CSSquirrel A look at web development and web design by Kyle Weems

Is Google really buying Twitter? Techcrunch certainly is committed to telling us it is so. In response to the buzz, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone had a recent, short, non-committal post that sums up with the phrase “Sometimes We Talk“, which seems to indicate is that Twitter probably isn’t going the way of the big search giant. And some, like Kara Swisher, are flat out saying that no, Google isn’t buying Twitter.

So who to believe? Time, I’m thinking, as it proves more accurate than any pundit’s predictions. What I find interesting is the gut reaction by many (including myself) that Google buying our favorite little micro-whatever service would be a bad thing. I don’t know why that is, maybe some sort of fear of the mega-giant absorbing the entire Internet and branding it with rainbow text. Yet, I’ll admit, they’ve done right by me so far. Their search, maps, mail, rss reader, analytics and news services are all tools I use daily. They clearly are providing me with content access that matters to me. So why am I unhappy with the idea of them handling 140 character text messages?

Maybe I’ll never know. But I do know one man who has very concrete reasons for disliking the idea of an acquisition: Doug Bowman. Once designing for Google, he recently parted with them due to a number of reasons involving dozens of shades of blue, and has moved over to design for Twitter. I can only imagine how horrible it’d be to finish setting up your desk to find that you don’t have to change your business cards at all.

Today’s comic documents such a tragic incident.

[Edit: As noted in the comment below, Kara Swisher corrected me in stating that what she was in fact saying was that Google is not in any late-stage talks for acquiring Twitter, as opposed to "not buying Twitter". It was my mistake in misinterpreting her point. Check out the link in her comment for more from her on that topic, though.]

I like blogging. I do. However, I have a problem. I’ve got a Twitter account. There’s something about the 140-character limit micro-blog tool that makes it incredibly difficult to hold onto a concept long enough to form it into a five-paragraph essay, let alone a multi-page diatribe about how browser X’s implementation of CSS property Y is wrong.

It’s been an observed impact of the Internet that people generally are much more impatient when it comes to searching for data. If you can’t Google it or Wikipedia it in under five minutes, then the information doesn’t exist or isn’t worth knowing.

It seems to me at the very least that Twitter is doing the exact same thing to my ability to write at length about any topic. I could devise a narrative about my recent exploration of the topic of RDFa and talk at length of my conclusions regarding its impact on future web development… or I could come up with 140 characters or less to the effect of “RDFa is sort of like XFN. But not. At what point is extra semantic markup too much bloat?”

The trick is staving off the need for instant gratification in exchange for the fulfillment I get from a more carefully considered writing that covers the topic in more depth. I think that sums up Internet use in general these days.

Alright, fess up. How do you fight your Twitter addictions?

This morning my apartment’s Comcast Internet connection was down. For whatever vile reason, I was also unable to access the web via my iPhone’s 3G network.

My very first thought? “Dude, I should tweet this.”

I then proceeded to try to access Twitter, first from my computer, then next from my iPhone.

A few moments later my brain kicked in just a bit “Oh… right.”

Where do you post complaints, snarky comments, or short hilarious thoughts when you’ve got no web access? The fridge?

Sometimes I think that any thoroughly web-integrated person is like a wireless cyborg, incapable of functioning properly without web access. If you put me in Amish country, I’d probably lose the ability to speak coherently.

This will be the last post involving Twitter for a while, I swear. Unfortunately discussions about the service have dominated the various watering holes of web development for the past few days, so this is the only way I can get the topic to drain out of my head.

This one isn’t a deep commentary on corporate hypocrisy or a glam shot of Andy Clarke in his knickers, sorry.

Ultimately, I like the Twitter service. Although I don’t know if it’s best described as “micro-blogging”, “shopping list”, or “mutual voyeurism”, it’s an interesting service that lets you update details of your life or clever thoughts with a minimum of time investment. The 140 character limit helps provide limitations for people (like myself) who’d rather blather on about an inane topic for paragraphs.

I wonder if we could get politicans to do their talking in this fashion? It’d save us a lot of time.

The main problem with the service, which Twitter has become infamous for, is the tendancy of their whole server to buckle on a daily basis. I’ve come to expect it to be in an afternoon state of shock when I get back to the studio after lunch. It’s so predictable, it’s sad. I can’t help but wonder at this point what desperate straights they must be going through to reverse this trend… and this week’s comic is my theory on that topic.

And now, back to the rest of the world of web development.

I’m not going to write a massive post on the topic, as much more eloquent people than I already have. However, I’ll explain the essence of it. Twitter user Arial Waldman described recently in her blog the harassment she’s received via that service. Harassment that violates Twitter’s Terms of Service, mind you. Yet when she continued to file reports to the company about her harassment, eventually finally talking to the CEO himself, Twitter did the opposite of what one would expect. They refused to ban the user, and instead are merely changing their TOS.

Twitter is a fun, useful service. But if it allows itself to become a place where harassment (pretty lewd stuff, at that) is allowed, then I can’t imagine it’ll stay in use forever. Wake up, guys, you need to protect your users.

[Edit: Two new things I've learned since this entry went up. First, Arial is part of the Pownce team. While I won't say outright that working for the competition could have been a factor, it does bring the validity of the situation into question. Secondly, as Twitter team members stated, both sides of the story hadn't been told and they offer their viewpoint of the situation here. I don't know what to make of the situation, but it's clear that if harassment is happening that Twitter needs to follow up on their threats and ban such people.]