A juicy TwitterGram tech problem

Monday, October 8, 2007 by Dave Winer.

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.