Applications in June

There are some things I have to say about the websites Hahlo and Twitstat Mobile. I tried both applications early June and both are two-way and difficult to send direct messages with. Direct messages can however be viewed. When I reply to a tweet with Hahlo, the particular tweet does not show what tweet I just replied to. In the timeline all @replies which have been written in another program have a button to show the tweet being replied to. Another annoying thing is that every few hours I have to login again. This application was built for a mobile device. Through their menu it is possible to sent a direct message to another user or even yourself.

Twitstat Mobile was built for a mobile phone too. The timeline shows multiple functions; muting users, showing a conversation between users, showing pictures from TwitPic and MobyPicture, add to favorites, retweet, and reply. There is a whole menu with settings and saved searches. This could be interesting on a mobile phone to use. The function to actually mute users you follow is similar to Twalala. The dialogue function in Twitstat Mobile does not show the conversation between users like Twalala does.

Since I last wrote about Twalala they have developed a new feature; in every @reply there is a new button in the lower right corner of the tweet with ‘Re:’ on it and when selected this shows the conversation between users. Another new feature is the link to the original tweet in a reply made with Twalala, they did not have this feature when I first used it. I tested this before and on June 20th again.

Some more Questions

To get to the next level in my thesis I need to use this blog to ask myself more (detailed) questions, about what experiences of me and other users mean, what could be said about connectivity between users and what are the changes in their communication? What dilemmas are there in following and what does this mean? Why do some users refuse to follow other users and what happens to their connection in real life?

An example of problems with privacy is a user who says on one medium that he or she is busy or has made arrangements with someone, while on another medium (like Twitter) the same user says something different. It is difficult to know who reads a certain tweet and how this will be interpreted. It means that users have to be careful about what they write online and should take other media in consideration. It also means that privacy matters. Some users have a private account and deliberately deny access to certain users, although the users who are being denied access could consider this as an offence because both users have friends in common. The use of Twitter looks so easy as an account is made within a minute but once a user realizes he or she has to be careful what to say. The main question of Twitter ‘what are you doing?’ gets another meaning this way and is not about a certain activity forces the user to think, what can they do online and what should they not do? Friendships can be made on Twitter but also be destroyed because of mis-interpreted words. This is one of the Twitter implications when a user thinks somebody else implies something.

Just to be clear, the stories above are not my own experiences but bits and pieces of stories of people I follow and hear about. Even though an account is set to private, @replies to a private user can still be read through the use of Twitter search or Google. Stories can be verified this way and could add to the image of that private user. Although twitter accounts can be set to private, Twitter is still not a Walled Garden, in the sense that outsiders can still read @replies from other users. Social network sites which are a Walled Garden are more difficult to read without being logged in than Twitter. [...]