Below is a mock-up of how I’d like to see Twitter implement fine-grained application permissions.
To create this badly photoshopped image for my DevNest talk, I took Facebook’s Connect dialogue and spliced it with Twitter’s new design for their Anywhere platform.
Take in its beauty, and then I’ll explain …
This image is a mock-up – it is not Twitter, or TweetDeck official. (just covering my back, ok?)
One of the most common things people say to me when I tell them about TwitBlock is along the lines of “I’m not bothered by spam on Twitter” – “I just ignore it” – “Why should I care if a spam account is following me?“.
Part of my DevNest talk last week was examining Twitter’s position on desktop clients. i.e. whether they wish to own the space that the likes of TweetDeck and Seesmic are occupying. They have quite purposefully owned the mobile space, most interestingly through their acquisition of Atebits which saw Tweetie become the official “Twitter for iPhone” and the most popular mobile client after m.twitter.com. I’m sure this will prove essential in reclaiming their brand.
What’s the shortest lifespan of a spoof Twitter account, ever?
If you’re impersonating the police ['s logo], apparently the answer is 47 minutes. Well, at least until you have to change your logo.
The @gmp24_7 account (parodying the official Manchester Police accounts @gmp24_1 -through- @gmp24_6) was created at 9:55 this morning and less than 40 tweets later at 10:42 was ordered (by the police, via Twitter) to stop using their copyright
What amuses me about this the most is that copyright infringement is what they got called on. (Apparently falsely according to lawyer @davidallengreen – unless he’s a spoof too). Personally, if I was told I may be impersonating a police officer I’d be a little more petrified.
For the record, this spoof account made no attempt to indicate it was a parody. That was a bit of an error, but they’re still tweeting apparently. I’m curious to see whether Manchester Police take any further action to shut this account up. Most famously @BPGlobalPR remained operational throughout BP’s recent PR crisis.
I look forward to the social media/PR pundits tearing this campaign to pieces. It seems rather brave to enter the public domain with something like this and not expect a backlash.
In my view, this campaign basically says “See, we’re working hard. Don’t cut our budgets“. Does anyone doubt that the police work hard? I don’t. The campaign in no way highlights the actual impact of budget cuts – other than more PR will be done on Twitter, because it’s cheap.
I appreciate the subjective nature of this word, and also how much this comes down to perception as much as metrics. However, nobody would argue that Facebook aren’t mainstream, so how far behind are Twitter really?
I asked attendees of DevNest to do a quick poll to gauge opinion, and was surprised to see that the majority (at time of writing) thought Twitter is already mainstream.
My own perception is that Twitter isn’t mainstream, at least not within my wider demographic (i.e. my ‘normal’ friends). But regardless of whether there’s any real way to quantify this, certain things are clear to me and need addressing