Social Media News: Twitter to add new features?

UPDATE: Apparently, @twitteronnotice is not what many have thought it was supposed to be...back to Louis Gray for the answers:

My late-night speculation on Twitter readying a new feature uncovered not a new way for users to send notices to others on the site, but instead, one of the multiple internal-only accounts used to raise company morale and togetherness.

Definitely go to Gray's blog for the hilarious explanation from Twitter.




Twitter has you on notice. Compared to Facebook, Twitter is still a pretty small company with a tiny support team.  With it's explosion of users over the past year or so, this team has been overwhelmed trying to keep up with spam accusations, suspension of accounts, abusive behaviour - you know, your regular mixed cocktail of internet social norms.  According to Louis Gray, respected tech blogger, Twitter might be giving some support to their, ummm, support team.

A new account, called @twitteronnotice, says cryptically "You're On Notice!", featuring an avatar of Uncle Sam glaringly pointing his finger in your direction. The account even calls itself "Minus One", a common Internet tally for somebody or something being modded down by the community. (e.g. +1 and -1)

Get enough negative karma associated with your account, and you might see your account go on notice. While no public details are yet available for this private account, it could be a way for the company to try and avoid user attrition through aggressive account deletions, and put accounts in something of a holding pattern for violating the terms of service.

To add more credence to this rumour, the account is only being followed by a select group of Twitter staff members.  Finally, as many already know, it's impossible to create a Twitter account with the word "Twitter" in it - unless you work for the company, of course.  So it's pretty much guaranteed that Twitter is working on something here.

In other Twitter account news.  Are you an active participant in #FollowFriday?  Twitter might be attempting to make it easier for you to get the word out about your favourite tweeps. The account @TwitterShoutout has also been discovered by Louis Gray, suggesting that the account will be used as a new action to promote your favourite people on Twitter.  Gray speculates that a new list may appear in your profile that keeps track of all the tweeps who give you a "shout out", kind of like recommendations in LinkedIn.  One of Twitter's goals with the explosion of users in the last while has been to promote ways for discovering people as Twitter get's pretty boring if you don't have anyone interesting to follow.

Attack of the Twit (Part 1)

I've really latched on to Twitter in the past few months.  On the surface it appears to be quite the utopian place - everyone seems happy, everyone sharing information, laughter, giddiness - it's all lollipops and unicorns.  It seems free of trolls and the negativity often found on forums and it's not as creepy as Facebook can be.  Sure you get your occasional spammer, but they're easy enough to spot and it doesn't really bother me if they follow me, I just don't bother following them back.

It all seemed great until a strange encounter with a local Twit yesterday.  What follows below is a top 5 candidate for the most bizarre social interaction I've ever had.  I've had crazier interactions, funnier interactions, more anger-inducing interactions - but I'm hard pressed to remember a conversation where I came out of it more confused.  Maybe there's something very basic that I'm just not getting...an "a-ha!" that is tantalizingly at the tip of my nose...my social combatant below sure seems to imply as much.  I'll let you be the judge.

So before I start, just a little context.  I'm always looking for interesting local people (those from Hamilton, Ontario) to follow on Twitter.  I came across a list of local twitter users that the The Spectator (our local rag) maintains.  Jackpot!  So after following some 200+ new Tweeps, naturally I was going to receive a number of follow-backs in return.  I had left my computer for a while, during which time the follow-backs started to rack up.  And one of theses Tweeps began replying to me  Below is a tweet by tweet commentary from this new follower:

Right off the bat, I am caught totally off guard.  Quite the way to welcome someone as a new follower, eh?  "I'd welcome you, but first we need to determine if you are the Hamilton Jew or Virginia resident w/ disposable coffee cup"??? wtf.

I have absolutely no idea what this person is talking about.  First of all, are either of those options supposed to be insults? complements? some jedi mind trick?

And then all of this stuff about a mission statement.  Once again, no clue what this person is talking about.  Upon reading that tweet, my mind races through the list of my online spaces - my blog, twitter, flickr...no where have I written the phrase "mission statement".  But my assumption is that they are talking about the "Bio" section on Twitter, which for me reads "A marketer, photographer, and filmmaker who's a jack of many trades and a master of a few."  Definitely "stuck-up"...sure.


But I sense that maybe this is just a misunderstanding - I'm not looking to start a flame war.  I meekly respond back:

Who knows what's going on, right?  I don't want to start a ruckus before I give Chris a chance to explain.

 

 Fair enough.  Still confused, but whatever.

At this point, I'm just feeling things out.  After the initial craziness, maybe this person is settling down.  Maybe they're just a bit strange, but nice enough...you know the kind.

Ok, maybe not.  This is the tweet that sends shivers down my spine.  Part of me is a bit freaked out because they used the phrase "the others" and I'm in the middle of re-watching every episode of Lost.  And part of me is freaked out, because...well, because wtf.  I immediately began googling "Chris Halasz" to see if I can figure out what is going on here. Nothing out of the ordinary turns up.  I press on...

 A seemingly innocent response.  Let's see what I get in return.

Is it time to start panicking?  Yeah.  A bit.  I don't even know how to respond to this anymore.  And if you're like me, you have no idea what castrati means either.  From Wikipedia:

"A castrato (Italian, plural: castrati) is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity."

Creepy. So me and a bunch of castrated Italians should go and eat at a fast-food giant of our choosing?  How quaint.

Once more into the foray:

I'm kind of a stubborn person.  I really want this conversation to end, but I want it to end on my terms.  A bit of snark here probably wasn't the best idea.

Again with the fast-food assertion.  But perhaps this person has dropped a clue "but your photography tells me you already eat there-as does your "vision"'.  I scour my flickr photos and the only thing I can come up with is half of a golden arch from a picture in Times Square NYC.

Hardly anything to rouse up this kind of conversation.  Not to mention it's buried 5 pages deep in my photostream.

At this point, I've given up hope on figuring out what the deal is with this person.  I am defeated.

Another stab at me.  What have I done to deserve this?  My body of work?  What the hell is going on here??  What body of work?  And what does this imaginary body of work say of me?  So many questions!  Too many crazy answers!

After this tweet, my eyes are glued to the screen - waiting for the return volley.

Nothing.  No response.  The threat has been neutralized apparently.  Is this a troll?  Is this someone who had a bad day?  Have I met this person before?  Offended them?

After a bit of detective work, maybe some answers in part 2 of "Attack of the Twit".