As discussed earlier, we have now stopped all forms of automated unfollowing, as per Twitter’s request.
We’re currently working on a streamlined manual version (which will allow you to unfollow a single account at a time). This is our number 1 priority. We’ll be in touch very soon.
We have been asked by Twitter to stop mass unfollowing. So, of course, we will.
The official cut off date is May 21st, but we will be stopping over the next couple of days (ie, well before cut off). Our intent has always been to do the right thing by Twitter & we will continue to operate within their guidelines to the extent of our ability.
We will attempt to complete all existing unfollowing obligations before that date, although those accounts wanting 50k+ unfollowed we may just have to do as many as we can. Obviously we need to stay on the right side of Twitter, or risk having our API access removed altogether.
After that, we will still offer reports, & you’ll still be able to unfollow dodgy accounts – just one at a time. We’ve had extensive discussions with Twitter & they have told us that unfollowing one at a time is ok with them.
At this point I can’t say how much of an overlap there will be between old style (mass) & new style (one at a time) reports, so we may shift into a read only period for a while (reports but no unfollowing).
The key point right now is this: If you want to get a mass clean of your account done, I suggest doing it very soon, as we will be stopping this any day now.
Identifying people that are high volume has been something that has taken the longest time to really settle down.
I’m getting much happier with this latest (the 3rd? 4th?) incarnation.
If you remember, the previous version simply identified anyone that tweeted on average more than 50 times in a day. That was much more reliable than earlier versions, but suffered from one major limitation. There’s a huge difference between someone who tweets “hello world!” in the morning, then uses the other 49 tweets to chat to their friends, vs someone that just blasts out junk 50 times a day.
The difference is – how many of those tweets are public?
Why are high volume tweeters even a problem? Well, this is something that people tend to forget once they start following more than a few thousand people. When you’re following that many people, there are so many tweets flying past it’s mostly a blur. So, if you tweet like crazy who cares, it gets lost in the blur, right?
What is forgotten is this: Of the active users on twitter, most people only follow 2-400 others. One high volume user can flood an entire tweetstream, making it impossible to connect with anyone else.
With that in mind, the new high volume algorithm works like this. If you tweet publicly (ie, anything other than a reply) more than 24 times a day, you’re listed as high volume. This isn’t completely accurate, since if you have any overlapping friends, you’ll see their conversations with them too, but it’s a good estimate.
Once an hour may not sound like a lot, but once you factor in work, sleep, play – oh, and the fact that this is only public tweets, it’s an absolute ton. So talk, talk away! Just connect, make some friends! Don’t blather on about yourself all day :)
I’ve added a new category to the bottom of the reports, “Little Original Content.”
This covers two areas:
Of course, some people do find the best stuff out there, but in general, if someone is only ever RTing things by other people – why not just follow the other person? This is also something that is done a lot by spam bots, to make them appear ‘more human.’
Similarly to retweeting, spam bots often intersperse their crap with quotes. It’s a zero effort way for them to have ‘fresh’ content. In reality though, if they’re quoting Epicurius, this probably isn’t something you need to be getting second-by-second Twitter updates on, the guy’s been dead 2300 years!
That said, as with everything on the reports, there will always be those you choose to follow that fit into the above categories (eg, I follow a couple of accounts that post nothing but quotes). Just click their icons & they’ll be saved.
If you don’t want to unfollow any of them, simply click the headings, & the the entire category will be saved. As easy as ever!
Fundamentally, The Twit Cleaner exists to help you become a better Twitter citizen – and to surround yourself with the best possible people.
Of course, there is value to following news feeds (all links) or celebrities (no follow back) etc but here are some tips on how you can be a better member of the Twitter community.
Retweeting (whether old style “RT @name message” or the new style) is a great way to do several things. First, it shares valuable material with your followers. Second, it’s a way of saying thank you, & passing kudos to the person you’re retweeting.
Obviously the more you retweet, the more people are likely to retweet you, spreading your message far beyond simply those currently following you. This, of course, is also likely to get you more followers.
Now, you don’t want to retweet too much (or only retweet), because also important is:
Just posting links all the time – while informative, doesn’t give people a feel for the kind of person you are. People don’t want to connect with a company (or a bot), they want to interact with other people. That’s what’s so great about Twitter, it enables human connection in a way that blogs & old media really don’t.
Now, this doesn’t mean telling everyone what you had for lunch, necessarily (yawn!), but remember – you’re a human first, and a content spreader or news provider second.
@reply to people who say interesting things. Reply to those that talk to you. Firstly, it’s polite. Secondly, it’s a great way to make friends, discover exciting new opportunities, and, frankly, one of the greatest things about Twitter.
Now obviously people with zillions of followers won’t necessarily be able to reply to every single comment made to them (much like restaurants, the rules for celebrities are slightly different than for us normal folk), but at least make an effort.
If you never talk to anyone, how are you any different from an RSS feed? Youtube, TV or a newspaper? You’re not. Besides, there are so many wonderful people out there – it’s fun! Start chatting!
Posting the same link over & over is tedious – and people switch off from that very quickly. If you’re losing followers, or all your followers are dead accounts? That’ll explain why.
People aren’t stupid. They’re not on Twitter coz they want the same thing repetitively rammed down their throats. If they wanted that, they’d be watching adverts on TV.
Same goes for posting the exact same tweet over and over. That’s just ridiculous. Now of course, if you have a product launch, or you want to attract people in different timezones, you may need to repeat yourself a bit – but mix it up. It’s not hard to rephrase things, try different wording & so on. If nothing else it keeps you more interesting – but also, it’s basic human psychology that people respond to different stimuli (verbal, aural, visual, mental imagery, etc). So, it’s actually smart to vary your message – you’re more likely to appeal to a greater audience by doing so.
While Twitter can be a very exciting place to be, churning out thousands of updates a day is just going to flood people’s tweetstreams.
If you’re following 40k people, it can be very easy to forget, but 90% of active users follow fewer than 2000 people. If you include all the half-arsed dead accounts out there, it’s probably closer to 98%. If you are posting 50 times a day, you’re going to flood everyone else they care about off their front page.
I’ve analysed a ton of accounts, and it’s actually pretty hard to set off the alarms in this regard – & of course, if all you’re doing is chatting to people, that’s totally fine – since conversations with them only go to them (& anyone else following them). If every tweet you do is public though? Maybe tone it down a little, for the sake of everyone else out there. Quality, not quantity, remember?
If you want to know how you’re doing on all these points? When you’re logged into The Twit Cleaner now, on the front page, there’s a link “How do I look to The Twit Cleaner.” That’ll tell you exactly how you’re doing. It’ll also give you tips on how to improve your game & get even better in the future.
Other than that – try to follow people back (if they appeal). Don’t @ tons of people in one tweet (except RT’s & follow friday, of course) – either talk to one person, or just DM them.
Oh, & one last point – don’t sell crap on Twitter. Seriously, if people want white teeth, they’ll google it, or, & here’s a crazy thought, talk to a dentist.
Given the number of people that have had their accounts hacked recently, there are a lot of people getting very nervous about entering their Twitter username & password anywhere.
I also had a bit of a look at the login process & realised – once the login window pops up, it could be pointing anywhere. I.e. without digging deeply into things (e.g., even View|Source on the page wouldn’t necessarily confirm the originating site), how would a nervous/unsuspecting user know that we were legit?
Obviously this isn’t good.
So, I’ve updated the login window.
The location bar now shows at the top of the login window. It’s a bit uglier, but a lot clearer.
You can now see that you’re at Twitter.com when you’re entering your username/password for OAuth authentication. You’re only asked to enter username/password if you’re not already logged into Twitter via the website, but anything that makes things just that little bit more obvious is always welcome.
The primary complaint I’ve had about the site, at the rate of about one in every two hundred users is that of people not seeing the checkbox on the front page. Which one? The one that said “Tell your followers”:
If it was checked, a tweet went out on your behalf, if not, no tweet.
I’ve had an improvement waiting for a new version of the site before I rolled it out, but yesterday I was goaded by some Brazilians into pushing it out sooner instead.
So, now the front page now looks like this:
(Well that’s cleaner & simpler, isn’t it?)
And when you click that, you now get a choice (rather than defaulting to on like it used to):
If there’s a way to make that any clearer, I’m not sure what it is :) and more happy people? Well, that’s always a good thing.
I’ve been keeping an eye on current best practices on Twitter (of course), & it appears Twitter is cracking down on bulk unfollow. This was an informative article, & an eye opening tweet.
Specifically, they want to avoid churning – that is, following a ton of people, then unfollowing those that don’t follow back, repeat ad nauseum. I suspect part of their motivation is to limit spammy behaviour, & part is that it’s a massive drain on their servers (getting hit with thousands of API requests in a short period of time).
I realise that with The Twit Cleaner, we skirting a fine line. However, my priority is to keep your accounts safe, operate within the guidelines of Twitter, while improving the quality of experience for everyone.
In short: I want to improve the Twitter experience as much as I possibly can – but without pissing Twitter off (or causing them any hassle) in the process. I’ve been very careful to try & ensure that the service is the least possible use to those I’m trying to rid Twitter of – those engaging in churn or other spammy practices. Ie, there’s a lot of things I could have put in, but I deliberately haven’t because of any possibility of abuse.
Of course if Twitter says jump, the only appropriate response is “how high”, but I believe we’re safe because:
To this end, I have slowed the unfollow down even further than before. It will now not unfollow more than 20% 10% 5% (or 500, whichever is smaller) of your friend count per day, as well as spacing each unfollow out much, much more slowly.
Ergo, if you want to use The Twit Cleaner to empty your account, you’re better off going somewhere else (it’s not something I’d recommend anyway). If you want to use it to trim out spammers & time wasters of course, we’re the guys for you.
It’ll still happen, just very, VERY slowly. Don’t hold your breath :)
The “auto tweet” on the front page is a source of occasional consternation.
There are two specific behaviours that I’ve tweaked & improved.
1. If you had a problem with Twitter when authenticating, it would default back to tweeting (even if you’d previously deselected the checkbox).
2. People occasionally request a report (with the checkbox ticked, ie – send out a tweet), then a minute or two later seem to change their mind & request another report, with the checkbox unticked (no tweet). I guess they decide to read “Tell your followers” after they’ve clicked it?
Anyway, I’ve tweaked both these issues. The option should remember your choice – a bit hard to test, since I can’t exactly call up Twitter & ask them to break so I can test things, but it should be good. Plus, if you accidentally select the wrong option, as long as you’re quick about it, you should be able to overwrite your previous request by requesting one again – toot suite though!
Lists are a great new addition to Twitter.
I recently got to thinking (spurred on by @GLComputing – thank you!) about them in a different way.
Lists are groups of people that you’ve taken the time to say “Hey, this person is important to me.” If that’s the case, why should you need to tell The Twit Cleaner as well? You’ve already said it once, after all.
So, now the reports will automatically exclude anyone you’ve added to any of your lists (including the automated “conversationalist” list). There is a slight issue here with regards to people who’ve left Twitter but may still be on a list, but in general this will be far offset by the benefit of far fewer false positives on your reports.
As an extra bonus, the benefit (time saved having to check everything) increases the more people you follow – or the larger your lists.