Talk:Twitter/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

WSJ Quote

The WSJ quote in the section 'Reception' is incorrect. The author has 'lamed out', introducing punctuation and other elements not in the original. Wikipedia must presume readers are at least as intelligent as readers of the WSJ. Please review and correct this.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.217.145.179 (talk • contribs) 06:09, 29 May 2009

Sir, I understand your motivation here, but I fail to see how the quote has been changed, besides some "quotation marks" being turned to italics which I dare say has some deep Manual of Style reason underlying it. I don't see how this has "lamed out" the article or tried to cheat intelligent readers such as yourself, though if you believe otherwise and would like to explain further, we'd love to hear your opinion. Thank you for raising the issue, and please report further concerns to anything else on Wikipedia in the same manner. Greg Tyler (t • c) 09:47, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
The quote was slightly wrong; I've fixed it. Barnabypage (talk) 12:39, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Prominent users?

According to the entry "Prominent Twitter users include US presidential candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama[10] and author and journalist Anna David.[11]". While Edwards and Obama are clearly prominent public figures, I'd never heard of Anna David before (I'm not from the US) and when I checked her Twitter profile she is only followed by 16 people. Does she deserve to be mentioned here? Bobbiejohnson (talk) 11:36, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I'm removing her. Josephgrossberg (talk) 13:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Now, let's be honest here. Edwards and Obama? Or maybe some unpaid campaign intern, more likely. The whole "Prominent Users" section is just more of what makes this "article" less of an article and more of an "advertisment". Good show, Twitter folks, you snowed Wikipedia. Proxy User (talk) 16:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I've edited this section down considerably, and attempted to remove some of the more advert-like language. After comparing this article with articles on various other user-generated-content sites (LiveJournal, Flickr, MySpace), I see no reason why the Twitter article needs a list of EVERY vaguely notable individual who has ever used Twitter, so I pruned it down to large organizations (I left the presidential campaigns in for now, as this is now phrased in a way that associates the Twitter use with that campaign rather than implying that Obama and Edwards are personally posting), and removed some repetitive language. Also renamed the section to "Enterprise uses", as it is at this point more about usage of Twitter by large-scale enterprises as opposed to being a list of users. evildeathmath 18:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. But I still thinks the whole section is superfluous. Compared it to wikipage for Coca-Cola: you don't list "celebrities" that have tasted Coca-Cola on that page, do you? Or who owns a Porsche. I think we should remove it all. Maybe it was interesting in 2007. But now it is redundant. --88.89.242.254 (talk) 21:45, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Good by me. A bunch of this material is duplication of the "in media" section anyway.evildeathmath 22:20, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I've edited this section down again. My basic standard was that "prominent" should mean one of the following:

  • The user is prominent withing the context of Twitter. The user with the most followers is prominent in this context. Twitter users who promote usage patterns that others adopt would qualify as prominent so the people who came up with the "#" and "@" annotations could be listed as "prominent."
  • The user's activity pattern is original, distinct or trendsetting. Since Twitter is an information-broadcasting system, the act of delivering information does not make the user prominent. A school that uses Twitter to announce class closings is not prominent. A school that uses Twitter to process class evaluations at the end of the semester is prominent for now but would not be prominent if that practice becomes common.

By this time in Twitter's history, a famous person having a Twitter account is no more noteworthy than a famous person having a website. Information about a famous person's Twitter account belongs with the entry for that person, not the page for Twitter as a whole. 64.81.244.23 (talk) 03:02, 4 April 2009 (UTC) I'd made this comment while not logged in; here's my actual info:Jopo sf (talk) 06:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The Ellen Show http://twitter.com/TheEllenShow has usurped CNN.. according to wefollow.com should this be reflected here? phocks (talk) 03:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Social justice implications

I'm skeptical of the claim about "research published in New Scientist" - it's not a research journal, it's a news magazine with a focus on science. Perhaps "research mentioned in New Scientist" would be more accurate. Autarch (talk) 13:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

imo, this whole section is trivia. the UC Berkely student could just as easily have sent a regular email, text message, or voice message with his cell phone. if there are "social justice implications" they relate to cell phones, not twitter. and regarding the New Scientist article, does it even mention twitter by name or just communication tools that twitter is "like"? the whole section could be droppped. 204.128.230.1 (talk) 02:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not trivia at all. Twitter being used a primary mode of communicating extremely important events, rather than the (relatively) trivial things people usually use microblogging for is huge deal. It makes a statement about A: how popular Twitter has become and B: it's possibilities for the future. But I have no problem saying "mentioned" rather than "published". It is more accurate, since scientific news magazines report about research published elsewhere (i.e. in journals), and don't in fact publish new research themselves. Steven Walling (talk) formerly VanTucky 02:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
After reading about the case where the UC Berkely student send a tweet, it seems obvious to me that the important thing was that there was a campaign group supporting those who'd been arrested. As was pointed out above, a text message to the supporters would have done just as much. This section reads a bit too POV to me, as it's using an event to somehow "prove" that Twitter has something unique that text messaging alone doesn't. Autarch (talk) 14:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Autarch--this doesn't demonstrate anything about Twitter in particular having 'social justice implications' (as any number of other communication technologies could be, and have been, used similarly to what the UC-Berkeley student did), and the popularity of the service is already well established in the rest of the article. The second paragraph is about use of Twitter as a communication method in emergency situations, not for 'social justice' and could probably be merged with the earlier mention of the California wildfires. My feeling is that this section is about as relevant as including a summary of every emergency call ever made with a mobile phone in that article. evildeathmath 15:09, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Why don't we change it to a broader headline (maybe Twitter in emergency situations or Twitter as a news wire) and add info from this and this source on Twitter being used in the CA earthquake. Sound like a good solution? Steven Walling (talk) 18:37, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
It still doesn't demonstrate anything unique to Twitter--these are all things that have been done with text messaging, IM, and posting on a website via a web-enabled cell phone. I guess my concern is that we could probably find a dozen instances of any mode of mobile text communication being used in any emergency situation--it's not particularly relevant unless it's providing something that wasn't there prior to Twitter, which I don't see in any of the sources. evildeathmath 19:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
One possibility is renaming the section "Twitter in the Media", keeping the first paragraph and trimming the second, which isn't relevant to the current heading anyway.Autarch (talk) 14:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Twitter / Cornell University

Notyourbroom fairly picked me up on this and I wanted to explain my views on it and open up discussion to others. A couple of times recently, editors (actually, mainly IP addresses) have been adding that the founder of Twitter comes from Cornell University. Whilst this seems perfectly acceptable (and I support it wholly), the information keeps getting added to the lead sentence of the article. I find this unacceptable as this line should give an overview of the contents of the article, not specific information which isn't important to the article as a whole. So every time someone's added this fact, I've removed it. I hope you can see why. If anyone thinks otherwise, or supports this believe, I'd like to hear it. Greggers (t • c) 09:46, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the only time an article on a company should mention the university attended by a founder is when that university is directly tied to the creation of the company. For example, the idea for Google came from the work Brin and Page were doing at Stanford so Stanford is directly tied to Google.Jopo sf (talk) 22:02, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Amen to that. Similarly, Facebook mentions Harvard because it was originally started as a service purely for that institution. But that doesn't even appear in the first paragraph, let alone the opening line. Thanks for your opinion. Greggers (t • c) 22:24, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

weak prominent user section

The section on prominent users seems really weak considering the most famous people who actively use Twitter are not on the list. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher have made Twitter-related news again recently after a Twitterer threatened suicide and Demi Moore responded, "hope you are joking." The woman making the threat was traced to San Jose, California and the police took her into custody there. Other prominent, active users include: Perez Hilton, Shaquille O'Neal, Rob Thomas, Lance Armstrong, Sean Combs, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen, Mariah Carrey, Karl Rove, Debbie Gibson, Dane Cook, Jane Fonda, John Mayer, Russell Brand, Soleil Moon Frye, the Bishop of Buckingham Alan Wilson, Greg Grunberg, MC Hammer, Snoop Dogg, Al Gore, etc. There's really quite a long list so I would suggest doing something similar to the Guest section of the Yahoo! Answers article. Thoughts? -- AJ24 (talk) 19:01, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

In the Demi Moore example given, the event would have unfolded exactly the same way if the person threatened suicide in a chatroom or via email. So in that case, including the event in the page on Twitter is no more informative than including the event on the page about San Jose. In general, I think those discussions or comments about a person or organization's Twitter use is more likely to belong in the article about that person or organization than it is to belong in the article about Twitter. For popular communication tools, including the list of what is discussed by who would quickly overwhelm the article's discussion of what the tool itself is. Furthermore, a section on prominent users would require constant editing and editorial decisions about who or what is the most prominent at any given time. If there's an event that establishes how a legal principle applies to Twitter then that would certainly fit well in the Twitter article. Likewise, an event where Twitter is used shouldn't be mentioned on the Twitter page unless there's something about the way Twitter was used in the event that shaped the outcome. This is similar to how articles on other popular communication tools are handled; tools like phones, email, television and blogs generally don't have a long list of who uses that tool. 64.81.244.23 (talk) 20:46, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
There already is a section on "prominent users", have you not read the article? Similar articles, such as Yahoo Answers, list famous users, I don't see why there should be any problem in doing so here. -- AJ24 (talk) 04:47, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
The prominent users section should probably remain as it is now, only mentioning people that are important within the context of Twitter itself. Personal events that have to do with Twitter are better left for each individual's article as it affects them much more than it affects Twitter, and Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information - it is not appropriate to list every semi-famous person we can find that uses Twitter and include them there. The Yahoo! Answers section is really not the right way to go with this, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. KhalfaniKhaldun 08:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
"In the media" and "Usage" is largely redundant. Redundancy should be resolved if you ask me. Also the "Prominent User" section has similarities to the "In the media" section since facts are quoted from mediaBorkert (talk) 13:26, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Time to archive?

At 50KB (not including this new section), I was thinking we should probably archive this talk page and start afresh. WP:ARCHIVE suggests a consensus, so here it is. Yay or nay? Greg Tyler (t • c) 10:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I think we can definitely archive the sections that have a short and resolved discussion as well as all the sections that are "should the following fact go in." But sections like "Social justice implications," "Prominent users," "Cornell University," and "weak prominent user section" seem worth keeping around since these were active recently and since they show the current consensus on how to manage certain sections.Jopo sf (talk) 06:57, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Good article

Some of the boxes above list Twitter as a "Start class" article. Personally I think it's far beyond that. In the Peer review, Finetooth said that making Twitter a Good article would "certainly be possible and desirable". That in mind, should we list Twitter as a Good Article candidate? Also, does anyone think we've missed the Good article criteria and need to do some specific tasks before nominating? Greg Tyler (t • c) 10:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the images need the commentary on why they are fair use. Much as I like the photo of Fry, I think that probably should be removed if this page is to be submitted since the photo itself doesn't really relate directly to Twitter. We should probably clean up the "Usages," "Prominent Users" and "In the Media" sections since it isn't always clear which category to list some things under. For example NASA's use is filed under "Prominent users" but CBC usage is under "Usage" and the Mumbai attack use is mentioned twice (both mentions are relevant and well-written but perhaps should be consolidated). The "Similar services" and "Related services and applications" sections can probably be consolidated into one section. And the "In The Media" section entries could be tweaked to make it clear whether the section is for cases where Twitter is discussed in the Media or whether it is for cases when Twitter is used by the media. The "Technology" section mentions that the it was only a rumor in May 2008 that Twitter was moving off of Ruby on Rails but Twitter has recently stated that they now are switching over to Scala.Jopo sf (talk) 07:28, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Can this entry include how to start to twitter?

How does one use twitter? To show what I am asking for I am going to use the example of email: When I want to use e-mail, I turn on the computer, make sure the air card(verizon black jobbie) is plugged into the port, then click on the distinctive icon (which my husband installed, so I'm not sure how to do it), then it boots up; next I click internet, and the message screen comes up; then I log in [usually to yahoo!] and then I am ready to send a message to someone whose emnail address I know and type in. I also can click on my inbox to see my messages.

what is the equivalent process for twitter? Is there a monthly fee for the gadget, here verizon; is there a gate that I have to enter, e.g., my yahoo!, etc. What else have I forgotten? Katydidn't (talk) 11:00, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The lead says that Twitter is a free service, so that's not a worry for you. To Twitter, you need to go to their website and register an account. The website explains what to do along the way, explaining how to use it best. Wikipedia isn't really the place to explain these things, per WP:NOTMANUAL. In simple terms, Wikipedia aims to explain what things are, whereas sites like eHow are set up to explain how to do things. Hope this helps. Greg Tyler (t • c) 11:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

special education

can we guarantee employment to students —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.215.27.197 (talk) 11:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

In these times of recession, I'd have to say "no". Jobs are having to be slashed across the world and students are among the worst affected. With less staff, businesses are looking to employ only the best, and those people tend to be experienced - something few students can offer.
That said, they'll always be work in some sectors; it's just that no-one wants to take it. Poorly paid jobs are cast aside by students, though this is often by far the best option they have open to them. Similarly, a lot of students want exciting and thrilling jobs, and won't take anything else for an answer. Again, this simply isn't feasible. You can't just become a secret agent, and a lot of students don't seem to be aware of that fact.
My answer is still "no", but I can't for the life of me work out why you asked that here. Greg Tyler (t • c) 11:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

PNAS study

The recent science reports mentioned in the In the media section are more or less bunk, as most of those popular media sources completely misinterpreted the actual fMRI study they are referring to. That's not just my personal opinion; see the following articles:

  • Liberman, Mark (22 April 2009). "Debasing the coinage of rational inquiry: a case study". Language Log. Retrieved 22 April 2009.
  • Golacre, Ben (18 April 2009). "Experts say new scientific evidence helpfully justifies massive pre-existing moral prejudice". BadScience.net. Retrieved 21 April 2009.
  • Matyszczyk, Chris (15 April 2009). "Oh, so now Twitter is making us immoral". CNET Networks. Retrieved 22 April 2009.

rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 13:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I've now rewritten that section. Hope this is acceptable. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 13:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
I think it's worth considering deleting the PNAS study from the page entirely. I can see the value in an article mentioning a study that for a long period of time was influential or widely discussed in the general public despite it not being accepted by experts in the field. But I don't see the value in mentioning a study like this that neither the general public or the experts are paying much attention to.Jopo sf (talk) 22:35, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I've deleted the PNAS section entirely. As noted, the study didn't apply to Twitter so the only thing of possible note was a few articles that mis-represented the study. Since those articles don't seem to have attracted the public's attention, it doesn't seem worth keeping this in the article.Jopo sf (talk) 08:14, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Growth precentages

The growth percentages at the end of the introduction section are completely meaningless without absolute numbers, past perspective, present context, and future outlook. They're just a point statistic which not only looks like hype, as most of us know, it pretty much is. It should be removed. 93.172.131.15 (talk) 22:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

The author's cited reference has the absolute numbers in it. So if you feel that using absolutes is more appropriate I think changing to those would be better than deleting the lines entirely.Jopo sf (talk) 07:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Tweetups

Is this section really needed? Right now it seems like this section could easily be part of another section since it only has one sentence and people who know each other online have been organizing face-to-face meetings for a long time now.64.81.244.23 (talk) 07:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I've removed it as I don't think it's notable (as you pointed out) and that it is a tiny section that could be better integrated (and sourced) elsewhere. ~~ [ジャム][t - c] 08:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree, while it is interesting it is not notable.

Famous Tweets?

What about @brokep twittering from inside a courtroom, @astro_mike twittering from space(soon). Theres some notable events that has occured on twitter that deserves getting mentioned —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.250.155.57 (talk) 16:37, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

That depends where you draw the "notable" line. Lots of famous people use Twitter. Lots of people have Twittered from obscure locations/situations. I'm willing to bet you could find a famous Twitterer in pretty much every nameable situation. I'm not saying tat these events should be included, just that we should be wary with our inclusion criteria. Greg Tyler (t • c) 17:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Twitter/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

I am beginning a GA review of this article. Please feel free to leave any comments regarding the review below. Vicenarian (talk) 16:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Review Result = ON HOLD

ON HOLD This is an excellent article, well on its way to GA status. However, it still seems to be undergoing some evolution of a significant nature. Per the good article criteria, an article still undergoing constructive editing should be placed on hold to allow for further discussion and editing, in order to allow the creation of a "stable" version. I will allow two weeks for further editing and to see if the article achieves a measure of stability. If it does, and the other criteria are met, I will pass the article; if it does not, I will fail it and suggest that interested editors wait until a consensus is reached before renominating. Thank you. Vicenarian (talk) 16:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE As a hold really should only last seven days, I will return to my review on May 25 on or after 17:00 UTC. Please leave any comments regarding the review on this talk page. Thank you! Vicenarian (talk) 17:10, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Review - Second Opinion Requested

I initially failed this article (see the talk page edit history), but as several folks pointed out, the biggest reason for my failure was caused by a bad edit (which blanked out the lead) that has since been reverted. The article is well-written, well-referenced and seems to meet most all the GA criteria. However, I am still very uncertain as to the level of "stability" that should be required for a GA. This article is still evolving. I'm requesting someone else chime in and help me decide here. Thank you for your patience and assistance. Vicenarian (talk) 05:51, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I noticed this on the WP:GAN page as needing a second opinion. I personally use Twitter, and think it is an awesome service.
Anyways, regardless, this is a very well written article, satisfying most of the GA criterion. Now for stability. I would say that this article is suffering from vandalism (which, so is every other article on Wikipedia), versus an edit war, which the Good Article Criteria says would cost it the Stability criterion. I would say, edit wars and content disputes, not vandalism, make instability. I think this article passes all the GA criterion, and should be listed.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail 05:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Review = PASS

Many thanks to User:Unionhawk for his second opinion. I concur. The article passes, and will be listed as a GA. Vicenarian (U · T · C) 18:23, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Marketing and Promotions

I think a section dedicated to how it is used for marketing and advertising might be important? It seems that this is a major avenue for businesses to utilize Voice99 (talk) 16:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

i like twitter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.39.181.218 (talk) 18:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Twitter Criticism

Does anyone think this article could find a place on this page? Twitphilia & Twitanoia --Nihilozero (talk) 17:31, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Considering it's an unsourced blog post which you wrote, I very much doubt so. Greg Tyler (t • c) 10:36, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I was hardly trying to mask the fact that I wrote the article. The point is that other tech sites/services/products often have a criticism section and I know twitter has received some criticism as well. The lack of such a section suggests a lack of balance and/or thoroughness in my opinion and I feel my article could serve as something of a starting point in this endeavor. Just as suggestion. I didn't add it to the main page article, I was just making a suggestion. --Nihilozero (talk) 06:38, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough, you're right in saying that other articles have criticism sections and I completely see where you're coming from. The thing with Twitter is that no-one has any major qualms with it. Because it's so simple, there's very little that people can draw issue with. The only real criticism it has suffered from is that it sometimes suffers from inconvenient downtime, which is mentioned in the article. The problems brought up by your article are among the long list of fairly unsupported opinions which wouldn't much make for encyclopaedic reading. That said, if you feel you can construct a criticism section which is well supported and explained - more than a couple of sentences but not so much it's turning to slander - then give it a shot in the article and we'll see if we can't work something out... Greg Tyler (t • c) 10:07, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Just because other articles have criticism sections, doesn't mean that the one needs one.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail 11:17, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
"While these comparisons are not a conclusive test, they may form part of a cogent argument; an entire comment should not be dismissed because it includes a comparative statement like this." --Nihilozero (talk) 15:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
I'll keep my eyes and mind open to see if I can't find some good sources for such a section. --Nihilozero (talk) 15:20, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Usage

Recently, someone added a paragraph in the usage section which got me thinking about how we can best organise this. The problem is that, nowadays, people are using Twitter for new things every day. Like going into space, or organising a party, or holding a comedy performance. If we don't come up with some sort of way to limit which events go in and which don't, we're going to have a ridiculously big and messy section. So, community, how do we decide what should and shouldn't feature in this section?
In this situation, I have removed the section on the comedy performance because the source wasn't particularly reliable and there seems to be little coverage to suggest it's a resounding event. Greg Tyler (t • c) 10:34, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

{{editsemiprotected}}

In this part about usage, can I add some information about one Twitter user that was arrested in Guatemala? The text can be like this:

In May 14, 2009, one Twitter user was arrested in Guatemala. He was accussed of "provoking financial panic", thanks to a tweet inciting people to take their money out of Guatemala's rural development bank, whose management has been challenged in a political scandal. His house was raided and his computer confiscated. [Source #1].
He was freed after 1 day in jail, but now is awaiting his trail. It could mean for him a 5-year prison term and a US$6200 fine. [Source#2], [Source#3, in Spanish]. Yaaaha (talk) 17:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Mmm... I not sure about the notability of this. It's not the first case, and I'm sure there have been hundreds of others. Personally, I wouldn't call this notable enough to feature in the main article. That said, I'd like to hear the community's view on whether they think it could work? Greg Tyler (t • c) 17:50, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Per above. One of the autoconfirmed users can implement the consensus. If not, please re-open the request. My own two cents would be that this usage was significantly different, but that the current yearly subsections are already crowded. If it were reorganized by category of use, this might merit a subsection by itself. Thanks. Celestra (talk) 17:38, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the Guatemala event is notable enough for inclusion since the person in question could have incited people in the exact same way via a blog post, web page or email. That the message was sent over Twitter doesn't seem to have had any unique effect on how the case played out. Had the rush on the bank been more severe than usual because people were Twittering about it while rushing the bank and thus escalating the problem then it would merit inclusion. I think the standard of "does the fact that people are using Twitter uniquely shape the event and/or does the event shape Twitter" is a good standard to use for inclusion. Jopo sf (talk) 08:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Twitter has been here longer

The Twitter service has been here since 2001. Proof: See here.Jupiter.solarsyst.comm.arm.milk.universe 01:17, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Look at the copyright notice at the bottom - 2007. The actual Twitter frame can be seen here where, as you can see, it redirects from 2001 to 2007. I'm afraid that's just some sort of bug within the Web Archive. Thanks though! Greg Tyler (t • c) 10:12, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Akin to IRC? Incorrect and uncited

The cite for the statement leads you to a website that doesn't even mention IRC. Can someone please remove this?

68.101.116.104 (talk) 19:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)David

The article actually says the best way to describe Twitter "is to liken it to a web-based IRC", so the source is correct. However, the sentence didn't really add to the article, and looked slightly out of place compared to the rest of the section. So I've removed it, though not explicitly for the reason you gave. Thanks for telling us though, I'm glad you made the effort. Greg Tyler (t • c) 19:56, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Why must the messages be so short?

One thing missing from this article is an explanation as to why the messages need to be so short. There is no technical limitation that I'm aware of, nor any other reason for the messages to be so short. And yes, I know a logical answer would be "otherwise it's just Instant Messanger/IRC or e-mail", but still - there should be some reason given as to why the limit. CNN.com has a story here on a GOP senator who sent out a tweet with his opinion of Obama, and he comes off sounding like an idiot because of being limited in characters. I came to this article hoping to find the "why" answer, but didn't find it. 68.146.81.123 (talk) 18:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The only reason, as far as I'm aware, is that the Twitter folk, Jack Dorsey et al, wanted a gimmick - something original that other sites didn't have. Also, it fits into Twitter's micro-blogging style, which is all about being succinct. How would you like the article to explain this issue? It's really just a stylistic thing which the service has been based around. No technical limitations, they just wanted something different to a blog. Thanks for bringing it up though, and for an interesting article! Greg Tyler (t • c) 22:08, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

This article says they kept 20 characters for address, leaving 140. "Text messages are limited to 160 characters because of tight bandwidth constraints at the time the technology was developed in the mid-1980s." (AP source: Carolyn Kaster). There's probably a lot more in Google searching for "160 characters SMS", for example in Chinese there's a different maximum (70). -SusanLesch (talk) 05:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Twitter Demographics

The page should include more details on the usages on Twitter based on the recent extensive study - http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/ This report is the most comprehensive survey of Twitter usage and demographics.

The study by Sysomos, based on 11.5 million user accounts, states:

  • Top 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
  • There are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%)
  • 72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009.
  • New York has the most Twitters users, followed by Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco and Boston; while Detroit was the fast-growing city over the first five months of 2009

More stats on Inside Twitter with additional coverage on many other sources including:

74.12.143.203 (talk) 08:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

The following passage can be added under usage subsection:

Study by Sysomos, based on 11.5M users, shows that very few Twitter users actually contribute, with top 5% making up for 75% of all tweets. Also 92.4% users follow less than 100 people. The same study by Sysomos puts USA as the top in the list of countries by number of users, followed by UK and Canada. Twitter has more female users (53%) as compared to males (47%). Most Twitter users use third-party applications, with only 45% using the standard web based interface on twitter.com.

In addition the following can be added on the top of the page: For the first time, based on statistics from Sysomos, the growth rate of Twitter has decreased in April 2009.

74.12.143.203 (talk) 07:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Twitter/Archive 2/GA2

Technology or Usage?

The second paragraph in the "technology" section is confusing. I'm not a twitter user so perhaps experience would answer this, but is the useage of # and @ programmed into twitter, or simply a format people follow. Is it actually technology or just useage? Pbmax (talk) 06:07, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It's technology, as @replies get sent directly to the person you're targeting. I'll try and make this more clear in the article. Greg Tyler (t • c) 17:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Petter Facinelli twitter bet

Petter Facinelli's bet to get half a million followers before friday has got a lot of attention. I think it should be in the article maybe in the prominent user bit or something like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.94.146.233 (talk) 20:56, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

A lot of bets go on as to "who can get the most followers". The fact that he's a celebrity doesn't really make it a notable enough occurrence to include in the article. If he starts a national rebellion that interferes with website maintenance, perhaps the situation would warrant inclusion then. Thanks for the suggestion though! Greg Tyler (t • c) 21:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

"140 Characters"

Per WP:SPS, I don't think this blog is a reliable source. An alternative source should be found, or content taken from it removed. Vicenarian (T · C) 19:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I think in this case it's an appropriate source, as 140Characters.com's author, Dom Sagolla worked at Odeo and helped lend a hand to the creation of Twitter.--The lorax (talk) 21:29, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
You're probably right, based on WP:SELFPUB (conveniently right below WP:SPS), since there doesn't seem to be any doubt about who the author is and, as Sagolla is someone who helped create the product, this is basically an article "about himself" (broadly construed). Good call. Vicenarian (T · C) 21:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

TXTmob

I've removed the link to TXTmob. While there is a section on the TXTmob page saying that it inspired Twitter, that section has no citiation. There's insufficient information on the TXTmob page to determine if it predates Twitter and in any case, the debate of who inspired who isn't really the responsibility of a wikipedia editor, that's what cited sources are for. :-) If there is something about TXTmob that belongs on the Twitter page, that connection should be in the form of a clear link to TXTmob, like so TXTMob. The connection should not be indicated by using the generic word "service" as the link since TXTmob is not a synonym for all services. Jopo sf (talk) 17:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thats fair. Only, on my side of the internet txtmob.com is down, and its rather hard finding a twitter textmob reference through google (…) -- eiland (talk) 08:06, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
The link was actually already there. An the gay adding the twitter reference on TXTmob is RabbleRouser, which is probably the Rabble mentioned in and commenting on http://www.140characters.com/2009/01/30/how-twitter-was-born. -- eiland (talk) 08:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Twitter Tracker

Should there be a mention of the reoccurring "Twitter Tracker" skit from The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien under In the media? We have a mentions in there from the Daily Show, "Twitter Tracker" seems just as noteworthy. PerryPlanet (talk) 02:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, at this point, I think the entire In the media section might be worth getting rid of. The Daily Show references were noteworthy once upon a time since they indicated that Twitter was making a transition to mainstream. But at this point, Twitter is all over the news and this section should probably at least be reduced in scope to things like the first mention of Twitter in the main news, major news controversies, and so on. The distinction between the media references and general history and general usage doesn't seem to be clear or useful. Thoughts?Jopo sf (talk) 01:53, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Outages needs an update

6.25.09 news of Michael Jackson's death spreading through twitter caused it to crash. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.70.31.100 (talk • contribs) 22:54, 26 June 2009

Not notable ~~ [ジャム][t - c] 22:01, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. The outages section already mentions that Twitter has problems when big media events like MacWorld occur. Listing every event that causes a Twitter outage isn't needed. If there is something about the MJ story that sets some sort of record such as most Tweets per hour, that might be worth noting but otherwise, this is just another capacity-related outage.Jopo sf (talk) 01:38, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Verified Accounts

Twitter made this new thing on their site and it's called verfiied accounts. Iti s the real deal on Twitter, without it could be fake or real. It is in beta. At one point, it was only for celebrites. now, it also for businesses This what Twitter.com said before it," To prevent identity confusion, Twitter is experimenting (beta testing) with a 'Verified Account' feature. We're working to establish authenticity with people who deal with impersonation or identity confusion on a regular basis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Panicpack121 (talk • contribs) 08:57, 30 June 2009

I've added this under the "privacy" section since the feature is related to the integrity and authenticity of accounts. I'll delete this section of the discussion in a week or so if there isn't any further conversation to be had on this.Jopo sf (talk) 01:43, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
There is no reason to delete this discussion once the change has been implemented. ~~ [ジャム][t - c] 07:49, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

The Twittering Classes

"A phrase first punned by writer Johnnie Jackson (June 2009) to descibe the many groups and individuals who had begun to use the social network to develop and inform."

Are there any page editors who can get this edit onto the main page pls? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cl4p (talk • contribs) 14:57, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I really don't think that's notable enough to feature in this article. We've got to provide lots of all-round information about the subject but this is too far in depth to suitably feature in the article. Not least because there is loads of Twitter vocabulary that's being created every day. Perhaps Wiktionary would be a suitable place for such a term? Greg Tyler (t • c) 15:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Add

 Done Vicenarian (T · C) 17:09, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The word twitter and tweet existed long before this service. Let's get this right.

People seem to forget that the word twitter and tweet (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/twitter) were around long before this service existed, yet this seems to be the only association with the word. How does one add a disambiguation so Twitter is primarily its first use historically and second an internet website? Patrick24601 (talk) 02:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary, so there shouldn't be a page like you cite at dictionary.com. If there is a notable use of the term "twitter" to refer to an object or concept (not just a dictionary definition), then I would suggest that this be the primary "twitter" page due to its notoriety. A link could be added to the top of this page to direct readers to the other uses of "twitter." Vicenarian (T · C) 04:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Also note that there is a link to the Wiktionary page for "twitter" in the External links section. Vicenarian (T · C) 04:56, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


In Pidgin

I was wondering whether twitter may be implemented in multi-instant messengers as Pidgin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.79.192 (talk • contribs) 16:32, 20 July 2009

Twitter isn't an instant messaging protocol, so I don't think it would be suited to IM programs like Pidgin. There are already loads of Twitter applications out there. ~~ [ジャム][t - c] 18:46, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


Advertising/Twitter Revenue

The first ad was spotted on twitter. Only shows for certain browsers. http://twitpic.com/bfy66 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.162.33.91 (talk) 14:35, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

That's not an advert, it's a well-placed banner to point out that anyone using IE6 needs to upgrade or GTFO. As more and more people harken to the fact that IE6 doesn't work very well, and less and less websites support it, it's only fair that Twitter should mention the loss of support to its users. I would do the same on my websites, but I'm both evil and lazy. Greg Tyler (t • c) 15:56, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

Smart Mob

Can we have more of an explanation of why Smart Mob should be a link from Twitter? I don't disagree that Smart Mob predates Twitter or that Smart Mobs have been involved in politics. But telephones and faxes also predate Twitter and have been used for politics and we don't link to them. The link between Smart Mobs and Twitter is indirect; I can see them both being linked to general categories like social networks or online organizations but I don't think they are closely related to each other. That is, cats and dogs are both pets and are both mammals, but aren't directly linked.Jopo sf (talk) 01:28, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Twitter has been used to organize smartmobs.--MahaPanta (talk) 13:11, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes it has. But what is it about Smart Mobs that make them specifically worth calling out over and above all the other things that people use Twitter for? If it's just an interesting use of Twitter I think that it's better to note that in the general "usage" section the same way we note many other specific uses for Twitter. Putting a link to it in the "external links" section is an assertion that the relationship is both self-evident and of broad interest to the majority of readers. The relationship needs the (admittedly short) explanation that A is used to organize B so it isn't a stand-alone link. And while Smart Mobs are very interesting to some people, it isn't clear that this usage is likely to be of broad interest the same way that, say, tools for Twitter are. Jopo sf (talk) 17:49, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Alexa Traffic Rank

Twitter, like many other sites, moves up and down a bit in Alexa traffic rank. Should we just say something like "ranks in the top 50" instead of regularly editing the page to have the exact current rank?Jopo sf (talk) 17:44, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a logical call to me. Greg Tyler (t • c) 20:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

"Web Traffic" section

I've removed the "Web Traffic" section added by Solphusion for now, as I felt such a radical change should not be made without discussion and consensus. The section was splintered off from the 4th lead paragraph, where it has now been restored. Editors are encouraged to examine the changes made before entering the opinions below.

Personally, I don't think this is a good idea. It gives undue weight to the traffic statistics of the site, something which isn't as important as many other features of the page. The section goes into far too much detail about a topic which we can sufficiently investigate in a single paragraph. Greg Tyler (t • c) 21:45, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. Since other social media and technology pages don't go into that level of detail, the inclusion of that data here implies that there's an important and distinct overall pattern to Twitter's growth. But there isn't really a pattern, just a "wow, that was fast" velocity.Jopo sf (talk) 01:59, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
( I worked 3 hours on this section. You will understand that I will try to reintroduce the most important information of this section. I mean wtf. There is/was useful information in this section. I would understand if you had just deleted parts of this section or moved only half of it back to the top, but DELETING everything of this is just plain crazy. With your argument you can start deleting other articles as well. I mean for example who cares which movies or games had a "Jetpack" in it... some will care! Twitter is a Web company which has only success if it attracts lots of internet users. So the most important part of the history of Twitter will be when and how Twitter gained that traffic therefore became famous. --Solphusion (talk) 21:29, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
Firstly, it's not deleted. It's been removed, but it's still totally accessible if you want the section you wrote back. Secondly, I'm sorry you spent time on it but that doesn't mean it's worth while. Thirdly, just because there are other examples on Wikipedia doesn't mean it's right.
Back to the case in hand though. You're right to say that Twitter's web traffic is important, it just doesn't warrant as much information as you wrote. We already demonstrate its importance by having a full paragraph in the lead which gives a broad, but rounded view of Twitter's online popularity. Any more information is going into unnecessary detail. People will want to know Twitter's Alexa rank and it's monthly growth is also interesting, but those who want to know more are specifically interested in a very small corner of our coverage. We can't really cater for that.
In a nutshell, we can't go into so much detail on that section. We have a whole paragraph in the lead, that's significant and acceptable coverage. Four paragraphs on Twitter's history of growth is more of a specialist essay. Also, see 3b WP:GAC. Greg Tyler (t • c) 22:10, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

TechCrunch reports secret Twitter documents

TechCrunch is publishing hacked Twitter documents, can we re-publish details here i.e. the Twitter TV show?--The lorax (talk) 21:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

If it is notable enough we can mention the issue, in a way that suitably flows with the rest of the article, and include links to reliable sources (moreso than TechCrunch would be preferable) that further illustrate the issue. Can we re-print the text? It's a waste of space and probably breaks copyright. Can we use it to bash Twitter? To an extent yes, but make sure it's NPOV. I would suggest that you draft together the edit you'd like to make (where you'd include it, exactly what you'd say) so that other editors can check it flows well with the rest of the article and is properly formatted. As new stories are created about Twitter every day, we can't simply add links to each one as it emerges. Greg Tyler (t • c) 21:47, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
It seems to be a pretty big deal, their 3Q profit was made public because of it and The New York Times is reporting on it now.[1]--The lorax (talk) 22:21, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
At first glance it appears this will definitely be significant enough to include but I would suggest waiting a day or two before doing the write-up. This will give a bit of time for the whole story to become clear and settled thus avoiding the need for a series of quick edits to add pertinent details. Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_wp_is_not "wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories" and I think this story is still in the breaking stage. If people think it's urgent enough to include now, I would suggest we mention it and link to the NY Times article with only a quick comment like "some of Twitters financial projections have been exposed by a hacker."Jopo sf (talk) 22:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
Also, I don't think there will be an issue with NPOV. Regardless of the method of the hack, the data revealed is comprehensive and the depth of the breach is extreme. No one is suggesting a profanity laced critique of Twitter but in terms of security this will be "one for the record books" so even if the article did call this "fucking embarrassingly weak" the only issue would be the vocabulary words chosen and not the degree of the sentiment.Jopo sf (talk) 22:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Privacy Section

As mentioned in my edit notes, I removed the sentence about Twitter's collection of personal information since their statement that they do so was just the typical legal disclaimer that appears in the terms of service of almost every online company. As Twitter's policy in that respect isn't noteworthy, there's no reason to list them as being Twitter-specific privacy issue. I'm assuming this edit reverted with a "minor change" flag and no comment because someone thought the deletion was accidental. So I'm re-deleting the line. Jopo sf (talk) 05:56, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry Jopo sf for not giving reasoning in my edit summary. No it was not an accident. You might, but most people have no idea what a typical disclaimer is and this section belongs here. -SusanLesch (talk) 18:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
A discussion of general privacy issues is appropriate for a page on privacy but the implication of putting this on Twitter's page is a assertion that Twitter is uniquely irresponsible in that matter which, in my opinion violates the NPOV for this article. Facebooks's privacy policy at http://www.facebook.com/policy.php contains the same clauses, i.e. that Facebook can collect personal information and can make it available to third parties. Google's terms of service for Blogger posted at http://www.blogger.com/terms.g grant it the right to collect and process personal information. Microsoft's privacy policy at http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/default.mspx grants it the right to collect and distribute personal information. I think this supports my statement that Twitter's terms of service are just general legal boilerplate and therefore not worth including in this page. There are no doubt people at Twitter who don't wash their hands after using the bathroom and while we may find that distasteful, we don't mention it on Twitter's page because that's not unique to Twitter. Can someone else weigh in on this? I don't want to start an edit war but I don't think this reversion was justified. I'm also concerned that the person doing the reversion is repeatedly marking this as a minor change; the mere fact that this discussion exists shows that it's not.Jopo sf (talk) 20:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Oh boy, sorry Jopo sf for making the m edit instead of marking it major. I do believe that you are a very informed person about disclaimers, something that is rare in the world. I also think that Twitter seems to be a simple service but that its assets in terms of personal information are growing. The part in question explains that there is value in this information and that it may be sold. This is by no means obvious. -SusanLesch (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
As noted, all of the three non-Twitter examples I linked to grant the companies the right to sell the information. The issue isn't whether privacy is important. It's whether there is something about Twitter's Terms of Service that are different from what's common in the industry. Since Twitter's ToS are industry-standard, this article is the wrong place to discuss problems with that standard.Jopo sf (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC).
Twitter's terms of service are of interest to its users and to its potential users. I don't know why you seem to object to a couple sentences, but if you remove them I suggest renaming the "Privacy and security" section to simply "Security". You know, Microsoft wanted to buy Yahoo!, and I think that's because all this stuff they collect about people has value to their business. -SusanLesch (talk)
Also while I am thinking about this, I don't think this article would be complete without this privacy information. -SusanLesch (talk) 22:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Can a third party comment on this?Jopo sf (talk) 02:00, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it should be removed. 71.32.249.201 (talk) 00:37, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Instant messaging

Perhaps Instant messaging may be noted in the see also section and a brief explanation stating the differences between micro blogging and instant messaging should be given. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.79.192 (talk) 15:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a fairly obvious difference, and not really worth mentioning. I mean, by that logic we could explain the difference between Twitter and emails - they use totally different setups. Most notably Twitter allows posting one way, whereas IM involves two or more people speaking directly at the same time. Whilst Twitter could be used for IM, you'd have to be desperate. And you might as well use normal blogging. Or email. Greg Tyler (t • c) 17:10, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
One difference is that the page specifically describes Twitter as being like the IRC instant messaging system. That may be responsible for the confusion. It may be best to remove the IRC reference in the article since here's only one article that makes the claim that the two are similar; the "Twitter is like IRC" analogy doesn't seem to be generally used.Jopo sf (talk) 18:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Top Followed Twitter Users

This list seems problematic. It is never correct for very long. The numbers provided are only correct for perhaps a millisecond. It has to be maintained. At the very least, the list should be referenced with a date. HyperCapitalist (talk) 22:59, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

How about we remove the list altogether? Beyond the war of @aplusk and @cnnbrk to 1 million followers, individual follower counts are irrelevant to the encyclopedia content of the article. I'm going to go ahead and remove the list, but not the image, as @aplusk is the most followed, and will be for quite a while (probably)--Unionhawk Talk E-mail 01:09, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
Not sure how that slipped by. Removal was certainly the right option. Greg Tyler (t • c) 09:43, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a website at www.tweetface.org that has a 'Toptweeter' - perhaps a definition or explanation of this could be added somewhere to the Twitter page on Wikipedia. There has been some discussion about it on twitter and people are unclear what 'toptweeter' means so it would probably be useful to have something here do you think? I am new here and not quite sure how edits/updates are done so apologies in advance if this is the wrong way or place to make suggestions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nelly36 (talk • contribs) 08:42, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion, it's great to see people getting involved in Wikipedia! However, if we were to include a definition of "toptweeter", we'd really have to have definitions of all Twitter-related words, which grow at a rate of about one a day. This would leave us with an article with way too much information on that we really couldn't maintain. I completely see what you're getting at, and similar words have been suggested before, but the need really isn't there. However, you could take a look at wiktionary (which provides definitions of words) or the more specific twictionary (which focuses on Twitter words and is unrelated to the Wikimedia Foundation). Greg Tyler (t • c) 16:09, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Twitter Users

I think the sentence "However, only 40 percent of Twitter's users are retained." Should be removed, because most experienced Twitter users download an application and stop using the site after a while. Since the Nielson data only tracks web users, many active users who use a Twitter application are counted as inactive. There is no way to determine how many users Twitter retains.Wikizeta (talk) 01:54, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Seems like a good point -- but I think the best thing would be to leave the referenced 40 percent comment and add your properly referenced caveat. HyperCapitalist (talk) 02:40, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
A misunderstood point nevertheless, whether you use the provided interface or an application, as the twitter api only uses HTTP, it's still using the web and creating traffic which is what Nielson measures. --neon white talk 21:06, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Aye. Unless apps have found an access point outside of the Twitter API, those stats are correct. Greg Tyler (t • c) 21:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. But even if a majority of apps used a non-HTTP API, the 40 percent reference is properly cited, so any alternative rating measure (which we haven't seen yet) would just be cited as additional info. HyperCapitalist (talk) 00:03, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

New Subcategories

For what it is worth, I addded and started to populate two categories to the "Twitter" category: "People with Twitter Feeds" and "Organizations with Twitter Feeds" (I can't for the life of me remember how to link category pages without actually adding this page to the category...). HyperCapitalist (talk) 05:47, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Add a colon in front of the link: Category:People with Twitter Feeds, Category:Organizations with Twitter Feeds. Incidentally, the word "Feeds" in both should be lower case, as it isn't a name. Greg Tyler (t • c) 09:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)'
Will do both. Need to understand the category renaming process to fix the capitalization issue -- my bad on that one. Incidentally, both categories have been nominated for deletion. HyperCapitalist (talk) 15:37, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Denial of Service Attack on 7 AUG 2009

There are a huge number of stories [2] [3] [4] about the DDoS attack taking place in the morning of 7 AUG 2009 against Twitter. Is there anybody going to complement this article with this incident?128.250.29.174 (talk) 22:46, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It's in the last paragraph of "Outages". If you can add some decent sources (using Citation templates) and more information, that would be brilliant. The current paragraph is only a single line. Also, it was on the 6th August (unless you're telling of another attack that hasn't happened yet!) Greg Tyler (t • c) 23:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant the morning of 7 AUG 2009 in UTC+10, namely the attack you refered to.

Round in Circles

could someone put an "arguments tend to be rehashed - read the damn archives" tag on this talk page? I would, but I'm editing from my cell phone, and would probably end up breaking something... lol...--Unionhawk Talk E-mail 04:07, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Impacts of Outages

The Outages section discusses reliability issues; does it make sense to reference the creation of such sites as istwitterdown.com and istwitterbroken.com, and even isistwitterdowndown.com, for when that site went down? Twitter's reliability has spurned a whole slew of these; wondering if such a movement is significant enough to note. Thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.185.138.143 (talk) 16:53, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd say "nah". These exist for a large number of popular websites, and are just intended as jokey references at reliability. Twitter's not that more unreliable than any other site, but it has thousands of people connected to it 24/7, which make the small outages they have more noticeable. Facebook goes down on a much more regular basis, but people don't tend to notice. In fact, it was out for an entire day; yet this warrants no more than a sentence in the Facebook article. Ultimately, the sites are misguided and discussing them implies that Twitter is more unreliable than it is and serves as advertisement. Greg Tyler (t • c) 17:35, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Historical revision

The text under the image "Twttr sketch-Dorsey-2006.jpg" claims that the original idea was sketched "circa-2000". However, the sketch clearly shows reference to the email "jack@gu.st", which seems odd because Dorsey only registered the domain "gu.st" in August 2001[1]. In addition, it seems unlikely Dorsey would have chosen "stat.us" as a potential domain-name in 2000, because the .us sunrise period for second-level domains was only announced on February 2002[2]. So, most likely, this sketch is from early 2002 at best. This is a minor point, but claiming this sketch is from 2000 does hint at historical revisionism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.86 (talk) 17:15, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The Los Angeles Times interviewed Dorsey and he said it was from 2000.--The lorax (talk) 16:17, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
He could also say he lives on the moon, but it wouldn't be true. Look at the picture. No way it's from 2000. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.107.0.73 (talk) 01:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Role in Geopolitical upheaval?

Is it worth noting that Twitter seems to be playing a major role in getting out news of the unrest in Iran? Contributions/130.132.248.39 (talk) 18:47, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

But it's equally worth pointing out that the demographics of the supporters of the incumbency (mainly rural, mainly older, mainly less educated, mainly more conservative, mainly more established in views, etc.) v. the supporters of the opposition (mainly urban, mainly younger, mainly more educated, mainly more liberal, mainly more fluid in views, etc.) happens to coincide with the divide (shrinking though it may be) between those less internet-enabled and those more internet-enabled. Just something worth thinking about when considering the balance of that "news".Brockle (talk) 13:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Meh. Twitter is entirely overrated, simple as that. It's probably since it gets so much spotlight-porn by the media. "oh noes! riots in Iran foiled by Twitter! OMGZ!!!" I mean, some of the newspaper articles read like they were written by seedy old men who wouldn't separate an IP address from a postal address. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:24, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

140?

OK, call me ignorant: Why 140? Why not 150, or 120? How did they decide on 140? Anybody know? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 13:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

140 characters for the message + 15 characters for your username + 5 characters of spaces, colons and brackets = 160. The size of one packet in an SMS. Hence, it's the longest possible value to fit inside one message. Greg Tyler (t • c) 13:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Vodaphone UK

Edit the technology section, O2 UK can use the short code now as well. 83.67.39.175 (talk) 12:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Added; thanks for the shout! Greg Tyler (t • c) 15:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Usage section

The way the Usage section exists now seems like a cluster of trivia. Is there a way we can break it down into sections? I'm just going to be bold and break it into sections.--The lorax (talk) 20:26, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Blocking In China

Yes, pretty much everything is blocked here. Twitter was blocked and hasn't been unblocked since the Urumuqi incidents in July. Maybe worth noting... they like to stifle anything that can cause the country to "lose face". --iftrueelsefalse 05:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

adding twitter spam?

Maybe it is interesting to add a paragraph on twitter spam? Im not so familiar with it, but we have it a lot on out twitter account, like innovative ways of spamming, see for example http://blog.twitter.com/2008/08/making-progress-on-spam.html and maybe there are other innovative spamming ways too? -- eiland (talk) 12:21, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

spelling mistake in the article

There is a spelling mistake in the article. "aganst" instead of the correct "against". But since the article is protected, I can't edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.115.175.238 (talk) 21:53, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

 Done - Fixed.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail Review 22:10, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Other Uses Section not Neutral

The other uses section, particularly the bit about the NHS does not follow NPOV. Things like the quotes just around the word "lies" give this section a subtle but present POV slant. Perhaps a whole quote could be used in place of this particular sentence. I also think that better wording could be used to make this paragraph neutral.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail 16:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Similarly, I think the whole Usage section needs work. It's got far too many short paragraphs, and plays hell with the Table of Contents. Perhaps some headings should be excluded from the TOC? Anyhow, I preferred it when it was done by year. Sure it wasn't quite as clear cut what it was talking about, but it was surprisingly readable. Oh well, such things have been lost now. Greg Tyler (t • c) 16:35, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Having complained, I've now done something about it. Whilst not perfect, it's better than before. Greg Tyler (t • c) 16:43, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
I added the real quote from Graham Lineman and took out the bit about Stephen Hawking. It seems pretty NPOV to me now, but I think I should get someone else's opinion before removing the tag. Pafferguy (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Sockington

I see Sockington has been removed from the See Also section because there are many other people who became famous/notorious via Twitter. Is there a way of linking them to here? A list perhaps? Otherwise if there are not enough for that they could go in the template. I'd do it but I don't know who they are. Totnesmartin (talk) 17:40, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that Twitter is a parent to so many children. For example, the article on Website could, in some views, link to pages about specific websites. But they'd be far too many. Similarly, linking to Twitter users is highly impractical. Furthermore, Sockington is not notable enough to gain superior mention over other articles. The best thing to do is put him in Category:Twitter (as has already been done). Greg Tyler (t • c) 22:40, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
OK then - I just didn't realise how many there were (thought it might be half a dozen tops). Totnesmartin (talk) 09:17, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Can Twitter pass text to non-internet data streams? 216.99.198.157 (talk) 19:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Lack of Security

I think that the lack of security ought to be mentioned one way or another. I've heard of many hacks recently involving Twitter. 21:45, 14 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.107.238.158 (talk)

Can users send encrypted text via Twitter? 216.99.198.157 (talk) 19:14, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Role in Geopolitical upheaval?

Is it worth noting that Twitter seems to be playing a major role in getting out news of the unrest in Iran? Contributions/130.132.248.39 (talk) 18:47, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

But it's equally worth pointing out that the demographics of the supporters of the incumbency (mainly rural, mainly older, mainly less educated, mainly more conservative, mainly more established in views, etc.) v. the supporters of the opposition (mainly urban, mainly younger, mainly more educated, mainly more liberal, mainly more fluid in views, etc.) happens to coincide with the divide (shrinking though it may be) between those less internet-enabled and those more internet-enabled. Just something worth thinking about when considering the balance of that "news".Brockle (talk) 13:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Meh. Twitter is entirely overrated, simple as that. It's probably since it gets so much spotlight-porn by the media. "oh noes! riots in Iran foiled by Twitter! OMGZ!!!" I mean, some of the newspaper articles read like they were written by seedy old men who wouldn't separate an IP address from a postal address. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 13:24, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

140?

OK, call me ignorant: Why 140? Why not 150, or 120? How did they decide on 140? Anybody know? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 13:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

140 characters for the message + 15 characters for your username + 5 characters of spaces, colons and brackets = 160. The size of one packet in an SMS. Hence, it's the longest possible value to fit inside one message. Greg Tyler (t • c) 13:41, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Vodaphone UK

Edit the technology section, O2 UK can use the short code now as well. 83.67.39.175 (talk) 12:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Added; thanks for the shout! Greg Tyler (t • c) 15:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Sockington

I see Sockington has been removed from the See Also section because there are many other people who became famous/notorious via Twitter. Is there a way of linking them to here? A list perhaps? Otherwise if there are not enough for that they could go in the template. I'd do it but I don't know who they are. Totnesmartin (talk) 17:40, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that Twitter is a parent to so many children. For example, the article on Website could, in some views, link to pages about specific websites. But they'd be far too many. Similarly, linking to Twitter users is highly impractical. Furthermore, Sockington is not notable enough to gain superior mention over other articles. The best thing to do is put him in Category:Twitter (as has already been done). Greg Tyler (t • c) 22:40, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
OK then - I just didn't realise how many there were (thought it might be half a dozen tops). Totnesmartin (talk) 09:17, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Untruths

"and has brought to the web the kind of shorthand notation and slang commonly used in SMS messages"

Believe it or not, the internet had slang and shorthand way before 2006. :O —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.200.196.211 (talk) 15:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Lack of Security

I think that the lack of security ought to be mentioned one way or another. I've heard of many hacks recently involving Twitter. 21:45, 14 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.107.238.158 (talk)

Usage section

The way the Usage section exists now seems like a cluster of trivia. Is there a way we can break it down into sections? I'm just going to be bold and break it into sections.--The lorax (talk) 20:26, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Other Uses Section not Neutral

The other uses section, particularly the bit about the NHS does not follow NPOV. Things like the quotes just around the word "lies" give this section a subtle but present POV slant. Perhaps a whole quote could be used in place of this particular sentence. I also think that better wording could be used to make this paragraph neutral.--Unionhawk Talk E-mail 16:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Similarly, I think the whole Usage section needs work. It's got far too many short paragraphs, and plays hell with the Table of Contents. Perhaps some headings should be excluded from the TOC? Anyhow, I preferred it when it was done by year. Sure it wasn't quite as clear cut what it was talking about, but it was surprisingly readable. Oh well, such things have been lost now. Greg Tyler (t • c) 16:35, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
Having complained, I've now done something about it. Whilst not perfect, it's better than before. Greg Tyler (t • c) 16:43, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Tweets and People cannot be found in search

I have signed up to Twitter and we are a charity organisation and wanted a way of communicating to our members. However, new Tweets do not appear in seach. And when searching for our charity's name, people can't find us. It appears to be a bug with Twitter. So how do people find us?

The help pages were useless. Yet, looking at another (help) web site, it seems this is a common problem and has been outstanding for several months. And people complaining that Twitter will take months to respond!. So why not put this common problem in the FAQ?.

It is problems such as these that will limit Twitter's success. And frankly, if they don't reply by next week. I will be shutting the Twitter account down. Sadly, our charity spend money on getting the site updated to mention that 'we are on Twitter now'. ONly to find that the service is crippled.

I don't understand why they don't take advertising on their site, this way atleast they can pay for more staff or programmers etc... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.24.109 (talk) 12:08, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The Twitter Hack of 2009

Should somebody include the current event of Twitter being hacked by the "Iranian Cyber Army?"WinnrChezbergr (talk) 01:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Content of tweets

What's the rationale behind this section? It's a study by a single company, with no independent coverage. It's only taken a small selection of tweets, so probably not a fair amount to provide any accurate insight into anything. The section merely comprises a subjective list of content categories, and then a series of numbers which prove nothing and are, as before, very much subjective. It's unacademic, proves nothing and doesn't really have a place in this article. Surely? Greg Tyler (t • c) 16:35, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

This section definitely should be expanded, as at the moment, it is just one company's opinion on how tweets can be classified. This seems pretty important in explaining the essence of a tweet.--The lorax (talk) 17:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
I understand it's an interesting concept, and probably one that should be mentioned in the article. But I feel it could be done justice in a paragraph (possibly even just a sentence) and a whole section gives undue weight to a single subjective opinion. In its current state, it has no reason to remain. Greg Tyler (t • c) 22:55, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Can this be removed or reworded? It is old and ironic, and oddly enough just under 140 characters. "This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (November 2009)" 76.180.186.23 (talk) 03:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Yiyinglu, 7 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} Hi, I am the creator of the Titter Fail Whale image.

In twitter's outrages page, in the first sentence "When Twitter experiences an outage, users see the "fail whale" error message image created by Yiying Lu". Please hype-link my name "Yiying Lu" to my website: http://www.yiyinglu.com

Also, in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Failwhale.png, Description: This is a logo owned by Twitter for "Fail Whale".

This is incorrect. This image is copyrighted and owned by Yiying Lu, the original designer of the image.

Many thanks.

Some References:

http://www.yiyinglu.com/failwhale

http://vector.tutsplus.com/articles/interviews/interview-with-yiying-lu-aka-fail-whale-creator

http://scrollmagazine.com/number-2/yiying-lu

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/web/how-fail-whale-became-a-hit/2009/04/27/1240684398600.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2

Yiyinglu (talk) 00:25, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

We do not hyperlink to other websites within text, it is already on the image page.  fetchcomms☛ 01:11, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Number of active users vs. registered users

The current version says: "The website currently has more than 100 million active users worldwide."

The given reference: [5] talks about: "Microblogging sensation Twitter, which has now signed up more than 100 million users,"

This implies registered users but the article text suggests active users. I believe this is misleading.

-- nyenyec ☎ 12:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 117.204.90.224, 9 May 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}


117.204.90.224 (talk) 15:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

What changes to the Twitter article are you requesting? You will need to tell us so that we can make a decision as to whether the changes should go ahead. Thank you. Chevymontecarlo. 17:50, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Criticism section

I am glad to see that a criticism section was finally integrated into this article. Twitter sucks! WAT (talk • contributions) 00:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Twitter is censoring "trend topics". More than 10K tweets per hour about the recent 'flotilla' murders/piracy and only the misspelled "israil" has become a trending topic. This is obvious and direct evidence of censorship! A subsection should be written about this censorship with some sources which shouldn't take long because of the enormity of this!--66.223.168.45 (talk) 09:39, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
May be sensible to wait a day or so to get decent references- most of the mainstream media references to this I can find just say there are rumours it is censoring, e.g here http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/may/31/israel-troops-gaza-ships 82.45.213.183 (talk) 11:01, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Isedimustumuortseneanne, 10 May 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

twitter hacked by inci sozluk (a turkish blog) in 10 may 2010

Isedimustumuortseneanne (talk) 19:18, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Not done: Welcome and thanks. You need to provide a reliable source for this information and the exact text you would like to have inserted. Celestra (talk) 19:51, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

reliable sources:

http://mashable.com/2010/05/10/twitocalypse-heavy-metal/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20004563-36.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.38.144.240 (talk) 20:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Pmoneyx, 13 May 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} Please add the following under the education section. Higher education faculty have begun using Twitter to help establish social presence and just in time interaction with students that are not bound by a learning management system. [3][4]


Pmoneyx (talk) 16:12, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Done. Tim Pierce (talk) 20:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 122.162.115.87, 25 May 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} Please include a section on using twitter for competitive intelligence. See our advice on why and how to do it*Using Twitter for Competitive Intelligence - Corporate Strategy Board

122.162.115.87 (talk) 17:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Not done: Thanks for the request, but you need to write out the exact text you want added, along with providing reliable sources. Thanks! SpigotMap 17:34, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Character limit

I think we should add information to the article to point out that some services (e.g. Twishort) allow avoiding the 140 character limit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saband.sap (talk • contribs) 11:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 193.52.216.130, 1 June 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} Change "All users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS),...." to "All users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, and some by Short Message Service (SMS),..."

This is due to the fact that SMS use is only available in certain countries. 193.52.216.130 (talk) 14:36, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Done. haz (talk) 16:37, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Potential conflict of interest on 'Use in election special coverage' section

While comprehensively referenced, this section has sources solely from the ABS-CBN and GMA news networks, and the content was about how these networks deployed their own election coverage using Twitter. Shouldn't the section be using reliable sources through media coverage independent from these news networks? The write-up looks like borderline advertising from those networks. --112.203.55.218 (talk) 11:03, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there was necessarily a CoI, but the section was not good and I've removed it. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:30, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Twitter/GA3. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

The article was originally reviewed and passed on May 25, 2009, following a brief review, but it's not clear that it was reviewed according to the six GA criteria. It underwent GA reassessment on September 1, 2009, which appears to be more detailed, but was ultimately passed with an WP:NPOV tag in one of its sections, which goes against criterion #4.

The current version has a 'multiple issues' tag at the top and another cleanup tag in one of the sections. The 'notable usage' section also seems to be getting a little out of hand, with lots of subsections that have been added, and I think some of this would be better handled in a much shorter section without going into so much gory details (it's too focused, which is an issue with criterion #3). The lead section also isn't providing a very good summary of the article, per WP:LEAD. And there's lots of citations in the lead as well, which suggests that new material is being introduced there.

The article is also currently protected (since 12/15/2009), and a look in the edit history suggests some reverting. The numerous edit requests on the talk page suggests that it the article was not protected, it would still be subject to a lot of vandalism. So this is an issue with criterion #5 (stability). WTF? (talk) 01:42, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with all your points. In particular the 'notable usage' section is way too long. It should be condensed and perhaps a new article created with the rest of the content. Overall, the article needs a lot of work. I'm planning to do my part to slowing start improving the grammar, language and flow of the sections. DAG JM (talk) 23:12, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
This is an old assessment. I am closing it since there doesn't seem to have been any follow-up in months. The article has changed quite a bit since this review was written (although I'm not saying that it's worse or better than before). In particular, I had moved the "Notable usages" section to its own article a few days after this review was created. Gary King (talk · scripts) 23:06, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Pending changes

This article is one of a number selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Pending changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 00:27, 17 June 2010 (UTC).

Removing unnecessary quotations

Hi all,

I think this article uses too many long quotes that don't add significant value. I want to remove a number of them. Initially, I propose yanking the following quotes from the "intro" and "history" sections:

What we have to do is deliver to people the best and freshest most relevant information possible. We think of Twitter as it's not a social network, but it's an information network. It tells people what they care about as it is happening in the world. —Evan Williams [9]
The working name was just "Status" for a while. It actually didn’t have a name. We were trying to name it, and mobile was a big aspect of the product early on ... We liked the SMS aspect, and how you could update from anywhere and receive from anywhere.
We wanted to capture that in the name—we wanted to capture that feeling: the physical sensation that you’re buzzing your friend’s pocket. It’s like buzzing all over the world. So we did a bunch of name-storming, and we came up with the word "twitch," because the phone kind of vibrates when it moves. But "twitch" is not a good product name because it doesn’t bring up the right imagery. So we looked in the dictionary for words around it, and we came across the word "twitter," and it was just perfect. The definition was "a short burst of inconsequential information," and "chirps from birds." And that’s exactly what the product was.—Jack Dorsey[11]
"Hundreds of conference-goers kept tabs on each other via constant twitters. Panelists and speakers mentioned the service, and the bloggers in attendance touted it. Soon everyone was buzzing and posting about this new thing that was sort of instant messaging and sort of blogging and maybe even a bit of sending a stream of telegrams."[16]

Thoughts? DAG JM (talk) 21:07, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

These quotes have been condensed or removed. DAG JM (talk) 22:15, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Company slogan?

Isaiah: Can you find some sources to confirm that the company slogan is "tweet it"? --Noleander (talk) 14:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm almost 100% sure "tweet it" is not Twitter's slogan and in fact, it doesn't have one. DAG JM (talk) 23:20, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Public domain?

Is material posted on twitter in the public domain or not? Specifically, if someone posts an image of self in twitter, is it ok to copy this image to Commons? Albmont (talk) 16:15, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Twitter themselves only host Profile Pictures. In the case of profile pictures the uploader will give twitter rights to distribute the image but the copyright holder will retain the copyright. There are services that allow you to post links in a tweet to images you've uploaded to the service, however generally these images are still under the copyright of whoever took the picture unless they themselves release it into the public domain. In summary, No; images on twitter are not released to the public domain and are thus unsuitable for Commons AFAIK. TwinnedChimera (talk) 05:06, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Used ResortHoppa recently (Airport transfers)very unreliable. Give you a time and pick up point then do not turn up. Any bodyelse experience a problem with them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.202.245.102 (talk) 19:33, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

growth stats

The stats in this section are sliding all over the place. Without good stats citations there's no point at all in having these sentences in the "Growth" section. They are worthless and arbitrary.

"Twitter had 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007. This grew to 100 million tweets posted per quarter in 2008. By the end of 2009, 2 billion tweets per quarter were being posted.[citation needed] In the first quarter of 2010, 4 billion tweets have been posted. Currently, about 65 million tweets are posted each day, equalling about 750 tweets sent each second, according to Twitter.[citation needed]".

I reckon, if nobody can find any we should delete. Spanglej (talk) 02:49, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Outage

Twitter is having an outage at present, again. :(   — Jeff G. ツ 03:40, 15 June 2010 (UTC) Is Outage different to failwhale ? Sorry, I'm ignorant of the technology distinction. If this is a comment on twitters servers ability, it will be one of many, but not helpful to article Ern Malleyscrub (talk) 11:18, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Not sure how this relates to improving the article, which is the purpose of a Talk page. The history of worsening outages, culminating in DoS attacks is certainly notable. Reliable sources discussing the future of social websites given the current ease of launching DoS attacks would be a reasonable, and possibly excellent addition to the article. David Spector (talk) 00:24, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

twitvid

Twitvid redirects to this article, but there's no mention of twitvid whatsoever in it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.239.248.201 (talk) 15:21, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

140 characters - can anyone explain?

What I was hoping to find in this article was an explanation to why the tweet limit is 140 characters for compatibility with SMS messages, when the SMS character limit is 160. Does anyone know why? U-Mos (talk) 11:49, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

There needs to be space for the username, the maximum being 14 characters plus the colon, hence the restriction. I know that's been answered before somewhere. If you can find a reliable source for it, you may add it in the article. TwoBitSpecialist (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

"Tweetup"

The word has officially been added the the Oxford English Dictionary and is now a verifiable use of modern day English speech and requires an article. Note that several have been deleted in the past for an unsustainable reason. Woowootrain (talk) 13:47, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

New Twitter

How do I activate the new twitter? Thanks --93.82.14.35 (talk) 15:23, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Please refer to twitter.com for information on using their service. To the best of my knowledge the new interface (also called "newtwitter") is being rolled out randomly, and those who have access to it see a message at the top of each Twitter page saying "Pssst... the new version of Twitter is here" with a button marked "Try it now." If you haven't seen that message it means you have to wait until it's rolled out to you.
There is an option to switch back to the old interface during the session. I'm unsure whether you eventually get committed to the new interface if you don't switch back, because I don't like the new interface that much and I don't want to risk losing the old one. --TS 01:29, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Fail whale image

How does the Fail whale constitute a logo? Using it here is called fair use because it is a low-res logo; the fail whale is not a logo. -Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.197.139.54 (talk) 13:04, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a logo because Twitter is increasingly associated with technical outages. In contrast to other (far more popular) web services, Twitter fails all the time.

"Pointless babble" -- Re: Pie Chart

Is there anybody here editing an encyclopedia who really believes anything can be classified between pointless and not pointless? Worse still, the link goes to the page for small talk, which lists as its example one person asking the other how they are. Asking somebody how they are is pointless babble? No. The goal of the inquiry is to identify the other person's condition.

If you disagree, then you're challenging the sincerity of the asker's concern, something that can't be assumed.

I understand this is a reference to an article and not original content. However, it's still misleading and confusing for people who are reading this page literally. I also understand that the paragraph following the chart's explanation challenges the chart's contents, but its prominence is far less than the chart itself, which relatively dominates the entire page in terms of image size (and possibly cognition).

What I can conclude from that is in this article, the truth is hidden in small pieces among large pieces of false inflammatory propaganda. OhSqueezy (talk) 07:49, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

The phrase "pointless babble" is the exact wording used by the authors of the study, not those chosen arbitrarily by an editor or editors here. Also, the study didn't use an example of "one person asking the other how they are" - that sort of exchange was classified as "Conversational". The example used in the study to represent 'pointless babble' was "I am eating a sandwich now." Furthermore, the small talk article does explain the function that this form of communication plays in inter-personal relationships. Keristrasza (talk) 10:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Pointless babble links to a page that explains the point of pointless babble. That's not confusing? If pointless babble is going to link anywhere, it should be to a page explaining it's a phrase employed by a writer to dismiss the legitimacy of certain communications.
I apologize for criticizing the article as the talk guidelines say I shouldn't do that, and I'm not saying this study shouldn't be referenced. It's valuable because it contributes to exposing the public perception of Twitter. The guidelines say the talk page is for "examining the reliability of references". This reference is flawed; it's a poorly conducted categorization. OhSqueezy (talk) 02:00, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
I think Keristrasza gave you a pretty good answer, OhSqueezy. I would accept it and move on. Msnicki (talk) 18:43, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I did, this conversation is over a month old. Plus, I accepted Keristrasza's response when it was posted. To clarify, I accept that the article will not be changed if there is no support for my point of view, and I don't intend to change it myself. It's verifiable content, certainly, and I don't dispute its inclusion. I only thought its prominence should be lessened. OhSqueezy (talk) 00:11, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Business model

Well they announced that they were going to GET a business model that included some revenue back in April. It's been 6 months. Is anyone going to mention that? 206.196.158.130 (talk) 20:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Ownership Information

need percentage statistics of who owns what portion of the company like facebook article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.189.213.238 (talk) 10:22, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

uriminzok

thumb In South Korea, when I try to access twitter.com/uriminzok, I get the included image, a message from the government saying it's illegal material and has been blocked. I can access the page, however, using Twitter's search feature. I think the image would be a good addition to the article to supplement the info about uriminzok. I'm not sure about the copyright status of the image... OhSqueezy (talk) 02:25, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The picture was removed because I filed it as non-free to be safe. You can see it if you click "thumb" OhSqueezy (talk) 06:11, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Twitter Utilized for Citizen Journalism

(added 12/13/2011)

Of the many different aspects and uses for Twitter, one of them is giving regular citizens the ability to capture hyper-local news at any moment; giving their followers insight to what is happening in their communities at any moment. Rather than news organizations being the gatekeepers of what makes it on to the radio or television, twitter has made it possible for citizens to report the news and for the news organizations to follow-up on those leads.

A prime example of this would be the "Miracle on the Hudson." As the event occurred, there was a witness taking pictures on the ground as the plane crash landed in the river. That happened instantly. The first news organization on the scene, MSNBC, did not get on the story until 46 minutes later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robschwandt (talk • contribs) 17:17, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://whois.domaintools.com/gu.st
  2. ^ http://nic.us/press/pr_archives/dotus_pr_02.01.02.pdf
  3. ^ Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009). Horton hears a tweet. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 32(4). Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/HortonHearsaTweet/192955
  4. ^ Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009). Tweeting the night away: Using Twitter to enhance social presence. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2), 129-136.
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