Twitter’s RT vs everything else

Well here is my little dime on the subject. As you all must have noticed, Twitter adopted the RT trend. This actually originally started as a need of the community to share tweets that they like without removing the attribute from the original poster, instead referring to him.

All the programs that actually supported it, what they did was pretty simple. They copy the original tweet adding the “@” reference in the beginning and maybe an RT at the very start (or “Retweet” for a couple of programs). This had it’s drawback. First of all it’s duplication of content. So if, for instance, one 160 character tweet get’s retweeted 50 times (which is a fair amount for a viral tweet) then the storage required for the same piece of information is 5 times higher. Now, you noticed that i said “piece of information” and not tweet. I did that because the tweet might vary a bit with abbreviations that the RTer might have introduced in order to make it shorter. So it’s the same info but in various formats and taking much larger space.

One more problem that a user faces is most of the times having to shrink the original tweet in order to be able to retweet. If you think of it, out of the 160 characters 2 are for the RT and then an average of 5-15 are needed for the original poster. Things are worst if you need to RT another RT… That is a problem i have faced a lot and found it inconvenient.

You can imagine how happy i was to see the feature actually implemented by Twitter. This method requires no extra characters and it takes no more space than the original tweet. It’s like a link. I only have one problem with this method. If i want to comment on a tweet i want to retweet, for instance “LOL this is so funny“, i can’t do it. I know it’s kinda hard to keep everybody happy plus implementing something like that would inherit the problems of the originally used RT but if Twitter was to think of a solution that would be great (maybe threaded tweets or something).

One last thought i’d like to share is with the vendors of the popular desktop applications. I think that they should change the retweet way to the new one instead of the original copy-paste. To be honest, i don’t know if the API supports it yet but this is one thing i’d like to see on a desktop twitter application.

The magic of Posterous and FunnyInbox.net

I know i am late in discovering this service but Posterous,simply put, rocks your socks! I love the way these guys implemented post by mail. I mean i know our beloved WordPress does it, for a long time now actually, but in my humble opinion not quite well.

So i decided to move FunnyInbox.net on Posterous. And you know what? It’s free to have custom domains! Yup. Not like other phonies supposedly “open source” and “all for the community” bullshit. It’s completely free. Period. Now the only problem i have is that it’s kinda slow for now, maybe it will get better. Other than that i am completely satisfied. A problem that i had with WordPress is that i needed too much time to prepare a batch of posts on emails that would come into my inbox. I needed to download, separate, upload, write the post, schedule it… Now, all i do is just forward.

On the other hand i wouldn’t trade WordPress for nothing when it comes to blogging. Not even for some other phonies that are trying to catch up… All in all, for a small site with the niche of FunnyInbox or even as a place for link exchange, i find Posterous to be the perfect solution. Kudos!

Using Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS) to create a new site

To cut to the chase, the process of creating a new subsite using WSS is as follows:

1. Connect to the main site using SPSite.
2. Add the new site using the Add() method on AllWebs collection.
3. Do all kinds of magic using the newly created site.

Here is a small C# code example:

In order to access this site you need to visit “http://testsite/testsub”. Hope this helps!

The “European Knowledge” experiment

I have just started a very small poll that is part of a small experiment i am conducting. If you’re interested please check it out and vote here. Please do not lookup the answer online. It will only take a minute to complete. The results of the experiment will be revealed once i close the survey, in about a week or so. I would like to thank anyone that participates in advance.

Stop joining spam meaningless Facebook groups

I’ve seen this trend taking off the last year or so. Every spammer out there has included Facebook in their plans. Here is how it works:

1. I have a stupid site i want to promote or a stupid product or anything that you wouldn’t actually even pay attention to.
2. I go to Facebook and create a new group. I give it a smart, funny, witty, inviting name such as “I am always right and when i’m not i’m rightfully wrong”. How funny.
3. I spam invite all my friends to join. They find it funny enough and do join.
4. The group shows up in their “Info” box.
5. More users notice it and join. Moreover users that already join suggest to their friends to join as well.
6. The group shows up slowly in many walls as “Dumbass join the group “I’m always right and when i’m not i’m rightfully wrong”“.
7. Facebook also starts suggesting it to other users because people in their contact list are member. You must have seen them “”I’m always right and when i’m not i’m rightfully wrong” Dumbass is a fan. Become a fan.“
8. In no time this shitty thing goes viral. Thousands of users actually are members of the group in a matter of days/weeks.

Now one would ask “Why is that spam? It’s fun!”. Ok count with me:

• The group administrator, a very clever spammer if i might add, has indirect access to our timeline. This means that whatever he posts on the group’s wall, ends up in our timeline. Thus, we are actually subjected to “free ads” if i might use the term.
• Since Facebook will list this in your Info box and moreover suggest it to your friends (if you haven’t done that already) it will just keep on going viral. Which means even more free advertising.

In most cases those groups promote or will try to promote something at some point or the other. The thing is why should you join? You like a quote? Freakin post it on your wall as a quote. Don’t join the stupid group so i can be bugged as well. You need to consider two things:

1. Facebook groups were created to group people and their activities. You like a blog? Join their group. You are in a community (for instance your local basketball team)? Join the group. That’s the idea. RTFM!
2. In Facebook we are a network. That’s the original idea. Which means that if you’re my friend i get all your posts on my timeline. Don’t spam me!

And since i’m in the topic, as a side note, i want to say this. Stop freakin posting your farmville, mafia wars or any other stupid game’s achievements  on your wall. Lord! Do i really need to know that you found a stupid virtual cow in your so called farm?

That’s it. I vented. Thanks for listening and God bless