{"id":2047,"date":"2007-09-27T13:47:34","date_gmt":"2007-09-27T19:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nerdflood.com\/2007\/09\/27\/twitter-tracking-twacking\/"},"modified":"2007-09-27T13:47:34","modified_gmt":"2007-09-27T19:47:34","slug":"twitter-tracking-twacking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/twitter-tracking-twacking\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter + tracking = Twacking?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twitter<\/a> has implemented a cool new feature called “tracking<\/a>“, which I am officially dubbing “twacking” because it sounds dirty. Basically on your phone or IM Twitter account you can send the message track <topic><\/strong> and anytime any Twitter message appears on the network with that string in it, it gets sent to you. So I can set track metroid<\/strong>, and I can get a near real-time stream of people’s commentary having something to do with Metroid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That’s a great idea. Stowe Boyd doesn’t like it<\/a> because he thinks it’s supposed to be something else.<\/p>\n

#Hashtags are declarative and imply a community. If I tag things with ‘#travels’ I would expect there to be a place where I can see the aggregated stream of all people’s posts with ‘#travels’ in it. But I don’t necessarily want to see every post with the word ‘travels’ in it, do I?<\/em><\/p>\n

I think they need to rethink this a bit.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, Stowe, the problem is that you are trying to make the new functionality fit a concept in your mind that isn’t the same idea. I like the idea of the #hashtags<\/a>, I really do, and I think their implementation could create some really interesting, dynamically-evolving communities within the Twitter infrastructure. The #hashtags (which, like Stowe I always end up typing #hastags, I don’t know why<\/strong>)<\/em> is a great concept for aggregating content. But this new feature isn’t an aggregating<\/em> feature. It isn’t a community<\/em> feature. This is a feature that allows someone to dynamically follow and discover conversations taking place within the Twitterverse. It’s purely a stream of information concept. You get hit with various, unrelated pieces of data that all pertain to a specific topic of your choosing, and you get to decide what voice to inevitably listen to. It’s a discovery mechanism. A simple utility for following topics as they flow through the endless stream of thought on the Twitter lines. And I happen to think it’s a great idea. So long as it works as intended (I haven’t had the chance to use it yet)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So, no, you wouldn’t just put track travels<\/strong> into this system. That makes no sense. That isn’t a topic. Don’t expect an aggregation system where there is none. Maybe you would enter track Europe<\/strong> or track Italy<\/strong> to see specific regional content as it passes through. But you aren’t going to collect this information. You’re going to set a specific topic, and watch the conversations pass, and look for something interesting.<\/p>\n

Yes, I know it isn’t what you want, Stowe, but that doesn’t mean they need to rethink it. It means you need to realize that not every feature implemented in a given technology is going to be designed with you specifically in mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter has implemented a cool new feature called “tracking“, which I am officially dubbing “twacking” because it sounds dirty. Basically on your phone or IM Twitter account you can send the message track <topic> and anytime any Twitter message appears on the network with that string in it, it gets sent to you. So I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[158,488,364,300,465],"class_list":["post-2047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","tag-development","tag-metroid","tag-social-networking","tag-software","tag-twitter","last-post"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}