found on designreviver.com.

I like the way Twitter restricts its features so it does not just becomes another Hyves. It’s versy simple and because of that it’s so popular, like Clay Shirky said on PICNIC08  that Twitter is a prime example of a ‘boring’ technology with only two features which enabled it to quickly become socially interesting. Or like Anne Helmond says ‘does simplicity equal technologically boring or is technologically boring not thinking about the technique behind the tools anymore?’ I don’t think twitter should provide more space for extra information, there are other sites for this. I also like the way users create their own augmented space by adding information about them in their background image, thus escaping the limitations and standard settings of the system.

Dummy Usernames

Not too long ago one of the people I follow had trouble with his car and was standing by the road, so he tweeted. I thought I’d give him a hand and searched for @wegenwacht (Dutch road control) but found that user to be existing but completely empty, no tweets, no followers and no friends. Maybe @anwb would work I thought, but this one was empty too! I guess these are dummies that someone registered and maybe wants to sell? Other dummies are @cda, @brandweer (fire fighters) and a deserted @knmi (Dutch weather station) and @meteo. Almost empty are @rtl4, @rtl5, @ambulance, @ehbo, @aids, @kanker, @politie, @police, @lapd, @buurman, @appel, @peer, @fruit and @koningin. I guess there are countless profiles like these, although it might be difficult to track them down. If anyone knows a script to get stats on this, please let me know.

How Annoying is Following?

Today I decided to try an experiment on following and followers and their behavior. I found a tip on the blog of @TheBusyBrain. He suggests to follow all his followers and see how many of them follow in return. To do this experiment I didn’t want to add hundreds of followers to my basic account @artgrrlas I would have to read thousands of tweets all day long, I need my tweetfree moments too! On my new experimental account @twesisI did not just click on the followers of @TheBusyTrain but also on followers of followers and people I follow through my frst account. Anyway, after about 800 followers I stopped and before lunch I already had more than 120 users following me back and almost 40 direct messages and @replies in which some thanked me for following them. Some of these direct messages are automatically created by SocialToo. I should automatically follow anyone who follows me now, but I still have to click users by hand, oh well. As I write this I have about 200 followers and 60 direct messages.

Following and making friends on Twitter is quite different than on other social network sites I think. On Hyves and Facebook I have only a handful of friends I’ve never met in person. Then again I don’t share much personal information on Twitter either. On my first account I do not follow everbody in return though (sorry, I have to be honest here). In this experiment I have to wait for 24 hours and see how many followers I have by then. I think I also follow most people of the Amsterdam Poken meetup now, see what happens there. To follow and to be followed is still fascinating to me, I want to understand it and therefore I have to do it. It’s all part my the participatory research. I wonder if people think it’s annoying that strangers follow them, or do they collect them no matter who they are? Why do people follow in the first place?

Useless but Funny Twitter Ratings

During my research I end up on sites with huge lists of Twitter features which I don’t think have any use but to create a tweet with some status or rank. The origin of most of these ranks are unclear to me but it’s fun to kill time. Yesterday I found out I have an ice cold Twitemperature of 17°F (-8°C), but my Twitter Happiness score is 503. I also have a follow cost of 282.01 milliscobles, a conversation quotient of 41.4% (above average) and a my Link quotient is 17.8%. The last data is from TwitterFriends. One feature that could be useful is transferring my tweets to Hyves with Twwwitter, like I did already for Facebook. It doesn’t transfer my @replies and I had trouble with a post from blip.fm too. Besides blogging about Twitter I have 648 total tweets and assuming I spent an average of 30 seconds per tweet I’ve spent 19,440 Seconds or 324 Minutes or 5.4 Hours or 0.23 Days using Twitter (data from Tweetwasters). My Twick size is 7 ” small and I wrote 17 twooshes. Then there’s a 74% chance I’m a girl according to Twitmarks and I have made approximate 650 tweets since july 19th 2008 according to tweetrush and 7 tweets a day, although I joined Twitter only in September! Oh, you can also tweet this blog post, have fun.

Phishing on Twitter

Even Twitter cannot escape the touch of criminals on the Internet, like website of banks they too are a victim of phishing now and wrote a warning about this on their blog this weekend. According to Wikipedia  phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. In this situation an criminal organization is sending users a message with a link where they should click on and this way are being redirected to a false portal and asked for their password. This false website has an url that ends with ‘access-logins.com’ and has been used before in other actions. When the criminals have the username and password they can send direct messages from the hacked account and trick followers to go to the false website. Twitter proactively blocked some users and reset their password. If a user uses Twitter not through the website they wouldn’t know this warning Twitter wrote on their site about the act of phishing or that their password has been reset. Anyway, always be careful when receiving an email that looks suspicious and has a link that redirects to Twitter or any other social network site. Please use your browser bookmark.