Looks nice; looks like an iPad app.
Macworld: Favit, Tweeteorites, Retweet review
I took a look at a few apps that may appeal to people that enjoy the laughs on Twitter.
annoying. Not how Twitter is supposed to be used. You’re supposed to
post stupid shit and in flurries. It’s like war.” My friend Chan’s theory on Twitter (delivered via SMS).
What is going on with Twitter lately? Every other click seems to whale me. At least the redesigned page is pretty. I swear, I’d get more frustrated about Twitter downtime if the Fail Whale didn’t always make me chuckle.
What is going on with Twitter spam?
In the past 24 hours, I’ve probably gotten 40 new followers that were all a variation of the same type of spam. They all had an almost identical avatar, and all had one update with a spammy email address.
I woke up this morning, and this is what I saw:
I know that spam is a fact of life, but the thing is bothersome is the amount of people that are following these spammers back. This one account is following 1,300+ people, and has 81 people following back. Who are these people? There is no reason that anyone for any reason would choose to follow this account. They’re just all other spammers and people that are auto-following anyone that followers them. I guess if these people figure they can get a 5% return follow rate, it’s worth it. The problem is, the others clearly don’t read a word that they say. It’s nothing more than a spam echo-chamber, and it’s annoying.
I wish Twitter would figure out a way to block auto-following, and it would get rid of a lot—if not most—of this. I’d guess that if there was no auto-following these spammers would have almost no return followers.
I could just ignore this, but for some reason this is so clear and obvious that it annoys the hell out of me.
Buzz Anderson on attention to detail
While such attention to detail may not be appreciated in the specific case, however, I’ve found that in aggregate it leads to an overall impression of quality that attracts the kind of fanatically devoted users who form the backbone of a growing, long term user base. Shipping quality is a longer, tougher road than just shipping whatever to be first to market, and its benefits tend to be realized more slowly, but if you want users to love your software as a brand, and not merely use it as a commodity, it’s the only way.
Coming from the opposite end of the spectrum—the end user—I completely agree with Buzz here. With so many iPhone apps out there, the ones I keep coming back to are those that really nail not only the high-level functionality, but the small details. I try to look and find all the details in apps I use, but not being someone that actually creates these products, I don’t appreciate the full scope of what goes into it. I do think that as a user, even if you can’t put your finger on every element, you can tell a lot about an app and the work that went into it by these small, easy to overlook details.
[It goes without saying that Birdfeed does a great job here]
I dig seeing early sketches of web design stuff that I use on a regular basis. Here is a cool one of Twitter search being planned.
I’m also excited about this saved search feature, and can’t wait to give it a spin.
We’ve added a few other features to this design. If there’s a search you want to do on a regular basis, you can “save” the search. That will place the word or term permanently in your sidebar for easy access. So if you want to know what people are saying about the city you live in, the products you use, or just something weird, it becomes a link on your home page.
“Isn’t rejecting joy how one traditionally demonstrates one’s superior cool?”
hodgman: Did I ever tell you people how much I hate the word “meh”? Nothing announces “I have missed the point” more than that word.
hodgman: It is the essence of blinkered Internet malcontentism. And a rejection of joy. Also: 12 hive mehs in the replies SO FAR
hodgman: By definition, it may mean disinterest (although simple silence would be a more damning and sincere response, in that case)
hodgman: But in use, it almost universally seems to signal: I am just interested enough to make one last joyless, nitpicky swipe and then disappear
wordwill: @hodgman Isn’t rejecting joy how one traditionally demonstrates one’s superior cool? Though, at the same time, to hell with that.
hodgman: @wordwill yes. It’s part of the toxic Internet art of constant callous one upsmanship. And it is a sort of art, but not for me
I love the ideas expressed here by John Hodgman on Twitter yesterday. I especially love @wordwill’s response about “rejecting joy.” Insomuch as there are certain communities I belong to online, I see a lot of cooler-than-thou shitting on what other people think is “cool” and exciting. It gets really, really old and tired for me, and I think that’s why the line hit home.
I wanted to post something about this yesterday, but it wasn’t until I saw it organized this way on Waxy that I saw how to make it readable. For all the stuff on Twitter that does the mental equivalent of “in one ear, out the other,” sometimes you read something that really nails what you’ve been thinking.
