5 Twitter improvements we're still waiting for
I'll be the first to admit that I'm addicted to Twitter. Each day, it's kept in the coveted second tab in my Firefox window, lodged between Gmail and Meebo. But that doesn't mean it offers me everything I want or that I have no desire for more features.
In fact, I have a list of features I'd like added to Twitter.
Groups
I still don't know why Twitter has failed to add groups to the service. Maybe the company believes that groups would make it too closely resemble a social network, but who cares? Twitter is great, but that doesn't mean like-minded users shouldn't be able to form their own community.
Think of it this way: if Twitter added groups, it would give you the opportunity to have private areas where only your friends and colleagues could converse and it wouldn't stop you from meeting and corresponding with new people outside those groups. There's no downside.
Services like Present.ly and Yammer offer enterprise employees an opportunity to communicate with one another based on groups that are assigned by their employer. Twittermoms.com is an entire site dedicated to bringing mothers who use Twitter together. Granted, those services aren't nearly as popular as Twitter, but they certainly prove that there's a market for groups. And so far, Twitter hasn't delivered.
Tweet filter
I know Twitter has a block feature, but I don't use it. What I'd really like to see is a Tweet Filter feature that lets me block specific kinds of tweets from making their way into my stream.
I don't necessarily want to block everything some followers say, I just want to block the annoying messages like, "DonReisinger is now listening to Womanizer by Britney Spears," followed by, "DonReisinger is now listening to Take My Breath Away by Berlin." To be honest, I don't care what songs a follower is listening to and I don't need updates from a script they're running to tell me.
That said, I do want to see what they're saying when they tweet actual messages. That's why I want Twitter to devise a tool, similar to a spam filter, that would allow me to tag certain tweets, have Twitter analyze them, and ensure that anything of the sort won't make its way into my stream again. That sort of functionality works beautifully in Gmail. I'd love to see it work that well on Twitter.
Unfollow notices
Why doesn't Twitter provide us with daily updates about who unfollows us? It informs us when someone starts following us. Would it be that hard to track those who unfollow us, as well?
I would really like to see who unfollowed me. Maybe those people were upset that I had too many updates on a certain day or perhaps they didn't like something I said. Without a notice, I'll never know they're gone. But with a notice, I can send them a message and ask what happened to possibly repair our broken relationship.
Maybe some wouldn't like receiving additional e-mails announcing when a user decides to unfollow them, but I think it provides significant value. It can give you hints about what your followers do and don't like and it makes you a better Twitter user, since the last thing you should be doing is annoying your followers.
Profile stats
I'd love to know how many people view my Twitter page each day. It's not that I have a vain desire to see how many people are looking me up. Instead, I'd like to know how many of those people become followers.
People find their way to another user's Twitter page, look at the tweets they've been making over the past few days, and decide then if they want to follow them. I've done it. Sometimes I decide that, yes, this is a person worth following. Other times, I see that all they've done is linked to their blog and failed to converse with other users, and decide that following them probably isn't in my best interest.
But having data detailing the number of people who view my Twitter page and how many become followers would be ideal. Based off that information, I could determine the value of my tweets to other Twitter users and experiment to see if I could devise a way to increase my follower conversion rate.
Twitter is all about being part of a community. Knowing what that community likes and doing what you can to appeal to that community is incumbent upon us all. Twitter stream stats would help in that endeavor.
200 characters
When Twitter first started, the service had a strong SMS focus. Because of that, the company wanted to ensure that tweets would fit in the 160-character SMS limit, allowing room for the message and usernames. But as Twitter has grown into a service with a strong online focus, it's blatantly clear that 140 characters is not enough.
I just don't see any justification for providing only 140 characters anymore. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to write a tweet, only to run out of room with just two or three characters remaining. Like everyone else, I'm forced to find places to cut down what I say just to add in those necessary characters.
I understand that those who wish to use SMS might be left out in a 200-character world, but that doesn't mean it should stop Twitter from pursuing this strategy. There are a slew of applications, like Twitterific, that are designed specifically for mobile phones that allow users to update their Twitter stream without using SMS. And although some devices don't support third-party apps and using text messages to communicate with their followers will be practically impossible after the 200-character switch, I think Twitter needs to accept that and move on.
Twitter is a growing service that has moved past its SMS past. It's time its executives embrace its new role as a mainstream microblog and improve the service while being mindful of its strong online presence.
Want to hear Don complain some more about Twitter? Follow him and indulge yourself!
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Also, as long as twitter allows clients to do some of the things you want, they may just focus on growing the infrastructure. Tweetdeck, for example, lets you make groups and do filtering.
plus you can send more then 140 but it cuts off and only lets web users see
I think it would be an absolute disservice to disregard the sms aspect of Twitter. As one of the folks before me said, Twitter is unique for the sms system...
I think you're overlooking the beauty of the 140 character limit, though. Squeezing in what you want to say within the limit is part of the fun of Twitter. It encourages terseness and making sure you get the point across as quickly as possible. As fugawe notes, upping the limit from the (arbitrary) 140 limit to a 200 character limit would only result in an inevitable escalation of the limit. We already have good forums for spreading longer messages (blogs, websites, newspaper articles, magazines, etc). A focus on short and to the point messages is a novelty, and it's what really makes Twitter shine as a service, rather than being just another blogging platform, imho.
Great post!
Same goes for Facebook. There's no need to change something that works just so more drama can be created.
Mobility is also a core principle of Twitter and if tweets can no longer be delivered via SMS, mobile users will be left out. Dan argues that third party applications could allow people to bypass the SMS limit by using the Web. Though true, SMS is supported by the vast majority of handsets on the market today and reaches the largest number of potential users. The only cost to those users are the charges by their carrier for sending or receiving text messages. Third party apps for traditional handsets could have an upfront cost at the time of purchase, and they would all have long-term charges for the data plan to support that application.
The 140 character limit is part of the essence of Twitter; it defines the style, cost and use of the service. Increasing that limit is not the right path for Twitter.
As for the rest of your suggestions, there are third party apps to handle all of them. I think, even more than the ability to SMS tweets, what defines Twitter is the limitless extensibility. Add this functionality to the main site, and it quickly becomes a very complicated service, because others would have different lists of five updates they wanted. It's better to provide an incredibly simple interface, and allow people to pick tools which allow them to better utilize the service.
I wrote a blog post yesterday on just this matter, if anyone's interested:
http://wyattpeak.com/2009/01/19/why-simplicity-is-king/
Qwitter - sends you an email when someone stops following you. (see @tacobell00)
Tweetburner - like TinyURL, but along with shortening links, it tracks the clicks on them.
I would add to your list - display on someone's page whether or not *they follow you*.
http://onceateacher.wordpress.com
?@nosugrefneb
To be fair to you, Twitter could be much easier for people to "get" (I think Twitter acknowledges that to). Currently, you need to know where to go away from the main site to find the websites and applications that make Twitter much more valuable. For that reason, my only request would be that the service be given an "app store" that makes the stuff that adds so much value much easier to find and use.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
- by linkerjpatrick January 20, 2009 6:30 AM PST
- I also disagree with changing the limit on the # of characters. If I want to post something that needs more characters I will write a blog post. Often I will have people ask those thought provoking questions that just want fit in the a Tweet well that is great stimulus for a blog post and now some blogs are having the ablity to plug in (pun intended) to Twitter as another means of commenting and I love that.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (37 Comments)I do however definitely agree that grouping and or tagging of people is needed. I like you you can do this in Tweetdeck but you still have to know about the person to group them. My favorite means of grouping are by location (I love following local people I already know or would love to meeting at an in-person networking meeting. Another means of grouping would be for interest areas. I would love it if I could add tags for things I enjoy like photography, movies, web development, geocaching, etc.
As curious of a person as I am I tried out a service that notified me when someone stopped following me and it made me feel sour for the rest of the day wondering what the heck I did to make them stop? This was someone I knew and was honored they were following me as well.