DISQUS

Here are some examples: "You Don't Own Your Data on Social Networks" - http://staynalive.com/articles/2009/04/09/you-d..., "CoTweet Brings CRM to Twitter" - http://www.louisgray.com/live/2009/04/cotweet-b..., "TodaysMama Launches Laconi.ca Instance that Works" - http://staynalive.com/articles/2009/03/28/today..., "How do I only allow certain friends to see (insert feature) on Facebook?" - http://staynalive.com/articles/2009/03/20/how-d...

Businesses aren't my only audience so I have to diversify a little, but it's one of my favorite topics. I'm open for Feedback though.

I try to keep this in mind when I write. That's why I cover things like Laconi.ca and Facebook Connect and why developing on Twitter might be bad for business. It's also why I try to do howtos and report on things that help small and large business. I think a lot of my audience is business - I have to cover from a software development perspective, but I really hope it helps the businesses that want to use it.

The reason to move to the Bay area is the same reason I'm on Twitter - there are lots of smart people in one concentrated area that you can meet and network with and learn from. However, just like Twitter, I'm increasingly finding new ways to still tap into that network and not have to live out there. If I could afford it, I'd live out there in a heartbeat, but because I'm bootstrapping a business, it makes horrible business sense to move out there right now.

Amen, Robert! IMO this is why the US isn't a full democracy, nor should it be. Companies should learn the same. It's important to listen to your customers, but in the end you're in charge and you have to make the decisions.

BTW, I advise for a company that makes books about what to do with your children in the areas you live in. (TodaysMama) As I've mentioned earlier we're launching something new (on TodaysMama.com) here soon that I think both you, and especially Maryam will like, but also, I'll be putting their CEO in touch with you to get you hooked up with one of their books.

Thanks for the great overview of our services! This is great!

--Jesse Stay, CEO, SocialToo.com

Robert, not in the same price range, but you should really try out the Sony Cybershot T-500. I got one for my wife for Christmas and she really loves it - beautiful HD video and pictures, nice and small, and some very nice additional features. Nice all-in-one carry around solution.

Jack, I'm a one-man show at the moment, so I'm working on making that process much easier and less of a burden for you. If you want to see more stuff like what you mention, feel free to donate on the site so I can keep working on things like this - your thoughts are exactly where I'd like to be.

Just FYI (I know you didn't mention SocialToo, but since you have in the last week I wanted to make others aware), the ONLY thing SocialToo.com requires the password for is auto-dm and auto follow/unfollow. If you don't want those services, please, sign up without your Twitter password (we do require the username if you want to block dms or get the nightly stats e-mail). I am fighting Twitter *hard* on the dev lists to require more than basic auth for their API. I'm going to try to make that more clear in our registration.

Oh, and btw, if Twitter doesn't do anything soon, I've got a feature I'm going to release that will hopefully help put an end to these worms. Stay tuned and I'll let you know if I do it. (oh, and donate so I can keep adding features like this! I aim to please you, Chris.) :-)

LOL - I give up. DM me and I'll tell you how to do it. :-)

Er, let's try that again (remove the spaces): < > and < > are what that's supposed to say.

Joseph, thanks! One suggestion - if you choose to send auto-dms, I suggest you add the user's name to make it more personal. You can do so by inserting <> or <> where you want the user's name to go.

Andrea, I shared the numbers of blocks vs. sends on the Mashable post, but to answer your question on number of those who block, but still send - so far it's 36 people. (so far 192 blocking, 2,650 sending) I'll be posting more stats on this on my blog, staynalive.com as soon as I get a chance.

@Andrea, so far - 192 people have opted to not receive auto-dms, 2,650 people have opted to send them. So I believe it's probably a minority - probably people with lots of followers and get overwhelmed with the dms, that turn them off. I still think people should have choice though, which is why I enabled the feature.

Jodie, send me your screencap. You have to go to the admin page after logging in to set the feature. jesse@socialtoo.com

Ari, the reason is because my resources are limited and I haven't had the time. Our privacy policy is this. We do all we can to keep your information private, under lock and key, and will not sell your information to third party services. If you read the Twitter development lists I am also one of the stronger advocates of encouraging OAuth and removing the need for plaintext usernames and passwords - I've been pushing this for a year now. I hate having your information on our servers. I'd rather Twitter have control over that.

Oh, and I'm having the same issue - it looks like the textarea tag exceeds beyond the size of the div it's in.

@GaryPaulson that's an interesting idea - perhaps we could add that as an additional option beyond just ignoring the messages. I'll play around with that.

@Mihai we're the ones sending the SocialToo generated DMs, so we can decide if they get sent or not. This feature determines whether we send it to the individual or not. You now have choice, and marketers rejoice because their messages are only being sent to those that want them.

@Gloson, thanks for letting us know about the changing username issue. I may have to contact Twitter about that one, as they don't notify you in the API when a user changes usernames that I'm aware of. I'll look into it.

Thanks, Andrew! Our goal is to give you choice, while at the same time making these social networks better places to belong. The goal is to make the most out of the way *you* use these social networks.

Jan, if you e-mail me at jesse@socialtoo.com I'll take a look at your incorrect unfollows issue.

Morgan, thanks! I've got a few more ideas that should also help to make Twitter a better place. That's my goal with SocialToo - you get to use it the way you want, and in the meantime we make these social networks better places because of that.

Also, let me know if this gives you any issues - I've tested it, but you never know what happens when it hits the masses. :-)

Now I need to remove the need to enter your Twitter credentials. I'll see if I can get that fixed so people can use this that don't need their credentials in there. Thanks for the mention, Chris!

Robert, I'm talking about enabling that as an option, but not the only option. # Followers shouldn't be the only factor in determining authority - it should be flexible, to be determined by the individual. There are times it could be valuable to search by number of followers, but I certainly don't want that as my only option - I wouldn't find search valuable if that were the case.

My whole point is that I think both you, and Mike and Loic all have a point. I'm simply taking the middle ground here - I think any business not interested in followers is an idiot, yet the only way to fully utilize those followers is to engage and talk to them, by following them back. They're idiots if they don't do that as well.

Lucretia, that's why I say a combination of the two is ideal - imagine if Britney engaged all 12.5k of those followers, building community with them. She wouldn't have people to engage if she didn't have the followers in the first place (again, the chicken or the egg problem). The number is one thing, and still important. Scoble's right too though in that she actually has to listen to those followers to get the full value from it. That was the point of my own post. To get the full value you can't have one without the other.