Pending removal of "TweetDeck Services" feature

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Friday, 2 January 2009

“TweetDeck Services” is a feature set that I was keen to integrate into TweetDeck over the coming weeks, the aim of which was to supplement your tweet timeline with additional information which, whilst not vital, was of some interest e.g. your number of followers and how that has changed over time. In a nutshell your TweetDeck would insert “fake” tweets, which only you can see, into one of your TweetDeck columns with time-sensitive information (possibly location-sensitive as the feature set evolves) without you having to request it (unsolicited).

Whilst I believe this kind of feature could truly add value on top of twitter it is the method of delivery that is potentially an issue. The act of supplementing the twitter feed without asking can so easily be construed as spamming, no matter how well meaning, and this is not where I’m going with TweetDeck. As of the next point release (due next week) this feature will be removed. The twittercounter data will be integrated back into TweetDeck in a future release and will accessible via a user action rather than an unsolicited one.

In a similar preemptive vein, I have integrated group messaging into TweetDeck but have not released this functionality until I get some level of guidance from Twitter themselves. There is the possibility of a user being deemed a spammer and blocked from using the API if too many tweets are sent out from their account in a certain time period. This functionality will only be rolled out when I can be sure of the parameters of this blocking and subsequently protect TweetDeck users from getting it. I’ve emailed Twitter and am waiting for a response.

Do shout if you agree or disagree with this approach.