Just a thought I cannot stop thinking about
It amazes me how busy I am wishing Twitter was back to normal again these days.
It just feels so awkward after so many months of using third party apps, that I had to revert to my browser to tweet again. I even had to go back to m.twitter.com on my iPhone.
By now, realizing that IM and Track will still be offline a while, all I wish for is an API that allows 70 req/hour again. I feel like half-a-person without the tweets trickling into Twitterrific/Growl.
Twitter have one of the most open APIs around, and I also think this was part of their recent headaches. (getting crushed by API calls)
We all gave our Twitter credentials to any third-party app that came along and looked interesting. We had a zillion different Twitter clients, Twitter search, Twitter karma services and we wanted to try it all out.
A while ago I listened to the Gillmor Gang discussing Twitter once again.
We all know Steve’s “obsession” with Track, so part of the conversation somehow got lost, and I haven’t been able to stop reflecting about this part ever since.
Chris Messina brought this up while discussing OAuth:
” So, you don’t actually have specific control to say, “I want to turn off access from Twitterific.”… You know, it’s like Flickr provides a great model of how you can turn on and off access from different services. This is just an example of one of the things that if we had it, I think Twitter would not only be providing greater value, but it would be demonstrating a level of user control over the use of this system that would actually be, I think, leading to greater resilience.”
I don’t know why this model haven’t been discussed.
I can only speak for myself, but in light of the recent problems, I would happily turn off Twitter access to at all the different services and clients I have tried out in the last months. I don’t even know myself anymore how many apps and services receive my tweets.
Implementing a flickr-like model, where you can see which third-party applications you are using and remove the permission for these if necessary, would be fantastic.
As a user it is a great way to control where your credentials go and it wouldn’t hurt Twitter’s API either.
