I’ve been throwing hints on Twitter over the last week or two that I’ve been working on this, and with a little extra time I finally got it together. Today I’d like to announce that, as of this moment, we have some really cool new features for Twitter users on SocialToo.com, all in one place!

SocialToo, which is trying to be “Your Companion to the Social Web”, is seeking to build the tools and utilities that compliment your experience on the social networks you belong to. Up until now, anyone could sign up and automatically get the ability to have it follow all those on Twitter that follow you. The script ran once a day, and would do all the work for you, while also enabling you to blacklist users you don’t want it to follow. This enables you to automate, while making exceptions, making management of your friends on Twitter much easier. In addition, by providing Facebook credentials it would redirect “yourusername.socialtoo.com” to your Facebook profile.

Today, I’d like to announce some new features:

• First of all, for those with less than 2,000 followers (this is due to a Twitter limit), we’re now updating your followers up to the hour - as Twitter improves their API I’ll update this to work even more realtime. We’re working with Twitter on getting their API improved to handle this. If you have 2,000 followers or more instead of just once a day, we’re now updating every 6 hours, so even your followers will update faster than before.
• Today, we’re adding the ability to add a message that we’ll send to all your new followers via direct message. This can be a great opportunity to thank your followers, or, as a business account, tell them about a unique promotion you are running. However, if you’re just signing up and aren’t already following those who follow you, we recommend waiting until your account syncs up before turning this on, or all those we follow will get dm’d, even if they’re not new followers. This should only be applicable to new accounts - if you have an existing account, check your preferences and be sure to turn this feature on!
• In addition, if you have a bunch of people who followed you, you followed back, and then they stopped following you (this is the case for many Twitter spammers), we’ve added the ability to turn on a feature that unfollows those that are not following you back. I think it’s who you follow that matters, so my recommendation is to use this feature sparingly, and turn it off when your account is back in sync. You can use it however you want though.
• We’ve got a fresh new design! - okay, I admit, we’re not perfect yet, and were this the golden days I’d say we’re still technically in “beta” (I hate that excuse though), but we got a superstar designer to offer some help on the design for this - thanks so much to our designer!! You know who you are. The new design will come into play much more in the next round of features.
• My favorite feature: follower statistics. Not only are we now tracking those that follow you, but we’re also tracking those that stopped following you. You’ll now get an e-mail every night telling you the followers that stopped following you, and who your new followers are (and consequently who you followed). This is turned off for all existing users - go into your preferences to turn this on and find out details about those you’re following and those who may have unfollowed you (and we’ll soon provide other statistics to help you find out why).

As planned, I think we’re changing the game in making your social experience better all in one place with these tools. You may be familiar with other sites that do similar things out there, but you will quickly find that SocialToo.com is easier to set up, more automated, more accurate, and much less hassle than some of the other services out there.

Oh, and there’s one more really big thing. You’ll have to wait a few weeks to hear our next announcement though. Much more on the way!

You can sign up at http://socialtoo.com (that’s T-O-O, like “tool”, or “also”). Follow us on Twitter at @socialtoo for more updates!

UPDATE: Be sure to see Alex’s comment below for his view on this.

I am a huge fan of Twitter, regardless of what I say or ever complain about. As a developer of Twitter apps, I want to see it succeed. However, I will sound the warning bell when I see things happen that could detrimentally affect the service. A post on his personal blog today by Twitter’s API Lead, Alex Payne, has me concerned. In the post, he announces that he’s writing a book, and ironically, the book has nothing to do with Twitter development.

In the post, Alex announces he’s writing a book on a new, JVM-based language called Scala. He did a presentation on it awhile back at C4, talking about why he was supporting it and why it was a good language. Alex is a smart guy, and it would seem he’s a very appropriate author for such a book, but in his blog post he mentions nothing about what is going to happen with his work at Twitter - what are his priorities after he begins writing this book?

In development for my own site, SocialToo, I’ve dealt quite a bit with Alex, so I know he’s a hard worker. He’s answered my e-mails in the middle of the night, and even over the weekend. He’s always talking to the Twitter development list and lately seems to be doing a great job interacting with developers.

As an author of 2 books, one of them O’Reilly, I’m a bit worried Alex’s priorities may be shifting. Writing a book is no easy task, and especially not an easy task to maintain a full-time job at a very time-consuming startup that still doesn’t have its API squared away. He should expect to spend several weeks in a row, full-time, writing, editing, and re-editing the book. It’s not very easy to write a book in your spare time - he should expect his focus at Twitter to diminish. There’s no avoiding it - that’s why O’Reilly gives authors an advance, so they can support themselves during the time they are writing the book. O’Reilly has tough deadlines to get books to print in time.

So, seeing perhaps the most important player in Twitter’s API development completely shift their focus after posts like this one last week by Alex himself, I can’t help but wonder where the priorities are at Twitter and who’s actually working. Does this mean we’ll never see them open the firehose? As a Twitter developer, I’m truly worried about this announcement.

Luke Stay is my younger brother, and fellow geek like myself. I like his writing style so I asked him to start guest-blogging on Stay N’ Alive. You can follow Luke on his blog at http://lukestay.com, or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/afrowhitey, or FriendFeed at http://friendfeed.com/afrowhitey. –Jesse

About 6 months or so ago, my brother, Jesse, would not quit talking about some crazy new service he was using online called Twitter. One day, I got bored enough and decided to check it out. Little did I know, that service would serve as some sort of wormhole, propelling me helplessly through cyberspace into a strange new world, referred to by its own inhabitants as, “Web 2.0.”

I suppose I should start off with a little background on myself. I primarily work as a Stagehand in Las Vegas, NV for the local branch of IATSE. My area of expertise there is as an Audio/Visual Technician. As an A/V Tech, I am paid to install large screens, large digital projectors, large plasma screens, and many other audio/visual components for the various conventions and conferences that come to town. Sadly, I still use a 32” analog TV as my primary source of entertainment at home (yes, I did already get my free digital converter box, thanks for asking). I am an A/V geek, an A/V geek with debt that can’t afford any of the high-end components he installs on a semi-daily basis. It’s a sad existence, I know.

That being said, I am no stranger to computers or the Internet. I grew up trying to get my family’s ancient computer to do things it shouldn’t have been able to do and crashed it many times in the process. I learned computers by trying to get the family computer back up and running before Dad could come home to find out what I had done … again. I took programming courses in High School and Java in College, but ultimately decided programming was not for me. Instead, I chose to study film and have aspired to the life of a screenwriter ever since. I can’t write my own code, but I can understand most code and manipulate it to do what I want. In summary, I am a computer geek with a pretty lame disguise.

I started using Twitter mostly out of curiosity. At first, I just followed Jesse and watched, observing this strange society for a month or so. Then, I started to contribute, replying to some of Jesse’s tweets. This got his attention, and in turn, got me some more followers and a much larger society to observe. Things were pretty quiet at first, mostly Tweets about what people were doing, or what people were reading, or what new technology Apple was about to release, but then came a sort of uprising. I was witnessing a revolution.

These were the days of the infamous “Fail Whale.” Twitter was down and the natives were getting restless. The few tweets I saw actually come through were mostly complaints about their ruthless Twitter overloads. “Where did @replies go?” and “Why isn’t Twhirl working?” and “Can’t anybody do anything about this?” and “Will somebody PLEASE think of the children?!”

Just when things were looking the grimmest, new services began to pop up. Some began to move their discussions to FriendFeed, but that didn’t seem to work as a Twitter replacement. Others seemed to drop off the face of the planet, or at least the Web 2.0 planet. Others still stuck to their guns, pledging their allegiance to Twitter despite all its faults. Then, a new alternative emerged, Identi.ca.

Identi.ca billed itself as Twitter for the people; by the people, and quickly amassed an army of rebels set on taking down the evil, unreliable Twitter Empire. Among its strongest advocates were @JesseStay, @MarinaMartin, and @ThomAllen, and a majority of the small group of people I followed on Twitter. I decided to switch. My name is Luke after all, and Luke would never let himself be seen cavorting around with the supporters of the Empire. Not even Uncle Owen would do that.

In one month, I saw more activity and more of a community on Identi.ca than I ever had on Twitter. People were coding furiously, tapping into the new open-source API that Identi.ca offered. Bridges were built, new friendships were formed, manifestos were written, and new blogs emerged to welcome in the new recruits. Then, almost as quickly as it started, the revolution ended.

I came home from vacation and began to notice a lot of decreased activity on Identi.ca. Only one or two of the people I followed were posting regularly. I turned on my old Twitter account and there they were. The revolution had ended. The rebel army had lost. There would be no triumphant Ewok songs to welcome in the new era.

I learned a lot during my time on Identi.ca. I learned how to track certain terms. I learned how to find more interesting people to follow. I saw a lot of interesting conversations. Most importantly though, Identi.ca served as a sort of microcosm to the way this Web 2.0 world worked. There was a problem on the web, a shiny new service with lots of great features arose, and the masses followed like a swarm of hungry locusts. Then the old service, still much larger than the new one, fixed a lot of its problems, and the swarm came back home.

Since then, I’ve branched out a little on Twitter. I began to get my own followers and have my own little network of videographers, editors, and film geeks. I’m even following Dave Matthews (@DaveJMatthews) and Stefan Lessard (@SLessard) from the Dave Matthews Band (who are surprisingly active). My observations shifted somewhat to FriendFeed as I begin to utilize Twitter more and more, and I see the same sort of Identi.ca cycle on a much smaller scale almost daily. The Web 2.0 world finds some new product or feature, rushes out to play with it, review it, love it, or hate it, and then drops it completely as some other new product or feature is announced.

I remain a somewhat casual observer. I learned my lesson. In this strange new world, it’s better to wait out the flurry of hype that comes with the latest new web gadget to see if it actually takes root. If the locals drop it after a month or less, I don’t bother. Who knows, it may be the next Empire Strikes Back, or it may just be another Star Wars spin-off; a Star Wars Christmas Special in hiding.

I am such a geek

Joseph Scott, developer at Automattic, posted that Wordpress.com has recently broken 4 million total blogs. He further mentions that it took just 4 months to go from 3 million to 4 million. Assuming the rate isn’t exponential, it will just be end of December when they hit 5 million blogs. What would be even more fascinating is to know how many self-hosted blogs on Wordpress are currently running. (This blog is a Wordpress MU install)

Wordpress seems to be no Facebook, but perhaps as projects like BuddyPress take off and people begin to virally create blogs and content with their friends it will get to that level. Where Wordpress still has left to compete is with microblogging sites like Twitter - perhaps, with the large user base that they currently have we could see this happen in the near future.

I broke news last night on LouisGray.com about Twitter enabling a new API feature, “in_reply_to_status_id”, to allow developers to tie replies to their original reply source. Immediately afterwards Evan Prodromou of Identi.ca added the same functionality to the Laconi.ca source code, making two of the most popular microblogging platforms, Twitter and Identi.ca, along with the already supporting FriendFeed, supportive of threaded comments. Immediately we saw Dave Winer implement a proof of concept example, and YooPlace also implemented it into their own code. Loic Le Meur of Seesmic, the owners of the Twhirl Twitter client responded as well saying he was reading the article and looking into it.

So a big question has become evident now that we can threaded replies. Is the ‘@’ really necessary in your replies to friends on your favorite microblogging service any more? A comment by Steve Gillmor on Identi.ca got me thinking about this earlier, and I think he has a strong point. In fact, I’ve briefly touched the subject before here.

The ‘@’ is mostly a Twitter-invented custom brought to the service by its users with some slight roots in bulletin boards and forums where threading was not possible. Users decided the Twitter service made a great communications tool and began replying to their friends’ posted statuses with the ‘@’ symbol. There was no other way because Twitter wasn’t expecting to be a communications tool. The popular Twitter clients like Twhirl and TweetDeck and even Twitter’s own web-based client started catching on, and separating those posts with usernames prepended by ‘@’ as “replies”. What’s odd is that the only thing they recognize as a reply is if the username is prepended by an ‘@’ - they take no thought as to the actual username itself, which really is the actual substance of who the user was replying to. In fact, FriendFeed users are starting to do this as well since it only has one level of threading and users can’t comment on other users’ comments. (Twitter and Identi.ca are actually one-upping Friendfeed with their recent announcements)

So while the “@”’s were a custom, they really aren’t necessary to determine if a user is replying to another user. In fact, even today you can use an XMPP tracker like Twitter Spy and Laconica Spy and track your username and get notified when a person mentions your username, exactly the way “@” replies work. It was silly that the “@”’s were required to be recognized as a reply in the first place.

Now, considering you can now actually track on the back end the entire hierarchy of a conversation via the API “@”’s are even less necessary as before. I’d like to see the various microblogging clients start to ignore the “@”’s and allow users to simply type usernames when replying to another individual, assuming threads aren’t in place. Then, once threads start to show in your favorite microblogging clients, even the usernames shouldn’t be necessary.

I’ve mentioned before that IRC works this way and most IRC clients will look at the existing list of users in a room and automatically detect the username and notify the targeted user if the message is directed at that user. Not only that, but the IRC clients actually keep a cached version of the users in a particular room and will even auto-complete usernames if you begin typing in the username and hit “tab”. That’s what I’d like to start seeing microblogging clients do so long as they’re going to be supporting a communications platform, and it should start with Twitter and Identi.ca themselves on their own web interfaces.

Then again, all this may now be moot with threading available. Oh, and don’t even get me started on hashtags. (Those should be handled by the API, not in the content of the message!) I think I’m going to try a new experiment of just not using the “@”’s like Steve Gillmor does - anyone else want to join me?

There’s a new kid in town in the microblogging space, and no it’s not just “another microblogging site”. I talked to Brian Hendrickson, the lead developer behind OpenMicroblogger.org and its accompanying service OpenMicroblogger.com today and he may just have something to scare both Twitter, and Evan Prodromou of Identi.ca in their tracks. What’s amazing about it all is Brian has actually taken the OpenMicroBlogging protocol that Evan established and implemented the protocol in Brian’s own, non-laconica-based implementation of the protocol that would communicate with any other OpenMicroblogging protocol supported site, similar to the way I mentioned on LouisGray earlier. Yes, OpenMicroblogger.com and the accompanying open source software it is based on will talk to Identi.ca, and on a completely different code base. That means you can follow anyone on Identi.ca within the OpenMicroblogger.com service and vice-versa, and they were written from the ground up by two entirely different developers!

What’s even more amazing about this new platform is that while not a Wordpress implementation, Brian seems to have made the platform almost entirely compatible with the Wordpress plugin and theme API. So, basically, if you are a Wordpress developer, you can write your own extensions to the code, implement your own versions of the code, and write your own themes, all in the same way you do on Wordpress. Brian wrote the code from the ground up using a framework he built and calls “dbscript”, and it contains no Wordpress code whatsoever. He felt Wordpress was too bulky to handle a full Microblogging platform (do I smell a potential acquisition by Automattic?). In fact, adding in integration with the OpenMicroBlogging Protocol was as simple as just adding a simple PHP plugin to his dbscript implementaion. The look and feel of OpenMicroblogger.com, his own implementation of the codebase, is all just an implementation of the Wordpress Prologue theme that my friend Joseph Scott at Automattic wrote.

Brian tells me that while Laconi.ca’s codebase is very good technology (he had very good things to say about Identi.ca, Evan, and the Laconi.ca codebase, especially when compared to Twitter), the technology underneath OpenMicroblogger and DBScript is even stronger and more scalable. According to him, “dbscript is an advanced ‘Restful’ framework with sophisticated features that are not found in the Wordpress code base, it shares features with Ruby on Rails (ruby) and Django (python) — things like MVC, ActiveRecord, Routes, Content-Negotiation”. Because the underlying code is Restful, an API is almost inheritently provided for other developers to interact with your implementation of the code-base and write their own applications for it.

OpenMicroblogger and DBScript are based on an open source MIT license similar to the license Ruby is under. Brian says it took him just 8 weeks to write this advanced implementation, with other client projects going on at the same time and 2 kids, which shows how simple it is to implement the Openmicroblogging Protocol. It also shows his devotion to the work.

OpenMicroblogger.com, the service that shows off his code, has some really nice features (also available in the code) such as sharing links and pictures with friends - definitely a little more advanced than Identi.ca in that manner. He fully supports the OpenID standard (he actually wrote his own OpenID host using his framework!), and is very big on OAuth and other standards and open protocols so you can expect to see much more around that with the site.

This one simple and amazing example goes to show that we have only hit the tip of the iceberg here on microblogging technology. Now that a Protocol has been established, you will see more and more sites and developers write their own extensions of the protocol to implement their own creative microblogging solutions and layers. This very creative and innovative solution could just be a more advanced option than Laconi.ca to consider for Microbranded solutions in the future. Brian has taken “viral coding” to heart.

You can download the code, try out, learn more and help out the OpenMicroblogger.org project over at http://openmicroblogger.org. I’ve created an account at http://openmicroblogger.com/?jessestay, and you can actually just go there, follow me, and follow my OpenMicroBlogger.com updates right on Identi.ca! Or, you can go over and create an account for yourself.

UPDATE: Brian corrected me about it being more scalable than Laconi.ca (see the comments below) - according to him, “Actually Laconi.ca is the more robust code and is more scalable. dbscript is a meta-object framework and runs some extra queries to “learn” about the db schema — it is currently not very optimized for performance, but is geared towards being programmer-friendly.”

Yesterday I announced I am permanently and officially on hiatus from Twitter. Bloggers and other Twitter users, while annoyed, are giving them too much attention in both the negative and positive forms, and frankly, both of these only help Twitter. Any publicity is good publicity, especially when it comes to Twitter. I’m fed up with their lack of communication with users (try to talk to @ev or @biz - I rarely ever get a response to them, while many other companies on their own service I get an instant response from), their lack of experience and poor architecture that keeps causing these problems. It seems, while they are trying to get better, they just keep getting worse!

Just Wednesday, Twitter, while not on purpose, removed mine, and others’ followers in some sort of mistake that took a day to fix (I’m guessing someone erased too much data in the database via a bad query on live data, and they had to restore from Tape backup to get it all back). This hit the breaking point for me - they violated the most important thing to me about Twitter, my followers (which are also those I follow and have a deep interest in), and I just can’t trust that things like this won’t keep happening in the future. They crossed the line, whether on purpose or not, and it’s time for me to take action.

I’ve endured them being down in times I needed them most. I’ve endured them removing API features from us developers with little to no notice. I’ve endured them launching things into production without telling developers or warning users. I’ve endured their lack of a proper staging environment and other simple architectural issues that they still have yet to fix (I’m still not convinced they’re not developing in their production environment!). I’ve endured their lack of a proper and regular launch schedule to warn other developers and users when new features and bug fixes are being launched into place. I’ve frankly, been too patient with them and I’m fed up with it.

Unfortunately, after only one day I realized I could not do it cold-Turkey. I have a good number of followers on Twitter that have some interest in me (and I thank you so much for that support - it really means a lot to me), and regardless of whether I want to leave or not, abandoning Twitter would mean abandoning those followers, and I just can’t do that to all of you. To me, you’re not just a number - you’re all people interested in me in some way, and I follow each of you back because of that (and will continue to do so). I do care about you, and need to do what I can to encourage you to join me in more productive, more reliable and trustworthy sources however. Here’s what I’m going to do:

I’m going to post much more on Identi.ca

My followers from Twitter are already very quickly joining the open source communications and micro-blogging service, Identi.ca. I use identi.ca with Twhirl and have it open at the same time I have Twitter and FriendFeed open. I will be posting to identi.ca much more often - follow me there so you don’t miss anything!

Why identi.ca? Distributed or not distributed (some argue it isn’t, which they have a point), identi.ca is open source. This means I, as a developer, can actually have some sort of chance at giving back if things ever go wrong. Everything’s plain, simple, and out in the open. I know Evan, the identi.ca founder, has also been very open with the community and has maintained that communication. I don’t get that from Twitter, at least not on an individual level. Also, identi.ca, like Twitter, now imports to FriendFeed, and now satisfies my status updating needs to initiate conversation (which is what FriendFeed satisfies).

I’m going to be much more involved on FriendFeed

On Wednesday at F8 I realized something significant - I was using FriendFeed as my primary communication mechanism throughout the day, and I really wasn’t missing Twitter much by doing so (and most of it from my cell phone). FriendFeed, frankly, is much more viral and advantageous to my blog and brand than Twitter because every time anyone likes or comments on an item I post or comment on, that item goes right back to the top of the feeds for all my friends. It brings instant exposure, and in fact, for many posts on this blog I get more traffic on FriendFeed than Google, Twitter, or any other service out there. FriendFeed takes power away from the A-listers and puts it right back in your hands - it can happen to you too, and very easily!

Some people, for whatever reason, won’t give up Twitter

As long as the majority of my followers remain on Twitter and don’t join FriendFeed or Identi.ca, I still have an obligation to you, and frankly, I’m outvoted at the moment until the scale tips. I’ll still follow your Tweets on Twitter, respond to your @replies, and direct messages, assuming you’re not already on the other services. You gave me your attention and I need to continue to give you mine. For the most part, my blog posts will keep posting there (although they are also on FriendFeed - discuss below!). Please don’t hesitate to contact me - I respect you having your own opinion. I hope this post can convince you otherwise however.

SocialToo.com still lives! It has to.

The fact of the matter is, there is still a large audience using Twitter and frankly, there’s a business opportunity there as long as people are still there. I built SocialToo.com to work across many social networks, and as you switch, so will SocialToo.com. For now though, there’s an opportunity, and Twitter will still be a part of that opportunity, as will Identi.ca, Facebook, and even FriendFeed in the future. It is already powering hundreds of Twitter accounts helping you follow those that are also interested in you and I have no intention in giving that up. If I can do my part in making Twitter a better place, I’ll at least try, so long as they let me. I’ve actually got a really cool new feature that will be released soon for both Twitter and Identi.ca.

I will not give Twitter any more attention!

I’ve given Twitter too much attention, both positive and negative already. We as bloggers, if we’re frustrated with the service, need to take a stand, and my hiatus starts with blogging about Twitter, and that happens right now, cold-turkey. This, unless Twitter does something absolutely profound, will be my last post about Twitter.

How Twitter can get me back

Twitter needs to do something profound - they need to show they have the experience necessary to protect those that follow and are interested in me. Twitter needs to open up more - let us into what you’re doing. Allow other services to sync with my updates in a federated, open manner. Open your source code like identi.ca. Any one or two of these will do, but, frankly, I’ve been disappointed too many times. Twitter has to gain my trust back, if some other service doesn’t beat them to it. Show your support by joining me on Identi.ca at:

http://identi.ca/jessestay

Or, more importantly, join me at FriendFeed at:

http://friendfeed.com/jessestay

I hope to see more of you there!

I knew Twitter had hit mainstream when I was Twittering about speaking in Church awhile back, and the CIO of a major Church organization Twitter’d me back, wishing me luck, while he himself was in church. Both he and I some times Twitter about the current sermon or teaching going on in our individual congregations and more - it’s quite frankly, an excellent tool to share with others of like beliefs and even outside your faith inspiring things you may learn. I’ve seen this from others as well, across boundaries of many different faiths - it’s a very common thing to see on Sundays on Twitter and FriendFeed. On Sundays, Twitter often becomes, “Church Day”, at least amongst many of my friends of different Faiths on Twitter.

Many people may gasp at this idea, saying, “What? You use your cell phone to Twitter in Church?”, but I’m not so sure it could be such a bad thing for the reasons I mention above. True, some times it is easy to get distracted, check e-mail, or FriendFeed, or other things going on and that takes some control. I also have to remember to turn off the sound on my wife’s cell phone so if/when I Twitter her phone doesn’t go off in the middle of sacrament/communion because she receives my Twitters on her cellphone (true story!). I do find it an easy way to study the scriptures in church without having to bring a whole book with me. With the iPhone’s new 3G speeds it’s also a great tool to be able to cross-reference and research the topics I’m learning - I’m a stickler for ensuring only the facts are being learned!

However, as I said, without restraint, my cellphone can be a distraction. Not only that, but the mere appearance of me constantly on it can bring an irreverance to the service that perhaps shouldn’t be there. I still can’t help wonder if it may be better just to leave the phone at home. To figure this out, I asked my friends on Twitter and FriendFeed how they use their cellphones in Church. I got a variety of great responses:

jtzemp - I work with the youth, and so I don’t believe in setting a double standard. If they can’t use them to be checking sports scores, texting friends, etc. than I’m not going to either. I have five rules: 1.) It’s OK in emergencies 2.) If it is being used to enhance the experience we’re all sharing, it’s ok. (calling people to get them to activities, finding out if someone is up for a visit, etc). It’s not ok to isolate yourself from people present to have conversations with people who aren’t present. The people you are with right now are the most important people to you right now. 3.) Following up on assignments is OK. I participate in a lot of meetings, and I do text people to remind them of, and follow up on completion of assignments. 4.) It’s _not_ ok in very sacred settings. It takes your mind off the spiritual experience and leaves you spiritually distracted. 5.) If you use your PDA/iPhone to store scriptures/notes/etc. It is ok to use it for that purpose only in appropriate settings. My $0.02.

LdsNana-AskMormon - Calender items, notes and on occasion accessing the scriptures via the Internet….. but NEVER texting.

Justin Hileman - i think appropriate use of technology can be beneficial… i’m far more likely to remain engaged when i’m looking up supplementary material or cross-referencing scripture. with a phone/pocket pc/iPhone i can look up that quote that i can almost remember, i can jot down notes so i’ll remember later. and i’m far less likely to carry a pad of paper to church with me.

Louis Gray - I used to bring the Treo, to have the standard works, hymns, lessons on. Now, I leave all the gadgets at home. You know I’d be Friendfeeding during communion and on Fast Sunday.

Ontario Emperor - If I am alone at church, I will occasionally tweet and/or friendfeed the highlights from the sermon. http://friendfeed.com/e/17edcd…

LGR - Occasionally, if I have the kids on my own in the parents room I will check email, and do some RSS reading while I am watching the kids. I can’t hear the sermon in the parents room unfortunately so I play with the kids and check things on my cell.

James Hull - Never. In the past I have used it to save notes or ideas that may pop into my head, but lately I turn the thing off on the way in and back on on the way out.

the JoshMeister - I like jtzemp’s comments. I carry 3 phone/PDA-type devices with me (yes, I know it sounds silly, but there’s a reason for each device). I use my personal PDA (not a phone) for notes, scriptures, lesson manuals, hymns, and my calendar. I use my Treo (my work PDA-phone which is Internet-enabled but not calling-enabled) to look up talks on lds.org during meetings when appropriate e.g. if a particular talk is the main focus of a lesson, and also for typing notes during General/Stake Conference…

…And finally, I use my personal cell phone only before/after church, or to add a church member’s phone number.

Harvey Simmons - This will probably blur the definition of “in church,” but I’m on the AV team, so we send texts from the sound board to the video room all the time. We just turn our ringers off. At the same time, we occasionally remind people that they could be on camera at any time, so they shouldn’t text or talk on cellphones during service. Last week, the Assistant Pastor’s phone rang during communion service. It was hilarious.

James Andrews - My church is wireless and I love looking up scripture in service, though my wife says it looks like i’m checking my email. My pastor is pretty progressive and I am sure knows what Im doing

klecu - I quite often use my pocket PC in church…to read the Bible of course

Jeff P. Henderson - Maybe there is an online church you could join. Then it would be totally appropriate to use your iPhone there
Akula - I occasionally check email although I shouldn’t. If I had an iPhone I’d probably use it too much at church.

This Twitter and FriendFeed Phenomena is still quite new. I’m sure as it pans out we’ll see more and better uses for it in Church. In the meantime I’m going to watch it with a close eye and see if I can figure out a middle-ground that keeps the sacredness of Church and still adds to it through use of new technology. With the new iPhone App store it could actually be quite interesting to see if any “Church-apps” come to fruition as more people use it. I’m a believer, that’s for sure!

We’re still discussing this on FriendFeed - you can keep contributing to the conversation here.

Photo Credit Peyton Knight

On the heels of a post this morning by Biz Stone, it appears Twitter is beginning to bring the rate limit for posts through the Twitter API back to the 70 per hour it used to be. For the last several months, Twitter has brought that limit down to only 20 requests per hour. Per the Twitter developers mailing list just now, Twitter has now raised that limit to 40, and will gradually be raising it back up to 70 in the upcoming week.

This is welcome news in the week of months of API and service outages. What this means is that you, as the user will no longer see the “Rate Limit Exceeded” error you may be seeing through clients like Twhirl. In regards to the API this leaves mainly just the XMPP stream that they need to re-enable for developers - this may not be happening any time soon however, as Twitter may be looking to only enable a select few developers access to the stream.

Has this request limit affected you as a developer? How about as a user?

Just today, the New York Times did a post on Alex Payne, a “24-year old internet engineer” who created a site called, “DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com“. This site allows anyone to type in a URL and the site will tell you if it’s just you or down for the entire web. In all it’s a pretty useful site I would think.

The article goes on to show all kinds of examples of companies that have had this issue internally and how useful this site could be. What the article did not cover however is that Payne, the “24-year old internet engineer” is also one of the lead Engineers at Twitter, a site that is very familiar with this issue.

Twitter, known for its very frequent outages and user frustration, may be his biggest user. Leave it to Twitter to solve the world’s problems regarding determining if a site is truly up or not! The one thing we can now say is that at least one employee at Twitter will become successful as a result of Twitter’s outages. Thanks to Techmeme and the New York Times for making my day on this one!

UPDATE: it looks like the New York Times article has updated to state that Payne works for Twitter. It was much more funny when that wasn’t made known