Elliott C. Back: In Aere Aedificare

It’s now clear to me why Google bought Jaiku instead of Twitter. The reason is simply that Twitter sucks. I’m following a mere 5 users, and I have pruned down the people following me to 2, yet Twitter cannot reliably deliver my messages.

For example, this morning I should have received 3 twits, two of which are weather alerts, and one of which is a message from my girlfriend. In reality, I only received one of the weather alerts, and missed the other two on my phone:

This isn’t just a one-time glitch; I’ve been having trouble receiving twits erratically for the last couple months. If I had to place bets, I’d say that Twitter isn’t scaling properly, or is falling apart from the inside out. After all, if Google bought your biggest-but-still-tiny competitor instead of you, wouldn’t you just give up? Maybe at Twitter there’s no one left at the helm.

Another annoyance is that no matter how hard I try, I keep getting twits from a random person:

I’m not subscribed to their alerts, and additionally I’ve marked them as “blocked” but yet I continue to receive their updates on my phone. I’ve tried everything short of sueing Twitter in civil court to get them to stop, but the alerts continue to flow. If you wonder if I’m alone, I’m not. Someone’s gone to the effort to register http://twittersucks.com, and a quick search for twitter sucks will get you a lot more.

Update: I was going to say that things might be getting better, because yesterday I received both weather updates, but today I only got one.

I want to blog about how my cancelled flight on nwa is making me five hours late, but all I have is my bb.

Wordpress should definitely release a mobile skin for the admin area, which doesn’t work so well right now on small screens.

I don’t know why at all, but tonight I’m getting buckets of the weirdest kinds of AIM spam. The first comes from taytay20061994, who claims to be some kind of marketer wanting to give away DVD players for Sony:

(10:22:50 PM) taytay20061994: hey
(10:23:04 PM) liten fugl: Hello
(10:23:55 PM) taytay20061994: how are you?
(10:24:27 PM) liten fugl: I’m well.
(10:25:36 PM) liten fugl: Who are you?
(10:26:40 PM) taytay20061994: im rico i work for sony and i was wondering if you were interested in winning a free dvd player
(10:26:57 PM) liten fugl: I don’t need a DVD player, thanks.
(10:27:05 PM) liten fugl: I have … three right now.
(10:29:13 PM) taytay20061994: oh well what about winning a free one?
(10:30:06 PM) liten fugl: of the three that I have I only use two. Another would just take up space.
(10:33:18 PM) taytay20061994: well could i interest you in a cd player?
(10:34:42 PM) liten fugl: DVD players play CDs
(10:34:50 PM) liten fugl: I’m not sure why you want to target me for this
(10:35:05 PM) liten fugl: I’m not a great candidate for wanting something free.
(10:35:41 PM) taytay20061994: well do you know of anyone who has this service on aol instant messenger who would be interested?
(10:35:53 PM) liten fugl: No, most people I know don’t like spam.
(10:36:18 PM) taytay20061994: im sorry but i am not spam
(10:36:27 PM) taytay20061994: i am an honest seller
(10:36:47 PM) taytay20061994: and i will not take your information and use it against you
(10:37:41 PM) taytay20061994: are you still there?

The next one from, sangerlang offers to sell me female mexican companionship:

(10:46:53 PM) SaNgErlAng: are you interested in mexicans?
(10:47:10 PM) liten fugl: As much as I am interested in the Finnish
(10:48:26 PM) SaNgErlAng: excuse me can you please say that again in different words please?
(10:50:16 PM) liten fugl: I like mexicans and americans equally, but, what an odd question!
(10:52:54 PM) SaNgErlAng: do you want a mexican or not?
(10:53:22 PM) liten fugl: One person cannot possess another person as mere chattel. The notion is obnoxious!
(10:54:07 PM) SaNgErlAng: your a lezbo
(10:54:21 PM) liten fugl: I’m a guy, I’m not sure that is possible.
(10:54:42 PM) SaNgErlAng: it is your book
(10:54:59 PM) liten fugl: What’s my book? I haven’t published any books.
(10:57:39 PM) SaNgErlAng: your stupid
(10:58:05 PM) SaNgErlAng: IM SORRY YOU DONT HAVE BALLS
(10:58:22 PM) liten fugl: I think you have me confused with someone else!

I don’t know where these people get my AIM address from (although it’s all over the web, I suppose), or why they think I want what they have to sell. I am positive that these two people are not the same, since their vocabulary is significantly different. The first is a spammer, the second is … well even I can’t make out what he/she is!