Scripting News: A juicy TwitterGram tech problem

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

A juicy TwitterGram tech problem

I love an interesting technical problem, esp one that's about human behavior, and how to give people what they want even when it puts stress on a system.

Okay so here's the problem.

1. I recently opened the Flickr-to-Twitter feature of Twittergram.

2. A bunch of new users came on, some of whom don't understand the feature in all its fullness (not their problem, it's mine).

3. A user uploads 150 pictures in five minutes.

4. Dutifully, Twittergram sends notifications to all his followers, one at a time, creating 150 tweets, pissing them off, probably causing a few of them to send him nasty private tweets, and some probably unceremoniously unsub.

4a. In the future, when there are 200,000 Twittergram users, this will piss off the folks at Twitter when they realize they're spending a million dollars a year sending junk messages to people who don't want them.

5. Something must be done to regulate this.

Here's a screen shot that illustrates.

I have some thoughts, I'm interested in what the readers of this blog think. Post your comments here.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:44 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

Sep Nov