Comments on: How Facebook forced me to become a Twitter user. http://thomshouse.net/2009/04/how-facebook-forced-me-to-become-a-twitter-user/ Rants and raves from another codemonkey with a blog. Mon, 31 May 2010 14:04:35 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8 hourly 1 By: HollysFolly http://thomshouse.net/2009/04/how-facebook-forced-me-to-become-a-twitter-user/comment-page-1/#comment-39 HollysFolly Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:21:14 +0000 http://thomshouse.net/?p=93#comment-39 Sorry! THOM!!!! not Chris! Sorry! THOM!!!! not Chris!

]]> By: HollysFolly http://thomshouse.net/2009/04/how-facebook-forced-me-to-become-a-twitter-user/comment-page-1/#comment-38 HollysFolly Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:20:21 +0000 http://thomshouse.net/?p=93#comment-38 Hi Chris, Great rant...sums us how many of us feel. I too find myself on twitter way more often now because of FB. Which means less time on FB.... I wish they would figure that out. Hi Chris, Great rant…sums us how many of us feel. I too find myself on twitter way more often now because of FB. Which means less time on FB…. I wish they would figure that out.

]]> By: Thom http://thomshouse.net/2009/04/how-facebook-forced-me-to-become-a-twitter-user/comment-page-1/#comment-37 Thom Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:28:51 +0000 http://thomshouse.net/?p=93#comment-37 Hi Chris. Nice to hear that there is at least some API functionality to accomplish this feat, although it's a bit disappointing to hear of the technological hurdles. I've never looked deep into what Facebook allows for application development, but it would make more sense if they offered some sort of "push" method to this API... Something like, when you update your status, Facebook somehow "pings" the applications that have access to read your status. One could wish. At any rate, I'm still personally suspicious of the motivations they had for suspending those friend accounts. I don't see a lot of bogus Facebook accounts, but I have seen some, and especially some obviously fraudulent ones (e.g. fictional characters). And it seems every update or change or news coming from Facebook revolves around Twitter in some way, so... I still think it's them posturing. :P I appreciate you dropping a line and I hope that, however they accomplish it, Facebook will start to embrace us proxy-Twitterers. Hi Chris. Nice to hear that there is at least some API functionality to accomplish this feat, although it’s a bit disappointing to hear of the technological hurdles. I’ve never looked deep into what Facebook allows for application development, but it would make more sense if they offered some sort of “push” method to this API… Something like, when you update your status, Facebook somehow “pings” the applications that have access to read your status. One could wish.

At any rate, I’m still personally suspicious of the motivations they had for suspending those friend accounts. I don’t see a lot of bogus Facebook accounts, but I have seen some, and especially some obviously fraudulent ones (e.g. fictional characters). And it seems every update or change or news coming from Facebook revolves around Twitter in some way, so… I still think it’s them posturing. :P

I appreciate you dropping a line and I hope that, however they accomplish it, Facebook will start to embrace us proxy-Twitterers.

]]> By: Chris Dawson http://thomshouse.net/2009/04/how-facebook-forced-me-to-become-a-twitter-user/comment-page-1/#comment-36 Chris Dawson Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:58:00 +0000 http://thomshouse.net/?p=93#comment-36 Hi Thom Chris here - I'm the developer of the Twitter Updater application. Really enjoyed your post, but just thought I'd set you a little straighter on a minor point. Facebook's limited API really is a frustration, especially for someone like me (or yourself) who has an interest in integration with other similar micropublishing services out there. However, a few months after the development of Twitter Updater, the Facebook API was extended to allow the retrieval of status messages for a user and their friends. See: http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Status.get However, this doesn't exactly help the problem of Twitter Updater needing a 'robot' FB account to collect status messages. This is because of scalability - when the number of people using the service grows past a few hundred, the number of API requests becomes unreasonable; more bandwidth and processing power would need to be added for each user that signs up. The friend status RSS feed belonging to the Twitter bots solved this problem very effectively - a single feed could be polled on a regular basis, aggregating all the users' updates together. I've been trying hard to contact Facebook, to try convince them to make an exception to their policy in the case of the Twitter bots, and re-enable the accounts. One of them (now known as Joe Twitterbot) has been resurrected, but they won't bring back Twitter Updater II because of their one-account-per-person restriction. Thanks for a great post, and for voicing your frustrations towards Facebook's API philosophy. This is the only way that change will be effected, if enough of us make some noise! :) Chris Dawson Hi Thom

Chris here – I’m the developer of the Twitter Updater application. Really enjoyed your post, but just thought I’d set you a little straighter on a minor point.

Facebook’s limited API really is a frustration, especially for someone like me (or yourself) who has an interest in integration with other similar micropublishing services out there.

However, a few months after the development of Twitter Updater, the Facebook API was extended to allow the retrieval of status messages for a user and their friends. See:

http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Status.get

However, this doesn’t exactly help the problem of Twitter Updater needing a ‘robot’ FB account to collect status messages. This is because of scalability – when the number of people using the service grows past a few hundred, the number of API requests becomes unreasonable; more bandwidth and processing power would need to be added for each user that signs up.

The friend status RSS feed belonging to the Twitter bots solved this problem very effectively – a single feed could be polled on a regular basis, aggregating all the users’ updates together.

I’ve been trying hard to contact Facebook, to try convince them to make an exception to their policy in the case of the Twitter bots, and re-enable the accounts. One of them (now known as Joe Twitterbot) has been resurrected, but they won’t bring back Twitter Updater II because of their one-account-per-person restriction.

Thanks for a great post, and for voicing your frustrations towards Facebook’s API philosophy. This is the only way that change will be effected, if enough of us make some noise! :)

Chris Dawson

]]> By: Richie http://thomshouse.net/2009/04/how-facebook-forced-me-to-become-a-twitter-user/comment-page-1/#comment-35 Richie Thu, 09 Apr 2009 03:59:26 +0000 http://thomshouse.net/?p=93#comment-35 submit this to digg. I love this rant, and the zuckerburg photo. submit this to digg. I love this rant, and the zuckerburg photo.

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