Twitter and Present.ly Initiative



  • This company has a very ambitious software project involving a complex scalable software-as-a-service type of backend talking to numerous embedded systems in the field. They're asking me to put my time in to help them to design, code, maintain and sell it, and they want me to communicate with them via 160 character Twitter messages "without the bulk of email".

    Would you invest in them?

    --------

    Team,

    To assist in both internal communications, and public visibility (web presence), we have started to setup accounts on Twitter and Present.ly.  We'll be working on more specifics regarding how these should be used in the next few weeks, but to help acquaint you for now, here is a little background information.

    Twitter is a microblogging platform. It allows you to post small messages (160 characters) to your public feed.  Many companies use these as a way not only to advertise their products and services, but also to answer questions from potential or existing customers and clients.  That is, it is a direct and quick connection between us and the communities we are a part of.

    Present.ly is a private micro-blogging platform.  It allows you to post twitter-like comments to the company, to each other, to specific working groups, as well as your own page.  Additionally, it also allows you to post to your Twitter account, so that it is not necessary to log into two webpages.  

    Aside from the twitter integration, the main usefulness of Present.ly is that it can allow us to communicate quickly, without the bulk of email.  If you have a short question, or comment, just login and post a quick message to your team or an individual. Both Twitter and Present.ly have applications that let you post updates from mobile devices, such as the Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Windows mobile, and other phone/pda platforms. This will allow us to stay in contact when we may not have access to a computer, and don't have time for a phone call.

    Again, we are still deciding exactly how we want these systems to be used, and are open to suggestions in this area, but in the meantime, I encourage everyone to setup a company twitter account (www.twitter.com), preferably starting with the letters XX, followed by your first name (for instance, I am XXxxxxxx), so that there is some unity to our team appearance.  And also setup an account on Present.ly (www.presently.com).  Both of these should use your xxxxxxxxx.xx.xx email address – for Present.ly, this is an absolute requirement, not an option.  Once you have setup these accounts, please let me know so I can add you to the appropriate groups and lists.


    Please let me know if you have any questions, we may be arranging some formal training sessions if it is needed or requested.

    Thanks,

    --XXXXXXXXXXX



  • Oh sure, Twitter is a great medium for replacing emails. Case in point:

    --

    Team, To assist in both internal communications, and public visibility (web presence), we have started to setup accounts on Twitter and Present.ly.

    We'll be working on more specifics regarding how these should be used in the next few weeks, but to help acquaint you for now, here is a little background information.

    Twitter is a microblogging platform. It allows you to post small messages (160 characters) to your public feed. Many companies use these as a way not only to

    advertise their products and services, but also to answer questions from potential or existing customers and clients.

    That is, it is a direct and quick connectionbetween us and the communities we are a part of. Present.ly is a private micro-blogging platform.

    It allows you to post twitter-like comments to the company,to each other, to specific working groups, as well as your own page.

    Additionally, it also allows you to post to your Twitter account, so that it is notnecessary to log into two webpages. Aside from the twitter integration, the main

    usefulness of Present.ly is that it can allow us to communicate quickly, withoutthe bulk of email. If you have a short question, or comment, just login and post

    a quick message to your team or an individual.

    Both Twitter and Present.ly have applications that let you post updates from mobile devices, such as the Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Windows mobile,

    and other phone/pda platforms.This will allow us to stay in contact when we may not have access to a computer, and don't have time for a phone call.

    Again, we are still deciding exactly how we want these systems to be used, and are open to suggestions in this area, but in the meantime, I encourage

    everyone to setup a company twitter account(www.twitter.com), preferably starting with the letters XX, followed by your first name (for instance, I am XXxxxxxx),

    so that there is some unity to our team appearance. And also setup an account on Present.ly (www.presently.com). Both of these should use your

    xxxxxxxxx.xx.xx email address – for Present.ly,this is an absolute requirement, not an option. Once you have setup these accounts, please let me know so I can

    add you to the appropriate groups andlists. Please let me know if you have any questions, we may be arranging some formal training sessions if it is needed or requested.

    --

    Edit: Wow, I have to put my own br's in!



  • Seems a good idea. Encourages people to be short and to the point in their communications. A lot of my colleagues could do with that. And if you have something more to say there's always the short URL.



  • @Wrongfellow said:

    it can allow us to communicate quickly, without the bulk of email.
    Bulk of email? Are they by any change using Lotus Notes? I can't find any other way that email can be called bulky.

    ED: added a quote for you and italicized this line. -btk



  • @tiller said:

    Bulk of email? Are they by any change using Lotus Notes? I can't find any other way that email can be called bulky.
    Most enterprise email system deployments end up requiring a few servers. That and email is by no means non-trivial. However, that isn't to say that sending email isn't stupidly simple.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @Flatline said:

    Seems a good idea. Encourages people to be short and to the point in their communications. A lot of my colleagues could do with that. And if you have something more to say there's always the short URL.
     

    That was 160 chars. I get it. But seriously...

    Just about ever damn twit I see falls into one of three categories:

    1) Vague, short message that relays no information, and will never have any meaning without a significant amount of inside knowledge or a long conversation over beer. "Wow, that was quite the day!"  "Can you believe it? I still can't. But I can".  "hehehehe"

    2) A "shortened" link to either a) a useless, rambling, poorly-edited brain-diarrhea blog entry that uses more than 160 chars b) a Youtube video, c) A lolcat picture.  And for the record, fuck shortened urls. Just what I need, another third-party with their fingers in my web usage habits. You want me to follow your link? Make it look like something other than a phishing attempt or a goatse surprise.

    3) Some godfucked jumble of characters that boils down to someone replying to one of the above with "me 2!"

    So, no, making people use 160 chars doesn't increase communication efficiency. The majority of users will either be so brief as to lose all meaning, or they'll subvert the system somehow.



  •  This wasn't by any chance sent about a 1,5 months ago, for instance, on april 1st?



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Just about ever damn twit I see falls into one of three categories:
     

    Absolutely,  although there are a couple fun exceptions. But I removed quite a few friends for just tweeting garbage.



  •  @b_redeker said:

     This wasn't by any chance sent about a 1,5 months ago, for instance, on april 1st?

    Oh no, he's perfectly serious.

    More fun from the same guy, who I'm assured is a REALLY REALLY REALLY good PHP / web developer:

     //Some SQL Injection protection
    foreach ($_POST as $key => $value)
    {
            $_POST[$key] = addslashes($_POST[$key]);
            $_POST[$key] = str_replace(" & "," and ",$_POST[$key]);
            $_POST[$key] = str_replace(" & "," and ",$_POST[$key]);
            $_POST[$key] = str_replace("&","",$_POST[$key]);
            $_POST[$key] = str_replace(" & "," and ",$_POST[$key]);
            $_POST[$key] = str_replace("&","",$_POST[$key]);
            $_POST[$key] = str_replace("&","",$_POST[$key]);
            //echo $key.'  '.$_POST[$key].'<br />';
    }


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Wow, so close, yet such a miss. It's like watching Homer jump over the gorge:

    //Some SQL Injection protection

    I'm going to make it!

    foreach ($_POST as $key => $value)
    {

    I'm king of the world!

    I.....AAAAGRH

          $_POST[$key] = addslashes($_POST[$key]);

    D'oh!

          $_POST[$key] = str_replace(" & "," and ",$_POST[$key]);

    D'oh!

          $_POST[$key] = str_replace(" &amp; "," and ",$_POST[$key]);


    D'oh!

          $_POST[$key] = str_replace("&amp;","",$_POST[$key]);


    D'oh!

          $_POST[$key] = str_replace(" &#38; "," and ",$_POST[$key]);


    D'oh!

          $_POST[$key] = str_replace("&#38;","",$_POST[$key]);


    D'oh!

          $_POST[$key] = str_replace("&","",$_POST[$key]);

    D'oh!

          //echo $key.'  '.$_POST[$key].'<br />';

    D'oh!


    }
     

    Uhg.... {skateboard falls on head}



  • @DaedalusRaistlin said:

    If you have a short question, or comment, just login and post

    a quick message to your team or an individual.

    You know what platform lets you send a quick message without having to log in every time?  Email.@DaedalusRaistlin said:
    Both Twitter and Present.ly have applications that let you post updates from mobile devices, such as the Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Windows mobile,

    and other phone/pda platforms.This will allow us to stay in contact when we may not have access to a computer, and don't have time for a phone call.

      You know what else you can do to stay in contact without access to a computer or time for a phone call, using a Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Windows mobile, or other phone/pda platform?  Email.  And they're fucking designed to do email well.

    I suspect this is some moron who read Jef fAtwood's retarded claims that email sucks and Twitter is better.

     

     



  •  TRWTF is 160 characters. Twitter's message limit is 140 characters, and AFAIK, always has been.



  • @Wrongfellow said:

    Please let me know if you have any questions
    Hi XXXXXXXXX,

    I was wondering what effect this will have on my productivity seeing as I'll be receiving one twitter message every 2.3 minutes, while simultaneously trying to fix this god-forsaken piece of vomit you call code. 

    Thanks,

    --YYYYYYYYYYY



  • Hopefully they don't have any data retention requirements. The company I work for has to keep, for legal reasons, various information (including emails) for government mandated periods of time. It's very easy to do with an email server. Not so much with Twitter.

    And who the hell can follow a Twitter conversation? Unless you are getting all of the feeds then all you see most of the time is random responses to questions or comments from people whose feeds you aren't seeing.

    I don't see how this could make things easier, but then again I'm not in management so I've still got all of my higher brain functions, at least after I get my morning caffeine.



  • @tiller said:

    @Wrongfellow said:

    it can allow us to communicate quickly, without the bulk of email.
    Bulk of email? Are they by any change using Lotus Notes? I can't find any other way that email can be called bulky.

    ED: added a quote for you and italicized this line. -btk


    And yet you didn't fix the obvious "change" -> "chance" typo. I'm so disappointed.



  • @Mr. DOS said:

     TRWTF is 160 characters. Twitter's message limit is 140 characters, and AFAIK, always has been.


    He's technically correct, the best kind of correct.

    Twitter's limit is 160 characters, but it reserves 20 for your own user name (no matter how long your username is), making the effective length 140 chars.



  • Yes, lets all use twitter and present.ly to broadcast a message asking for a document. The first person to reply has too much time on there hands, the rest will reply if someone else sends them a message directed towards them and there PC notifies them as such. 

    Unless of course the company policy is that you stop what you are doing and read the feed each time someone posts a message, because that will cause productivity to soar.

    I remember present.ly. One message sticks in my mind, some blonde posting a broadcast message saying "John, I've sent you some email, please reply.".


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Mole said:

    Yes, lets all use twitter and present.ly to broadcast a message asking for a
    document.
    Is there a twatter equivilent of 'unsubscrib[sic] me'? That generates messages in much the same way that a uranium-235 atom would like to send twats to its neighbouring 235U?



  • @PJH said:

    @Mole said:
    Yes, lets all use twitter and present.ly to broadcast a message asking for a document.
    Is there a twatter equivilent of 'unsubscrib[sic] me'? That generates messages in much the same way that a uranium-235 atom would like to send twats to its neighbouring 235U?
    Well, there are retweets, which occur most commonly in cases of:

    1. gossip about those quasi-celebrities who are famous mostly for being famous,
    2. the latest fad,
    3. an incredibly worn-out meme finally reaching the mainstream.
    So what we need is something like a video of Kim Kardashian singing Never Gonna Give You Up while wearing a Snuggie.

  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @bstorer said:

    Kim Kardashian
     

    Whenever I hear that last name, I think of this:



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @bstorer said:

    Kim Kardashian
     

    Whenever I hear that last name, I think of this:

    Well, it's close:




  • @Mole said:

    "John, I've sent you some email, please reply."
    I have a friend that'll email me, leave me a voicemail telling me to check my email, and text me telling me to check my voicemail.

    I wanna fucking kill her.



  • @Wrongfellow said:

     //Some SQL Injection protection

    Yay! Manual Magic Quotes! Sounds like the "unregister globals" technique present in my own CMS.



  • @belgariontheking said:

    I wanna fucking kill her.

    That's what BTK was known for.


  • @alegr said:

    That's what BTK was known for.
     

    I thought he was known for coming into my house, pilfering the milk and cookies I left for him, and then pilfering my "private exit".



  • @belgariontheking said:

    @Mole said:

    "John, I've sent you some email, please reply."
    I have a friend that'll email me, leave me a voicemail telling me to check my email, and text me telling me to check my voicemail.

    I wanna fucking kill her.

     

    Is she hot? Are you currently banging her?

     

    > Yes / Yes > Angry sex

    > No / Yes > Break up

    > Yes / No > Angry Sex

    > No / No > Machete

     

    Please note No / Yes scenario will lead into the No / No scenario.



  • @astonerbum said:

    > Yes / No > Angry Sex Rape
    FTFY

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