Paul C. Easton's dashboard

robotfrog replied on October 10, 2008 21:23 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

Thanks for the update, and so long Twitter. Gonna move onto a product that integrates all the necessary features and is a little more honest up-front. Maybe someday Twitter will be an option, but for now I'm moving to better pastures.

crystal replied on October 10, 2008 18:44 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

Hi guys, we've posted an official update about IM here:

http://status.twitter.com/

Sorry it took as long as it did.

Epicanis replied on October 10, 2008 01:40 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

I think it's most likely that the Twitter corporation has decided IM and Track are too valuable to let people use. They'll stonewall and delay until people give up and/or forget about it, at which point they'll re-introduce the features as paid "premium" services. Or so I predict.

Laconica, here I come...

EI replied on October 05, 2008 05:02 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

I think it's becoming clearer that Twitter doesn't intend to bring IM support back, and is delaying announcing that for as long as possible.

A comment on the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

If you are aware, then why does it take so much to get a real update? Team meetings? Consensus? Consulting some voodoo? I'm with scionguy below, I'm recommending the competitors for now (and I'm sad that it's come to this). – robotfrog, on October 02, 2008 20:28

scionguy replied on October 01, 2008 18:23 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

I sure am glad I gave up on Twitter months ago when I could see they were lying about IM being a "top priority". For anyone still hanging on even though they have no plans to ever bring it back, the IM services at Pownce (and any other Twitter competitor) work just fine and their customer service doesn't suck like Twitter's.

A comment on the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

Thanks Crystal. It's not the update we'd all like to hear but it's something. Looking forward to further official updates. – iamvinnie, on October 01, 2008 15:56

A comment on the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

Thanks Crystal. It's not the update we'd all like to hear but it's something. Looking forward to further official updates. – iamvinnie, on October 01, 2008 15:56

crystal replied on September 30, 2008 20:42 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

I'm really sorry guys, but this is the best update I have for you right now :( The team is aware that you guys would really like an official update, and we plan to do it very soon. Thanks for being patient just a little bit longer!

Octav Sandulescu replied on September 30, 2008 01:26 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

I'm severely unimpressed by this. At one time, Twitter/IM was said to be "top priority" and other similar, er... statements. Then there was extreme silence (sparsely punctuated with "we're working on it"s every once in a great long while).

With the current statement specifying no time frame, I have to assume Twitter/IM has been severely downgraded in priority, presumably because the problems have been found to be insoluble within the current implementation.

If that's so, then I would honestly prefer to know this outright, and I'm sure a lot of other former Twitter/IM users would agree.

If not, then... what? Waiting for the site load to reduce somewhat, like Jason said three (!) months ago? Guess that's never gonna happen. To be honest, I'm very curious about this from a developer's perspective -- what has killed this outwardly simple (but obviously not really so) feature?

A comment on the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

Crystal, we appreciate the 'update', however at the pace of official updates to IM in this thread, I suppose we can expect something in another 3 months? Removing references in the help documentation does avoid confusion, but isn't that like re-writing history? Patience is gone when months ago we were told to have patience that the problem was being worked on actively. – robotfrog, on September 27, 2008 13:40

robotfrog made a comment on "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th", but it was removed. see the change log

kmevans replied on September 27, 2008 04:17 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

why no time frame?

crystal replied on September 26, 2008 17:11 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

Hi guys, our apologies for the lack of an official update. At this point, we don't have a time frame for fixing IM. In the meantime, I have removed references from the help documentation to avoid confusion. We'll make an official update to let you know what our plans are in a more definitive way. Thanks for your patience in in the meantime.

iamvinnie replied on September 26, 2008 12:55 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

It's been OVER 4 MONTHS. Even if IM is such a complex issue that it can't be solved and brought back up in 4 months, users should at least get an explanation of what's going on from Jack et al. And NO, the "Offline. Working on additional capacity" line on status.twitter.com is not communication.

What gives? There seems to be enough time to work on the election coverage, new layouts, etc. Why is IM being treated like a red-headed stepchild?

Paul C. Easton replied on September 26, 2008 10:54 to the problem "Twitter IM down May 23rd-May24th" in Twitter:

Well, the only work around for me is Twitter4Skype, it is the only reason I still keep Skype running. I have not found anything for Google Talk that will let me both receive and send Tweets. Twitter4Skype does both, although it means running multiple IM apps.

Paul C. Easton replied on September 26, 2008 05:05 to the question "Setting up google talk." in Twitter:

That could explain why I still have not been prompted for account information. Oh well. Hopefully Twitter will get its act together. In the meantime I'll continue to run Skype until I can find something that will make Twitter work with Google talk.

A comment on the question "Setting up google talk." in Twitter:

Hi. Paul. 8-) In the month since I posted my reply above, I still continue to use Twitt'd. However, I've noticed that when traffic is especially heavy, the message delivery can fall behind by several (as many as 5) hours. It eventually catches up again when North America goes to sleep.

Also, posting TO Twitter isn't always reliable via Twitt'd. I worked around that by signing up with http://exclai.im (for posting to Twitter only) and http://ping.fm (for posting to multiple services in one action since I sometimes use Jaiku). They both work with Google Talk and they both only allow you to post; they don't send you updates.

So for now, my setup is Twitt'd to receive tweets, and Excla.im or ping.fm for sending tweets and DMs. Hope that helps. 8-) – mdy, on September 26, 2008 03:42

Paul C. Easton replied on September 26, 2008 02:55 to the question "Setting up google talk." in Twitter:

Thanks MDY, I'll check that out. I used a similar service to get Tweets in Skype and is the only reason I've been running Skype in addition to Google Talk. I'd much prefer using only Google Talk, so this should be very helpful.

If Twitter doesn't get its act together, some group of enterprising individuals will come up with a similar service that will work with International phone numbers and support the major IM clients.

MDNZ started following the idea "How about an on-line user manual (wiki)?" in Get Satisfaction.