identi.ca Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Stay N Alive

SocialToo.com Now Supports Identi.ca

st.pngIf you log into your SocialToo.com account (or register if you haven’t already!) you can now click on the “Identi.ca” link at the top, provide your Identi.ca credentials, and you’ll now have the capability to automatically follow those that follow you on the microblogging site identi.ca. Not only that (I realize you can do that already on identi.ca through preferences), but if you do it through SocialToo.com you can also blacklist users from being followed again, something Identi.ca does not currently provide. Auto follow happens each night (and will happen more often when the API allows me to do so).

This is significant, in that now in addition to Facebook and Twitter, we’ll now have the capability to integrate Identi.ca into the tools we’re building and integrating with the Social Networks you belong to. Auto follow is just a start, but we are just days from launching a new feature that I think you’ll like, and it will automatically work on Twitter, Identi.ca, and Facebook if you’ve provided your credentials to do so.

SocialToo.com is your companion to the Social Web. My intention is to build tools that complement the Social Networks you already belong to, and make those networks even more powerful and useful through the tools we provide and integrate together across social networks. This is only one of many features we’ll be adding over the next few months.

Bear with me right now – the interface is still really simple. We’ll fix that up as we move forward. Be sure to provide your credentials if you’re on identi.ca already, let me know if you see any bugs, but give it a try!

You can find me on identi.ca here.

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My Hiatus From Twitter – Why You Should Join Me

whale.pngYesterday I announced I am permanently and officially on hiatus from Twitter. Bloggers and other Twitter users, while annoyed, are giving them too much attention in both the negative and positive forms, and frankly, both of these only help Twitter. Any publicity is good publicity, especially when it comes to Twitter. I’m fed up with their lack of communication with users (try to talk to @ev or @biz – I rarely ever get a response to them, while many other companies on their own service I get an instant response from), their lack of experience and poor architecture that keeps causing these problems. It seems, while they are trying to get better, they just keep getting worse!

Just Wednesday, Twitter, while not on purpose, removed mine, and others’ followers in some sort of mistake that took a day to fix (I’m guessing someone erased too much data in the database via a bad query on live data, and they had to restore from Tape backup to get it all back). This hit the breaking point for me – they violated the most important thing to me about Twitter, my followers (which are also those I follow and have a deep interest in), and I just can’t trust that things like this won’t keep happening in the future. They crossed the line, whether on purpose or not, and it’s time for me to take action.

I’ve endured them being down in times I needed them most. I’ve endured them removing API features from us developers with little to no notice. I’ve endured them launching things into production without telling developers or warning users. I’ve endured their lack of a proper staging environment and other simple architectural issues that they still have yet to fix (I’m still not convinced they’re not developing in their production environment!). I’ve endured their lack of a proper and regular launch schedule to warn other developers and users when new features and bug fixes are being launched into place. I’ve frankly, been too patient with them and I’m fed up with it.

Unfortunately, after only one day I realized I could not do it cold-Turkey. I have a good number of followers on Twitter that have some interest in me (and I thank you so much for that support – it really means a lot to me), and regardless of whether I want to leave or not, abandoning Twitter would mean abandoning those followers, and I just can’t do that to all of you. To me, you’re not just a number – you’re all people interested in me in some way, and I follow each of you back because of that (and will continue to do so). I do care about you, and need to do what I can to encourage you to join me in more productive, more reliable and trustworthy sources however. Here’s what I’m going to do:

I’m going to post much more on Identi.ca

My followers from Twitter are already very quickly joining the open source communications and micro-blogging service, Identi.ca. I use identi.ca with Twhirl and have it open at the same time I have Twitter and FriendFeed open. I will be posting to identi.ca much more often – follow me there so you don’t miss anything!

Why identi.ca? Distributed or not distributed (some argue it isn’t, which they have a point), identi.ca is open source. This means I, as a developer, can actually have some sort of chance at giving back if things ever go wrong. Everything’s plain, simple, and out in the open. I know Evan, the identi.ca founder, has also been very open with the community and has maintained that communication. I don’t get that from Twitter, at least not on an individual level. Also, identi.ca, like Twitter, now imports to FriendFeed, and now satisfies my status updating needs to initiate conversation (which is what FriendFeed satisfies).

I’m going to be much more involved on FriendFeed

On Wednesday at F8 I realized something significant – I was using FriendFeed as my primary communication mechanism throughout the day, and I really wasn’t missing Twitter much by doing so (and most of it from my cell phone). FriendFeed, frankly, is much more viral and advantageous to my blog and brand than Twitter because every time anyone likes or comments on an item I post or comment on, that item goes right back to the top of the feeds for all my friends. It brings instant exposure, and in fact, for many posts on this blog I get more traffic on FriendFeed than Google, Twitter, or any other service out there. FriendFeed takes power away from the A-listers and puts it right back in your hands – it can happen to you too, and very easily!

Some people, for whatever reason, won’t give up Twitter

As long as the majority of my followers remain on Twitter and don’t join FriendFeed or Identi.ca, I still have an obligation to you, and frankly, I’m outvoted at the moment until the scale tips. I’ll still follow your Tweets on Twitter, respond to your @replies, and direct messages, assuming you’re not already on the other services. You gave me your attention and I need to continue to give you mine. For the most part, my blog posts will keep posting there (although they are also on FriendFeed – discuss below!). Please don’t hesitate to contact me – I respect you having your own opinion. I hope this post can convince you otherwise however.

SocialToo.com still lives! It has to.

The fact of the matter is, there is still a large audience using Twitter and frankly, there’s a business opportunity there as long as people are still there. I built SocialToo.com to work across many social networks, and as you switch, so will SocialToo.com. For now though, there’s an opportunity, and Twitter will still be a part of that opportunity, as will Identi.ca, Facebook, and even FriendFeed in the future. It is already powering hundreds of Twitter accounts helping you follow those that are also interested in you and I have no intention in giving that up. If I can do my part in making Twitter a better place, I’ll at least try, so long as they let me. I’ve actually got a really cool new feature that will be released soon for both Twitter and Identi.ca.

I will not give Twitter any more attention!

I’ve given Twitter too much attention, both positive and negative already. We as bloggers, if we’re frustrated with the service, need to take a stand, and my hiatus starts with blogging about Twitter, and that happens right now, cold-turkey. This, unless Twitter does something absolutely profound, will be my last post about Twitter.

How Twitter can get me back

Twitter needs to do something profound – they need to show they have the experience necessary to protect those that follow and are interested in me. Twitter needs to open up more – let us into what you’re doing. Allow other services to sync with my updates in a federated, open manner. Open your source code like identi.ca. Any one or two of these will do, but, frankly, I’ve been disappointed too many times. Twitter has to gain my trust back, if some other service doesn’t beat them to it. Show your support by joining me on Identi.ca at:

http://identi.ca/jessestay

Or, more importantly, join me at FriendFeed at:

http://friendfeed.com/jessestay

I hope to see more of you there!

Identi.ca Provides Users An "Open" Alternative to Twitter

logo.pngToday I was introduced to a new service called identi.ca, which claims to provide Twitter-like functionality, in a nice, Open Source interface. The service implements the OpenMicroBlogging protocol which, from their FAQs, states, “you can have friends on other microblogging services
that can receive your notices.” This means complete transparency and no reliance on any one service to trust your data with. I am unable to find any other services that have utilized this protocol, however.

The service seems to maintain an open atmosphere across the board. They publish all the details of the code identi.ca is based on, stating they run on the Open Source microblogging platform, Laconica. They state that “soon” they plan to implement SMS updates and notifications, a Twitter-compatible API, Maps, Cross-posting to Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, etc., Facebook integration, Hashtags, Image, video, audio notices, and even a multilingual interface. Relying on the open source community, on an open standards-based platform may just put them in direct competition with Twitter very soon.

All of your updates posted to the service are under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and you have to agree to this when you sign up. They seem to remain open across the board – and this will make them successful. I have talked previously about how the mistake Twitter is making is that they are not open enough – they are not basing their protocols on open standards and open techniques of web development. It is showing now, as they are stuck fixing their own problems as the world watches. With a service like this, were it to go down, ideally other services would also sync data and you would not be without service when one service goes down. This is powerful!

The founder of identi.ca is ironically named Evan – they seem to be going head-to-head with Twitter in an Open platform. Based on my experience with open standards in the past, I can already tell which one has the strongest potential. They state to have 1,000 users already and are growing very fast (in Evan’s words). I look forward to seeing them grow, and hopefully contributing as I can – will you join me? You can find me at http://identi.ca/jessestay.