May 2009

Twitter Beat: @Reply Update

by Sujoy on May 16, 2009

TwitterIn my previous post on Twitter’s dealing with the @Reply changes and the subsequent uproar from users, I had discussed about Twitter getting a new improved version of the old @Reply settings. But yes, it is confirmed that the previous settings of seeing @Reply of users that you did not follow was not coming back. 

In the latest blog post by Twitter [The Replies Kerfuffle] , they have confirmed that the old @reply settings would not be brought back due to technical reasons and they have enlisted the product design and technical problems with the functionality. And excerpt is given below.

Even though only 3% of all Twitter accounts ever changed this setting away from the default, it was causing a strain and impacting other parts of the system. Every time someone wrote a reply Twitter had to check and see what each of their followers’ reply setting was and then manifest that tweet accordingly in their timeline—this was the most expensive work the database was doing and it was causing other features to degrade which lead to SMS delays, inconsistencies in following, fluctuations in direct message counts, and more. Ideally, we would redesign and rebuild this feature but there was no time, hence the sudden deploy.

For the entire post, visit the link here.

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Import Mail and Contacts to GMail

by Sujoy on May 13, 2009

_Your Search for Mail ends here

GMail Shifting mail base is what we call a pain in the bum. With my GMail inbox now touching over the 5 gigs mark, I cannot even think of moving to any other mail provider. And that’s why I can exactly understand why my best friends wouldn’t get shifted from Yahoo or Hotmail or even Indian providers like Rediff and Indiatimes. But as I had mentioned in an earlier post – innovation is thy name, GMail. A new feature has been rolled out which allows users to import not only contacts, but even older mails as well.

So, GMail can now migrate email and contacts from a lot of email service providers and the list is pretty damn exhaustive. The big names are definitely featured -Yahoo, Hotmail/Live, AOL and also some familiar names in the US and UK such as Comcast and Sprint. (See the full list here).

In the official GMail blog post, it has been mentioned that businesses and schools using Google Apps however, will not be able to use this feature. Another functionality added is to try and test GMail for a period of 30 days, by importing just your new email to GMail (after which I believe you never would want to go back). Depending on the size of the inbox, importing would take 24-48 hours.

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Twitter Beat: @Reply Uproar

by Sujoy on May 13, 2009

Twitter has been facing a lot of uproar replies about the recent change in the replies setting. The #FixReplies introduced by Twitter a day back hasn’t gone down quite well with the users and many issues have been reported. Now what were the problems? 

Initially, Twitter’s way of handling replies by users was set to three options:

1. See replies to and from people you follow.

2. See replies from followers as well anyone (i.e. all @ replies)

3. See no @replies at all.

Twitter has now removed these options and the only one available right now is the @replies to and from followers will be visible, and everything else will not be. Here is the post where Twitter announced this change (titled: Small Setting Update). Users have been complaining about the removal of the options. 

Well, if anyone is at all bothered by reading all the @replies, they could surely go to the settings and change their own personal twitter space from being ‘cluttered’ by @replies. But not any more, as it’s now only the way Twitter would want it to be. 

In another post today on the Twitter Blog (We Learned a Lot) , Twitter announced that they have received a lot of negative feedback on the change. But things were to remain unchanged. However, there would be a new functionality introduced called the ‘new improved version of the old @reply’

Here’s what they had to say:

First, we’re making a change such that any updates beginning with @username (that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon) will be seen by everyone following that account. This will bring back some serendipity and discovery and we can do this very soon.

Second, we’ve started designing a new feature which will give folks far more control over what they see from the accounts they follow. This will be a per-user setting and it will take a bit longer to put together but not too long and we’re already working on it. 

Lets all hope we do get something improved.

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