Talk:Twitter

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)

===Yes, it is an interesting phenomenon in its own right. 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)

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 (UTC)

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 for now: 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)

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:

• http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/10/the-more-followers-you-have-the-more-you-tweet-or-is-it-the-other-way-around/
• http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2009/06/top_twitterers.html
• http://tech.sina.com.cn/i/2009-06-12/16233175010.shtml
• http://www.cbc.ca/technology/technology-blog/2009/06/torontonians_like_to_tweet.html

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)

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GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Twitter/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

I am opening an individual reassessment following issues raised at the recent FAC. Thanks to improvements made since the review of the good article nomination (and in particular improvements made during the FAC), it seems to me that the main outstanding GA issue is the use of unreliable sources to support material in the article. In particular, for an article to be GA standard, the criteria require that

• 2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
• 2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).

A list of possibly unreliable sources was provided by Ealdgyth at the FAC. Some of these examples are clearly GA issues: for instance, SuicideGirls.com is not a reliable source for a direct quotation from a living person!

In each case the issue can be resolved in a number of ways:

• Argue that the source is sufficiently reliable for the material it is supporting.
• Provide (additionally or instead) a more reliable source for the information.
• Remove the unreliably sourced material and the corresponding citation.

For example, regarding TechCrunch.com, it may well be possible to use this as a reliable source for some of the material in the article, and some arguments for this were made at the FAC. However, the fact that reliable secondary sources use TechCrunch does not necessarily make TechCrunch itself a reliable secondary source: Reuters and Forbes may have checked the facts, rather than trusting TechCrunch to do it. Also, the fact that TechCrunch is successful (as shown by newspaper articles and hit counts) does not necessarily make it a reliable source. On the other hand, the GA criteria are not as demanding as the FA criteria. In particular, for material that does not require citation per 2b, the requirements on the source are not as high as is required at WP:FA. Note also that a source can be reliable enough for citation X, even if it is not reliable enough for citation Y.

I'm not going to delist right away. I'll check back on Sunday. If significant progress has been made, or a clear timescale for fixing the above issues is in place, then I can be quite flexible, as I'd prefer not to delist an improved article. Geometry guy 22:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

It looks like a few of the controversial links are to summary articles. I'll take a pass at a few of them and change them to links to the direct article they are quoting (ex. the Ruby and Starling article can be change to a direct link to the Starling website. Or just ditched since there's also a link to the announcement on Twitter's website).

For the TechCrunch citations, it seems that most of those are TC linking to someone else's report and providing a brief commentary. I'll change this article so that those citations point to the sources TC is linking to. While there may still be some controversy over how valid those sources are, this will remove the somewhat suspect TC from the picture. We can then do a review of those sources and see which ones stand as valid citations.

Regarding the SuicideGirls citation, I think that's valid since SuicideGirls is in fact the primary source; they are the ones who did the interview with him. While interviewing people isn't their primary business, it is something they have done before and the site is popular enough that (a) it's credible that they have access to him for formal interviews and (b) if the interview was faked, word of the fraud would have gotten back to Williams who would have contested it. Thus, I think their claim to have interviewed him is credible and their transcript of their interview can stand as a quotable source. I agree that if they presented a one-liner paraphrase from him in an article on another topic their credibility would be suspect.

Jopo sf (talk) 08:03, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I just went through the list provided here of bad references and did a fair number of them. Mainly, I just removed the citation because there was already another there, or I removed the section it was with because it was poorly sourced and not notable. A few I left behind though:

• http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/ - Compete.com measures web traffic. The source is used as stating how much traffic different websites get. Therefore, Compete.com are surely a decent source in this situation.
• http://www.techcrunch.com/ - Jopo sf aims to sort this out, though I'm still of the belief that it's a decent source, at least in the contexts we've used it. It's written by a specific group of writers, not the populous at whole, whereas I felt earlier calls against its reliability were questioning who wrote it.
• http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Twitter_Vulnerability:_Spoof_Caller_ID_To_Take_Over_Any_Account - I understand general concern but, in the context, I feel this suitably proves that such a vulnerability exists, and that the details of how to do so are correct. This source may be preferable, but is written by the subject.

Other than that, the list provided have been taken care of. Like I say, many of them were on double-sourced statements so simply removing the dodgy one worked out well. Greg Tyler ^{(t • c)} 08:28, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

In reviewing the TechCrunch articles, they are often part of a double-cite or paraphrases of someone else with some snark thrown in. So I didn't think it was worth resolving the discussion about how reliable TC is; it was easy for me to just go ahead and change the TC citations to be single-article or to point to the more neutral-toned source. In one case where there wasn't an easy fix and that was the TC article that said Twitter was moving away from Ruby on the front end. I yanked out that line since Twitter reports contradict this and I don't think TC has a sufficient reputation for research for us to cite their article that bases it's perspective on a claim of having found anonymous sources that contradict the official announcements.

I agree that Compete.com and webmonkey are sufficiently authoritative in the context they are cited.

Jopo sf (talk) 03:44, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The article has been much improved and so I will close this reassessment shortly. A couple of comments: first, it is fine, in my view, to back up uncontentious material from a primary source with a less-than-stellar secondary, so some of the TechCrunch cites could have been kept. The secondary source provides independent verification of the primary and helps to ensure we don't write articles based on original research. I'm glad the SuicideGirls.com interview has gone: I agree it is a primary source, but if the interview were notable and added insight, then there should be a secondary source quoting it. Please always bear in mind that this is supposed to be an encyclopedia.

Double-sourcing is often helpful to readers: conversely, the webmonkey.com cite could be backed up by the primary; it doesn't have to be either-or. Such uses of primary and less than ideal secondaries will certainly be challenged at FAC, but clearly explained responses should satisfy the best reviewers. Finally, attributing a statement to a notable source is another useful tool: while Compete.com might be dubious as an unqualified secondary, I agree it is notable enough to use as an attributed source for web traffic.

Good luck in continuing to improve the article. Geometry guy 20:06, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see why some editors are obsessed with TechCrunch being unreliable. It is. If it weren't called a 'blog', I doubt we'd have any objections. Computerjoe's talk 21:35, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The issues raised about TechCrunch in this case were that they do insufficient fact checking and that they give more credibility to anonymous sources than is appropriate for encyclopedia content. There's no general issue with using blogs as sources as long as those blogs are sufficiently authoritative; note that there are a number of blogs referenced in this very article.Jopo sf (talk) 06:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The section titled "Use in criminal proceedings" - The second paragraph in reference to the July 2009 libel suit: This is unfinished. Even though verifiable, it does not say how the case was disposed and therefore should be noted as such. Mnemnoch (talk) 06:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

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 (UTC)

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

• ta:டிவிட்டர் —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.158.184.72 (talk) 17:03, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

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

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)