Dear Twitter – This Sucks

 
Twitter is an immeasurably valuable tool for networking that has become an incredible lifeline for me and for our business.  Or it was.

Today, Biz Stone in a Twitter Blog post, informed the Twitterverse of a “small settings change“.

We’ve updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow-it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

Confused? That’s understandable and exactly why we made the update.

Let me try to be succinct and direct: WTF?

 
I can understand why some folks might be confused with the settings and do not want comments from folks they don’t follow to appear in their streams.  Make a change to the default setting to assist those folks.  Don’t handicap those who actually use Twitter to network and create organic, thriving communities of commonality like DCTH or UI/UX.

If this dys-functionality had been forced on me sooner, there are a lot of AWESOME people I never would have met.  Yes, that’s met as in face to face, in real life, outside the virutal world of Twitter.  I never would have experienced Jared Spool’s wicked humor or learned that Aussie’s called beer coozies stubby holders or that @cavallucci_hat is snarky.  I never would have gone on a photowalk in Olde Towne Portsmouth or spent a perfectly good Saturday geeking out with a bunch of brilliant UI/UX  minds, trying to drink in every bit of knowledge they could share.  There are friends I would not have if Biz and Ev decided to tell me sooner that the way I network is undesirable and confusing.

This is a huge failure and one that I hope is reversed.  This lastest change actually rips the soul from Twitter and leaves it on the floor to die.