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.

Watch Google I/O videos online

Google hosted a two day developer event, Google I/O, in May this year.
It was Google’s largest developer event so far, and was filled with sessions on how to build the next generation of web applications with Google and other open technologies.

It is now possible to watch the technical sessions online here.

There are 77 videos all together, and they cover a wide range of subjects.
AJAX and JavaScript, Maps and Geo, Social applications, APIs and Tools and, finally, Mobile are all represented. What I found most interesting were the videos about Android, this introduction for instance or Inside the Android Application Framework.