DISQUS

It's a Javascript issue. You get up to 250 characters in some cases: http://www.seoconsultants.com/twitter/supertweet/

Looking more closely I just see normal variations: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=twitte...

Spam is something arriving unsolicited. You're saying that if someone follows you, their follower request is spam depending on their motives. I say only something unwanted is spam. In most cases, they are one and the same thing outside of Twitter. Unsolicited = unwanted. But it's a little different on Twitter.

On Twitter, the person who receives the request gets to decide.

1. What if Twitter starts a news service and announces it by following everyone?
2. What if someone starts a service that announces itself by following people, but *100%* of the people followed follow back?
3. What I only follow people talking explicitly about my product?

#1 looks questionable, but most people would appreciate it. #2 Looks even more questionable, but turns out to be not spam at all. #3 looks very reasonable, but what if no one followed back? That would be a negative vote against that account.

I like the system the way it is, giving people the freedom to decide, rather than attempting to censor people by labeling their behavior and lumping all people with similar behaviors together.

There is nothing against the TOS in what you did. The TOS is short and easy to understand. http://cli.gs/psZj13

Google easily checks the "importance" of topics happening on nofollow links (lots of tweets clustered together in time on the same topic, for example) and can apply that importance to followed information on the same topic. But this is an imperfect solution.

Creating walled gardens around content (nofollow) to keep spammers/black hats out is also an imperfect solution.

You suggest "perhaps we need a better search engine." Of course we do. We always will. Perfection is not attainable, but improvement is. And Google is constantly improving, and most of us who really care about search don't rely solely on Google (Twitter search, anyone?)

Dave's last blog post..Share your blog posts everywhere

I see I got here too late and someone already recommended us! My wife and I run @Twitter_Tips as a service to the Twitter community.

I worked in tech support for many years and decided to just start helping people from a seperate account some months ago, which has now grown to over 15K followers.

We try to tweet the most about the things people are asking us about or having problems with. We actually don't have time to do a blog because helping people via @Twitter_Tips takes so much of our time! I've tried to recruit some people to help but so far it's just my wife @SarahJL and me.

(Love your service! Hope Twitter buys you and drops that silly "Recommended Users" thing they are trying for new accounts.)

DON'T notify twitter in the present case! Notify the poor person who only has to change their password to take back control

"Cold" the way this is measured could also mean "original."

Even simpler: find people who are in those overlapping areas and get in touch with them.

Gone through many cheap hosts. Dreamhost seems to be among the best of the bunch. Very hard to rate reliability ... reliably. Everyone has problems from time to time.

Thanks, Ravi!

I'm adding more all the time to this collection. I also take requests if someone is looking for a certain kind of image. A few of these are also shown on Flickr<.a>

Awesome composition. Great work!

Very nice! Thanks for the heads up, Dave!

The problem with that "status" is it's now 14 hours after the problem was to be resolved in "several" hours, and lots of people only lost followers after the "restoration" began. Some people lost 100%.

So, Twitter Status, is this not fixed yet, a new problem, or a new set of rules we all have to play by? Why not say "still working on it ... still working on it .. done!" instead of just leaving it as "Even after this recovery is complete ..."

They wanted to have a stake in online video, but didn't like what Google was offering. These guys hate not having options. So they made their own--lousy--option, and to make it look better to themselves, they made it bigger.

Chris, I made your subheads links back to this article,but used a lot of your content. Glad to take it down if you think it's too much.

Incredible and wonderful .. hadn't seen this one yet .. thanks for putting this up!!

One thing I've learned in creating positive results is to give specific instructions, and track results when possible (like your recent advice [http://snurl.com/28a5d] on Twitter for how to reach people who need help).

Sharing good information is not a bad thing! But combining information with an approach to get people to take action is even more powerful. On the web, lists of steps to take, or links to places people can learn more or take action is one way to start in that direction.

Well done. Too many guides philosophize without getting down to brass tacks.

Well ... legislating how people communicate is not a great idea. Freedom is important. Some don't reciprocate, but why shouldn't Twitter resemble the real world? Everyone need to find their own way. If you're there, you can help them do it!