Two tweeters no longer like me

Today's blog is on the short and not-to-sweet side. Somehow and according to my Twitter page stats, two tweeters have dropped me. This has got me wondering first of all, who are they and secondly, what was their motivation.

Sharing tweets that strike the imagination of tweeters is a challenge in itself and it's nice when people find one (me) interesting enough to follow one(me again). However...it's also somewhat blechy discovering one has been dropped. One explanation might be that the new tweeter-ers followed me and I didn't reciprocate. It was a twitter social faux-pas. I can live with it.

Another possibility is that perhaps my subject matter didn't interest them. I mean, my tweets do cover life's more quirky stories like road kill calendars, cheese rolling events, Paul the octopus demise, a woman marrying herself...but also more staid commentaries including celebrities being and acting like celebrities. I like diverse subjects.

So the two tweeter who dropped me will miss out on all my creative commentary and witty repartee. Their loss. Plenty more tweeters 'out there' somewhere waiting to be my friend. Y'a wanna be my friend?

Daily follower update! follower count is operational but...

Seems that Twitter has finally reacted to my never-ending complaints about the follower count. Today a new tweeter is following me and guess what? The follower count is higher by one! However...the five people last week and the week before who were following me are not counted in. Sorry Twitter-5!

A while back during a real communication with a Twitter techie when I had a precious ticket and focusing on this on-going problem, a Twitter techie asked me to prove(!) that the followers I was claiming weren't showing up in the number count, were real. I was asked to prove that they exist. I mean, gimme a break! Now I keep track and don't delete followers. Just can't figure out for the life of me their doubt as to a claim of a few people.

Anyway, things are back to normal - at least for now. We'll see how long this lasts. Meanwhile, my blogger comments are still missing...

Daily Twitter Update: forms - they got forms!

Now that Twitter is recognizing my password, the only existing problem is the dubious follower count. Surely but not necessarily, Twitter will at some point give me my five new followers. I mean, is it a lot to ask in the scheme of things? Anywaaaaaay....

Decided to check in Twitter's "Status" to see if there's anything pertaining to my situation:

"Follow, Follower Counts and DMs Intermittently inaccessible 2 days ago
Some features are intermittently not available on Twitter at this time.

- Ability to Follow a user

- Follow counts

- Sending DMs

Twitter is working to resolve this issue in full.

UPDATE Oct 4th, 2010 8:50am: These features have recovered.

Obviously, 'follow counts' is an ongoing problem, however, according to Twitter effect October 4 at 8:50 a.m. the features have been recovered.

Oh really? Then where are my 5 new followers, Twitter? Anywaaaaaay...

Just checked to see if I have a Twitter ticket yet. A ticket means that they're looking into your problem to see if they can remedy it. Unfortunately, mine is blank. It says: "ticket ID - no tickets." Yesterday, I submitted a request in which I explained my situation. 7

Moved along to the Submit a Request on-line form.

'Dear Twitter' is the first heading, along with a drop-down menu. I chose "something is broken or amiss." The next section is 'Regarding' where tweeters are offered a long list of possible breakdowns. I selected, "Tweets and Messages", naturally. In the next blank space, I provided the background information as to my situation. There is the usual user name, e-mail etc. but what really got my attention was that the closing phrase, 'I feel..." This is a space where the tweeter can express her/his opinion regarding the situation at hand. Oh yes, I did express my feeling but it was done with class - for now. We always must remember our on-line manners.

And so, I still wait (im)patiently for my 'Twitter-5' to be returned to me but who knows when that will be - if ever. Makes me wonder if the five people who decided to follow me are wondering what they did not to be included in the count. Don't ask me - ask Twitter!

On another un-related note but just as annoying, it appears that comments left by people reading this blog are not being seen. To this end, I just posted a notification in the discussion forum related to this issue. Does it every end, I ask you?

Dear Ms. Mr. Anonymous...about followers

Dear Ms. Mr. Anonymous

Thank you for the interesting comment/feedback you made to my complaint/kvetch regarding the Twitter ‘following/count’ situation. While it's true that it’s a free service, one wonders if the service would be better if users had to pay for it. Perhaps yes or perhaps it would be the same. We'll never know unless - heaven forbid - they start charging to tweet.

In your comments to my blog comments, you wrote:
“In the end, does it really matter whether anyone has 150 followers? Or 151? For most people, the follower count naturally fluctuates from one login/visit to another. That's just the way things work. Seriously, who cares?"

Can't speak for other Twitter users but actually, I obviously care as do many others who have added their names to the Twitter complaint lists. The fact that Twitter features the "following" and "follower" ...whatever you call them, means that there are others "out there" in Twitter-land, who feel the same way. As proof of this, singer John Mayer and Ashton Kutcher were determined to have the distinction of acquiring 1 million followers. Why, if this wasn’t important, would they make a point of attempting to get tweeters to follow them? Apparently, having people follow them was an indication of their success. See what I mean? In fact, many celebrities use Twitter to promote their popularity and increase their status.

So y'see, Ms. Mr. Anonymous - followers are important to some of us.

You also commented:
"Twitter is a great way to connect: Use it for its intended purpose and learn to live with the little inconsistencies that crop up along the way."

On that we both agree. It is a great way to connect but it's those littler consistencies along the way that get to you, like incorrect follower count. Ask me about it.

Yours in Tweeting,

Eleanor

When is a tweet not a tweet? It's not tweet!

Checked into Twitter as I do every morning as part of my daily regimen of keeping up to date with people's lives and what should I find? Dear Twitter still hasn't updated my followers count.

Quelle surprise!

Checked the "ticket" page to see if my problem had even been among those worked on and was greeted with "no ticket."

Again - quelle surprise.

It is even more annoying since four new followers have found my updates interesting enough to...follow and Twitter doesn't acknowledge their existence. I mean, can you imagine the reaction of the new followers?

"How d'ya like that?" they most likely say to themselves upon realizing that they're not counted in the count. "Now I won't receive updates on those wonderful tweets from Eleanor!"

It's possible somebody might have said or had that thought.

What is most bizarre is that the following thingie works. In other words, when I follow somebody else, it matters but if they follow me back, it doesn't.

On top of which I'm experiencing problems signing in and have to keep changing my user name. Thing is, I keep forgetting the new user name, which means I have to keep changing and changing and... You get the idea.

So I'm going to mark each day that the problem continues here in this blog - with commentary of course. Curious if anyone else reading this has experienced similar problems. You begin to wonder if Twitter really cares about its tweeters.

New day/week /month - Twitter doesn't tweet

How tweet it is - not!

Seems that Twitter is inviting its users/followers to try out their latest version of Twitter. Thanks for the invitation, Twitter, but perhaps you should attempt to solve some of the existing problems in the old version. On a personal note once again my new followers are not being recognized by Twitter. I mean, what's the use of creating a "followers" category if it doesn't follow?

This time round I decided to go through the "normal" route and attempt to voice my displeasure in their Twitter support centre. The "Missing Tweets from your Account" section advises tweeters:

"Are you missing all your tweets from your Profile page? If so, do not worry, we are aware of the issue and are working with the engineers to resolve this. We apologize for the inconvenience caused."

Somehow this doesn't make me feel better. Don't worry? Really, there are more important things in life but nevertheless, it's aggravating. New Tweeters find our tweets interesting enough to follow and because of technical glitches, Twitter refuses or can't recognize them. Somehow, the "don't worry" advice isn't exactly reassuring given their advanced technological knowledge. In an attempt to fix the problem, just added my frustration to all the other 936 comments in the "missing Tweets" section:

"Yet another attempt at getting Twitter to recognize new followers. Appreciate the update and appologies but the problem is ongoing. Please find solution."

As mentioned in the previous Twitter-related piece in this blog, there are not a lot of "followers" following me so every follower counts. The challenge is how to make Twitter react accordingly. One can only hope - and wait and wait and...

A Twitter tweet is a tweet when it tweets

Different day, still on-going problem with Twitter counts. I dunno - given my somewhat limited number of followers - compared to other people with thousands or hundreds-of-thousands of followers - everybody counts. It is for this very reason that a count verification is in order whenever another person follows me. Whenever I receive notification to this effect, it elicits a "oh super - another person is following me!" to be followed by "damn - they dropped me!" feeling if the number decreases. However, another on-problem is that in the past and once again, the "following" and "followers" columns are reversed. Any newbies are reflected in the "following" category, which is just not correct. Hence the frustration.

In order to alert Twitter tech. of this problem, there is a "contact" at the bottom of the page. Clicking on this word brings one to a sub-list of categories including "something's not working" and clicking on these three words leads one to long list of problematic situations that tweeters are experiencing. My problem is in the "following" category and further clicking leads one to "my follow count is incorrect - known issue" section with the explanation provided:

"Currently we do not have a work around to fix this problem and Support agents are unable to fix your account for you. For this reason we would appreciate it if you could leave a comment below rather than submit a help request."

There are currectly 231 tweeters who have registered a complaint in this category. Twitter prefaces the complaint list with: "UPDATE: 06/07/2010 This issue is still set to lower priority for other higher impact issues to be solved first. Thanks for your patience!"

For the record I have added my complaints to the list in the past and tweeters wait until a Twitter techie is assigned to the case and will work on solving the problem. Hopefully. On one occasion a techie provided an explanation that "followers" for whatever reason drop tweeters and this could be one explanation I suppose. It's been my experience as mentioned in a previous Twitter-related rant that once a person is followed, the followed are expected to reciprocate and if not - tough - they drop you. Another techie requested that I prove my new followers. I mean, how many people actually keep track of "blah-blah is following you" notification?

We'll see how long it takes for tech. to fix the problem, if ever. It's enough to give a tweeter "twitterfollowphoebi-itis." Ask me about it.

The Twitter complex

"Twitter is a communication service that enables you to quickly send out short messages about what you are doing to a network of people."
(Wiki Answers.com)


Like many people around the world, I'm a twit. Let me clarify this statement: I'm actually a Tweeter who uses Twitter to update my status. Doesn't everyone or at least those with extra time on their hands who want to be socially relevant.

My official status in case anyone reading this is interested is 158 followers or people who find me interesting enough to want to keep up with my thoughts or impressions and related matter. In addition I'm following 179tweeters some of whom I'm genuinely interested and others because - well - they follow me so I feel it's only right that I follow them back. No insult intended, by the way. Kind of pathetic when you think about it.

There have been a few issues with Twitter, which have been brought to the attention of their techies, for example, they have reversed my followers and following count.

After searching the Twitter site extensively for an e-mail to make them aware of this error, I finally came accross a usable link. The first Twitter techie was helpful and made the necessary changes after a while to correct the reversal, however subsequent techies were indifferent to my plight. Their solution is to direct tweeters to their forum where everyone can complain about their various issues and there are lots and lots of issues.

The negative aspects to being a tweeter is that a follower can drop you at any time. In conducting my daily check-in a while back, I discovered to my chagrin that 3 people had dropped me for whatever reason. That's the thing: you just never know why a person stops following you! So you speculate that perhaps my tweets are boring, or perhaps it's a result of declining the offer to follow them... It's enough to give a person a tweeter complex! The challenge is to make an enticing statement within 140 bytes or extra words end up in the dastardly red letters minus sign.

There is some positive news. Last week a few more people were added to the followers column but how long they will stay is anyone's guess. I'm always betwixt and between tweeters.

Update: once again it appears that Twitter has not recognized a new follower today by not recognizing it in my numbers. ~ sigh ~