MyTwitterButler.com has posted on their site that they received a letter from Twitter claiming several violations of the Twitter terms of service.  The details including a PDF of the letter sent to the site owner can be viewed here.  While the site owner claims they are being sued, that does not yet appear to be the case.  In fact, the PDF outlines the various violations this site has in regards to Twitter and their terms of service.

Site Background

A quick background on MyTwitterButler is that they sell a desktop application to help Twitter users get more followers.  Twitter has been known to be against “aggressive following” and it appears that is what they consider this application to do.  While Twitter never clearly defines what “aggressive following” is, it leaves it up to speculation of the developers and users. Looking at the developer terms of service, it simply says:

Do not create a bot to promote mass following. Twitter enables users to find and connect with people. Mass following does not help users find interesting connections. Applications found to be promoting valueless mass-following or following-ponzi schemes will be promptly blacklisted. So please, spend your time developing something that helps users find people with interesting connections.

As you can see, the definition of “mass following” is not clearly defined. However, alot of Twitter activity is based on third party apps that make the use of Twitter more efficient.  What is the real difference if you manually go through the Twitter search to find new users to add based on your interests/keyword opposed to using an application that automates the process for you?  You can save countless hours with the help of an application that does this.  In fact, MyTwitterButler allows you to search for users based on keywords. Therefore, I would think this application could be classified as “something that helps users find people with interesting connections” in reference to the last sentence quoted above. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, let’s clear something up…if you see a tweet on Twitter and the source is listed as “From API”, there is no need to disown that Twitter user as a “bot”, “spammer”, or anything else negative.  While some users might very well be those terms, it is unfair to label all users who have tweets “From API” as fake users.

From the looks of most users concerned with what “From API” really means, nearly all jump the gun and assume the worst…that it is a “bot” account.  Do these users even know what an API is?  From what it looks like, they do not.  For starters, everyone should check out Twitter’s offical page regarding API use and what it is.  This can be found here.

So Why The Hate for “From API” Tweets?

Twitter recently implemented a change where programs who do not list a source parameter in the tweets will be defaulted to post “from API” instead on what it used to be “from Web”.  So what is now happening is programs who do not list a source and are not registered as an application with Twitter will now display the source in tweets as “from API” instead of “from Web”. Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you using Twitter are no doubt familiar with the numerous applications that can added to your Twitter account. In fact, the applications are too numerous to mention without adding an explanation as to their purpose. One of the nicest features that Twitter incorporates is retweeting (RT), or forwarding tweets that you find valuable to your followers.  For instance, when the Iran riots took place, a Twitter user in Iran would send out a tweet to his or her followers, updating them on what was happening within the country. These followers then retweeted the information to their followers, and so on. Look at it like it’s a giant game of tag. Read the rest of this entry »