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I want Sandy goes down

At the beginning of this week, we learned that Pownce is shutting down. Pownce in many regards was superior to Twitter but never claimed the community that Twitter built which gives Twitter its power and the ability to turn down $500million in stock (see also the NYT) offered by Facebook.

At the end of this week, we learn that I Want Sandy is shutting down. I Want Sandy was a convenient reminder service not terribly dissimilar to Jott. Interestingly enough, the intellectual property has been purchased by…wait for it…Twitter!

While the company [Values of n] and services will be shutting down, Stikkit and Sandy‘s DNA will live on; the intellectual property behind both has been acquired by Twitter, Inc [http://twitter.com]. While Twitter has no immediate plans to incorporate Sandy or Stikkit’s feature sets into its core product, those who know our apps well may notice familiar-feeling bits and bobs appearing in your Twitter experience. [Source, Get Satisfaction – I Want Sandy, A fork in the road (An important announcement about I want Sandy)]

That same announcement explains that the owner Rael Dornfest took an engineering job with Twitter. It Died notes this and has further commentary.

Dornfest wasn’t charging for these services, but they were quite good at their purposes. He opted to take a job with Twitter, sell them his intellectual property, and shutter the site. [Source, ItDied.com, In Defense of Shutdowns]

Until December 19, 2008, you can export your data from Sandy.

Sandy, R.I.P.

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The things your nutty family does to drive you nuts

I remember reading about SEP in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. SEP is Somebody Else’s Problem.

Somebody Else’s Problem (also known as Someone else’s problem or SEP) is an effect that causes people to ignore matters which are generally important to a group but may not seem specifically important to the individual. [Source, Wikipedia, Somebody Else’s Problem]

I have a strong desire to help people so I frequently remind myself, "That’s SEP!" This morning I came upstairs to find a planter on top of the antique wardrobe. It appears that someone is trying to grow a piece of pine branch. At first, it looked like one broken off the artificial Christmas tree but upon closer inspection, it is from a live tree. The soil used looks like mostly muddy clay and the planter is only half full. Instead of a tray below it, there is a sopping wet paper towel. That wet towel on that antique wood makes me twitch but it is out of sight and this is SEP. Cathy either approved it or doesn’t know about it. One way or another, if there is any damage, it is already done and this is something that may be making a child happy. This is SEP as Cathy and the children know what is going on and they will handle it. twitch

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Ugly Words Between Husband and Wife

Part of marriage is disagreement and conflict sometimes manifested in harsh, carelessly spoken, hurtful words. I like to think that Cathy and I keep these to a minimum but we had a spat yesterday. What threats do you idly throw about during an argument? Me? I told Cathy, "I am going to get an office job!" Is that normal?

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Straight to /dev/null

I’m banging out code today and making good headway. In the meantime, everything I have sent to the cloud seems to be going to /dev/null. Guy Kawaski has answered everyone’s Tweets but mine. Twitter posts usually see lots of traffic but not this one. My technical questions on IRC have gone unanswered. I feel a bit in a vacuum today. Are my tubes clogged?!

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Twitter API Severely Flawed

Twitter’s API (basically a way to let software developer’s work with Twitter’s data) has been a huge factor in Twitter’s success. When Twitter did not provide adequate search, a developer used the API to create http://summize.com/ which was so good that Twitter purchased it and incorporated the code as http://search.twitter.com/. Twitter does not provide stats but numerous developers have created applications such as Twitter Charts and Twitter Stats to provide statistics. (See also: Now You Can Graph Your Twitter Usage) The API has allowed people to get away from the phone and web interfaces by developing desktop applications such as Twhirl and TweetDeck (which includes features not built into Twitter such as grouping of friends). Twitter by default emails you when someone starts following but never tells you when someone quits following so software developers used the API to write Qwitter and Twitterless.

Where’s the flaw? The flaw is in the authentication. Many of these services or applications developed by a third party require you enter your username and password. There is nothing to say that this third party should be trusted and we give them the keys to the kingdom. With that username and password that developer could maliciously use your account for spam, sign you up for other services, or flat out lock you out of your own Twitter account. If one of these services started sending too many Tweets and causing your followers to quit following (see #7) you, the solution is to change your password. But, changing your password also breaks all the other Twitter services you have signed up to use.

What’s the solution? The solution is simple. For each service or application that requires a username and password to access my Twitter data, I should be able to generate a key instead of giving them my password similarly to the way Amazon Web Services works. This would give me the power to list all the services I use from my Twitter profile and to individually and at my own discretion disable each service. From a developer’s standpoint, the process is easy because a key is simply a GUID. The only challenging part to Twitter developers is changing the authentication process and developing the profile screen to manage the keys.

Until Twitter implements a key scheme, I am no longer giving my password out to third party Twitter applications and services (unless they are really cool and look really trustable!). I made an exception today for TwitterFone so I could compare it to Jott.

See also:
Twitter Guide: How To Do Things With Twitter

Update Dec 15, 2008: See also Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password? Others see the same flaw I do.

Update: OAuth looks like a very viable solution.

Update Dec 29, 2008: Alex Payne, The Twitter API Lead developer, confirms that Twitter is testing OAuth! Yes! OAuth is coming.

Update Jan 2, 2009: See also Allen Stern’s Sheep Line Up in Perfect Twitter Formation and Louis Gray’s Twitterank Can Have My Password, No Questions Asked.

Update Jan 3, 2009: I’ve now officially been phished through Twitter. I didn’t bite. I’m betting someone used a 3rd party website that looked legitimate while collecting usernames and passwords (maybe it promised to send @ replies through email or give Twitter stats or something) and then using the Twitter API ran a muck sending direct messages from "trusted" people hoping to get people to click through to the bad website. The one I received:

softclothing Hey, i found a website with your pic on it… LOL check it out here http://twitterblog.access-logins.com/login

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The rest of the evening

After eating, the whole family (minus Tommy who is at school and Sarah at flag practice) pitched in to quickly get the tree put together. Each section has lights semi-permanently attached so it goes together relatively quickly. The troubleshooting is what takes the time. We have a couple of darkened strings and 3 that hang out of the tree because they span sections. Those 3 have to be attached to branches.

To make up for lost programming time, I coded until midnight then overslept this morning waking at 6:50. Time to get the doughnuts to school.