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Tweetbot. April 2011 – January 2023

tapbots.com

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Re: Tweetbot. April 2011 – January 2023

#241

Post by multjoy »

mttjj wrote: post #13

Tweetbot was the only way I interacted with Twitter for years. I refuse to use the website and I refuse to download Twitter's app. When it was finally revealed that this move was intentional I deleted my Twitter account. I was mocked in high school for having a Twitter account (2008) and not a Facebook account. I remember "tweeting" from my flip/dumb-phone. I still don't have Facebook. I don't regret being on Twitter…

I literally cannot use the official app. It is absolutely dire, and I've basically stopped using twitter as a result. I've got a lot more time on my hands now, I'll give Elon that.

Re: Tweetbot. April 2011 – January 2023

#242

Post by wstuartcl »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #214
NavinF wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has a social media site ever been forced to accommodate blind people? Serious question.

When is a good time to start holding them accountable?

It would be mind blowing to me and completely unexpected if twitter was not already under many active settlements related to accessibility lawsuits each with their own ongoing obligations.

There are very few large entities that have not been impacted by ADA lawsuits at this point -- even ones that had accessibility as a core value before the lawsuits.

Re: Tweetbot. April 2011 – January 2023

#244

Post by Pxtl »

tptacek wrote: post #87

If you're not paying attention to Mastodon now, a think to know about Tapbots and Ivory, their new ActivityPub client, is that their TestFlight betas, which they release in batches of a thousand or so at a time, last for just a couple minutes before they're all snapped up; there seems to be pretty huge demand for it. With a decent client (I've bounced around a couple of them so far), even in a beta state, the experie…

Yeah, the big challenge with Mastodon is it's basically Twitter as it was like 15 years ago before they added a lot of features that define the modern Twitter experience, like trending/searching on keywords instead of just hashtags (something the leadership has said they do not want to support ever - imho a flag on the toot declaring it scrapeable would be better), an algorithmic feed that considers your follows follows and likes and whatnot to easily-discover interesting people, quote-toots, showing tweetthreads in correct order, and considering whether you've seen a tweet before before showing it over and over as your follows retweet it, muting conversations, etc.

Now obviously a lot of these features are also toxic engagement-maximizers so you don't want to necessarily force them onto users the way Twitter does, but they're also positives in their own ways since they provide content discoverability and legibility.

Twitter 15 years ago was a home of weirdos and journalists mostly. There's a reason it needed changes to take off.

Re: Tweetbot. April 2011 – January 2023

#245

Post by gfodor »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #138
gfodor wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is right. A public API radically slows down product iteration since each feature needs to be considered in terms of its blast radius to third party clients. It probably burned the bridge for good this time, but killing the API to speed up product velocity isn’t an insane move if you value that more than the existing 3rd party ecosystem.

This could’ve been communicated

Agree, really bad it wasn’t

Re: Tweetbot. April 2011 – January 2023

#246

Post by gfodor »

sosodev wrote: post #141
gfodor wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is right. A public API radically slows down product iteration since each feature needs to be considered in terms of its blast radius to third party clients. It probably burned the bridge for good this time, but killing the API to speed up product velocity isn’t an insane move if you value that more than the existing 3rd party ecosystem.

That's not really true. Many websites version their API and/or release new features without providing support (at least initially) via the API. That's the route Reddit has taken. There are several features that only work through the official app or website. It can be frustrating as a user of a third party client but it's a much better alternative to cutting everybody off.

What I said is definitely true - supporting that old version isn’t free - it needs to be maintained and all new features need to not inadvertently break it. I’m not saying this was necessarily a good move, but the upside to killing an API is you are able to cut any need to support any of it, including old versions.

Re: Tweetbot. April 2011 – January 2023

#247

Post by [deleted] »

themagician wrote: post #234
system16 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said the same thing even a few weeks ago, but the momentum for Mastodon is growing rapidly and it's really impressive to see, and Ivory is a very impressive client even in beta. Almost everyone I followed on Twitter is using it now, and I actually prefer the experience. It's like Twitter but without all the bots/spam/hate, at least for now.

What is "almost everyone"? Four people? Using it on what server? Mastadon is more like Discord than Twitter. There is no core server. There is no core experience. It's just an instanced message board.

[deleted]

Re: Tweetbot. April 2011 – January 2023

#248

Post by Sunspark »

joezydeco wrote: post #181
mttjj wrote: post #13

Tweetbot was the only way I interacted with Twitter for years. I refuse to use the website and I refuse to download Twitter's app. When it was finally revealed that this move was intentional I deleted my Twitter account. I was mocked in high school for having a Twitter account (2008) and not a Facebook account. I remember "tweeting" from my flip/dumb-phone. I still don't have Facebook. I don't regret being on Twitter…

100% concur, but don't delete your account. Don't let someone else take the username. Delete your tweets and wipe your profile, but let it sit dormant. Forever.

It won't be forever. I remember Musk saying awhile back that they were going to flush inactive accounts at some point. I agree with this. Why should a username remain reserved if it hasn't been logged into for years?

Re: Tweetbot. April 2011 – January 2023

#250

Post by coldpie »

joezydeco wrote: post #181
mttjj wrote: post #13

Tweetbot was the only way I interacted with Twitter for years. I refuse to use the website and I refuse to download Twitter's app. When it was finally revealed that this move was intentional I deleted my Twitter account. I was mocked in high school for having a Twitter account (2008) and not a Facebook account. I remember "tweeting" from my flip/dumb-phone. I still don't have Facebook. I don't regret being on Twitter…

100% concur, but don't delete your account. Don't let someone else take the username. Delete your tweets and wipe your profile, but let it sit dormant. Forever.

A fine approach. For me personally, I decided to delete my account so I wouldn't ever be tempted to log back in.
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