Comments on: Twinkle Hijacks Twitter Usernames

By: kevnull

kevnull — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:49:27 +0000

If you're going to use a channel, you should respect that namespace, yes. While @ is a standard, if I say @joshuakaufman here on my blog, it's fine but it shouldn't post to Twitter. Twitter wasn't “first” in using @'s either. The problem isn't using @ in general, it's using @ on Twitter specifically.

Frankly, it's not about whether Twitter should have an API. It doesn't even benefit Twinkle or anyone else to have an overlapping namespace on the same channel.

By: joshuakaufman

joshuakaufman — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 05:35:07 +0000

So what you're saying, in short, is that if any other service allows @username to reply/demark/notify users on that service, they shouldn't be publishing those updates to Twitter.

I like Twitter, but to play the devil's advocate for a moment: you're barking up the wrong tree. Just because Twitter was first and currently has the largest number of users, does that mean that everyone else who came after them is doing it wrong? @username syntax is quickly becoming a standard for notifying/demarking users on a service. Publishing to Twitter is quickly becoming a standard for communicating social services activity.

Yes, Twinkle hijacks Twitter usernames. But yes, it could happen on any other social network, and not just a social network like Twinkle that mimics Twitter.

If there's one thing that's definitely broken here, it's the design of Twitter @username replies. If they didn't want usernames to be hijacked, they shouldn't have allowed publishing to Twitter via their API.

By: Tantek

Tantek — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:20:01 +0000

This explains a lot, fellow one letter Twitter user.

By: Els

Els — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:04:31 +0000

@ Arshad – that was my idea too, but since I don't have an iPhone, it seems I can't even do that.

By: Arshad

Arshad — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:43:33 +0000

So glad there's no @snmyname on twinkle. Maybe I better reserve it before I start getting twinkle spam

By: Jay

Jay — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:56:12 +0000

Jeez. To think I got fed up with Twinkle when they decided rotating my phone was a good reason to show the world map of tweets. That was bad, but this is worse.

By: jesse

jesse — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:21:20 +0000

@kev, there is nothing stopping them. It's the wild west with no mountain ranges to pass over to kill off the weak.