In case anyone is curious, Twitter does have tech support. I had no idea – until I got locked out of Twitter.

It’s been an exercise in patience for me. I’m the type of person who needs things fixed immediately; I have a hard time not doing anything right-this-minute. It’s just how I function. Needless to say, it’s a good thing that I rarely need any sort of tech support. IT does not always function in right-this-minute. Add in the fact that the poor folks at Twitter have been dealing with the Retweet roll-out and the UI upgrade, well … it’s been three days and I’m still locked out of Twitter. I know they’re swamped, so I feel really bad every time I bother them. At the same time, I’m locked out of Twitter for no reason.

I suppose it’s my fault to begin with. I have a personal account where I chat about non-tech, non-work stuff with my friends. I keep it locked/private because I really don’t want that stuff to be google-able. (Why didn’t that word make it into the dictionary?) I’m trying to increase my security on my various web identities, considering how often my machine sits unattended at coffee shops, so I went in to change my password in the settings on Twitter.com. All was well.

Then I tried to log in from Seesmic and that’s where the trouble began. Seesmic didn’t recognize the new password. I tried it on Tweetie 2 from the iPhone and Twidroid from the Droid – same problem. “Could not authenticate.” I went back to Twitter.com. It suddenly didn’t recognize my new password either. Nor did it recognize my old password. It told me to “chillax and try again later.” Thanks Twitter! A minute ago you said “Congratulations! You changed your password!” I think I smell a bug.

I clicked the Forgot Password link, entered my information, and reset my password again. From that page, after resetting my password, I can get into my account. But that’s it. Yep, I can get in through what is actually a security hole. I bet if I entered the email address and phone number of any of my friends, I could get into their Twitter accounts. A little access here and there, and you can easily get in … you just need one password to an email account. The people at Twitter, of all people, should know how easy that is.

I have been through the circle of resetting my password using Forgot Password so many times since Sunday that I’ve lost count. I finally managed to find an actual place on Twitter to submit a support ticket. It wasn’t easy. But it worked. I think I may have actually corresponded occasionally with a real person, about a real support ticket, and I wasn’t even forced to use Get Satisfaction. Did it help? Not really.

I’ve explained the situation several times. They keep giving me the standard “Just click Forgot Password and reset your password, all will be fine,” line. You can always tell when tech support is cutting and pasting from some reply manual. That was irritating considering that, had they read my ticket, they’d know I used the Forgot Password link about a hundred times. I’d also tried several different browsers and cleared my cache multiple times.

Finally, today, I lost patience completely. I suggested that maybe they should just reset my password on their end. Much to my surprise, they said “Sure! Here’s your new password!” And after giving me that, they reminded me I can always use the Forget Password link. (Because I don’t know where that link is at all …)

Guess what? I’m still locked out of Twitter. Three days, one ticket that support keeps closing and I keep re-opening, and many passwords later, I still can’t get in. Their password did not work.

Well, I can get in to Twitter. By going through a minor security flaw … Ironically, the whole reason all of this started was that I was trying to be more secure.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

Twitter listened to today’s uproar and has instituted a change. So, hurrah for Twitter for responding to user feedback. I truly appreciate that. And I also realize that Twitter is a free service. Really, I shouldn’t be complaining too much – at least not until I have to pay for my tweeting privileges.

That said, does this make sense?

So here’s what we’re planning to do. First, we’re making a change such that any updates beginning with @username (that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon) will be seen by everyone following that account. This will bring back some serendipity and discovery and we can do this very soon.

See, it was just easier to paste in their words. As far as I can tell, and I’ve had to re-read it a few times, they’re bringing back the feature, sort of. I can now see any tweet from @twitterX to @twitterY (see earlier examples), as long as they are not created using the Reply button. It’s kind of a WTF moment where you don’t know whether to be happy they brought it back or baffled at the way in which it was returned.

I can’t help but wonder how this affects third-party tools. If I use the Reply button in Seesmic Desktop or Tweetie, is that the same as the Reply button in Twitter.com? Please note that this policy is now there for everyone, including people who had originally opted out of it. ReadWriteWeb has a brilliant chart trying to explain it all.

Now, Twitter is working on a better solution. According to their post, they have “started designing a new feature which will give folks far more control over what they see from the accounts they follow.” Happily this will be an individual user setting (again), and maybe it will come with a bit more explanation (again, see previous rant).

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Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
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words and pictures by Brian Solis

The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas

The Conversation Prism debuted in August 2008 to provide a visual representation of the true expansiveness of the Social Web and the conversations that define it. In this short time span, over one million people have crossed its path.

When Jesse Thomas of JESS3 and I initially mapped “the conversation,” we recognized that the act of categorizing social networks within a visually rich graphic would be momentary at best, demanding endless iterations in order to accurately document evolving and shifting online conversations as well as the communities that promote them.

My goal was to observe, analyze, dissect, and present the dynamics of conversations, how and where they transpired.

We’re proud to introduce version 2.0 of The Conversation Prism. We’re also excited to release a version that traverses the online realm into the real world with the release of a full color 18” x 24” poster to prominently display in the workplace, classroom, home office, or at events. Please visit www.theconversationprism.com for details, embed codes, and additional insights.

Please read the full post at PR 2.0.

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