If you Tweet at all, it will be an absolute miracle for you not to have heard of or maybe even been reeled in by ‘Twifficiency’ today. If you haven’t heard of it let me quickly explain:
Twifficiency was created by a young developer who goes by @jamescun in the Twitterverse or James Cunningham in real life. The idea behind it is that it yet another tool to calculate your Twitter activity. When James finally surfaced at 11.40am he was thrilled to bits to discover that it had become a trending topic. He then realised the chaos it had caused.
I think it’s fantastic that young developers like James are creating tools that can be used with new technologies. Yes hindsight is a wonderful thing, and I doubt that James will do anything like this again soon. But had he come to someone for advice in the first place, there were a few steps he could have taken to prevent this getting out of hand so quickly.
1. Test your product. The major thing that upset the Twitter community about this debacle was the fact that it generated an Auto Tweet without warning the user. James should have created a dud twitter account to test the oAuth. He would have then realised that he had set it to Auto Tweet without asking permission. There would also have been no followers to see the tweet and follow the link. He says in his latest tweet it wasn’t meant to reach this many people – maybe he underestimated the power of Twitter?
2. Talk to/Research your target audience. Yes people like tools that measure their activity on Social Media – but if you talk to anyone who’s anyone in social media then like to, no they NEED to know how it measures it. The only information that Twifficiency presented the user with was a percentage. This left hundreds of people crying “BUT WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?”If James had only spent some time researching his audience he would have realised that a percentage without any context was meaningless rendering this little tool useless.
3. React quickly. Maybe James was unaware of the chaos and the chatter around Twifficeny this morning. But had he reacted quicker things may never have spiralled this far out of control. But as soon as James saw what had happened which by my calculations from his Twitter feed was at around Midday – he should have started reacting. At this point his website is down but the Twifficiency site is still working – thus there are still automatic updates being posted which means it’s spreading further – angering more people. By now the Twifficiency site should inform people that it is currently undergoing some maintenance and James should get his site back up and running as soon as possible with an apology. He should also post a short public apology via his Twitter feed saying that there is more information to come as soon as possible.
As it stands now poor James has upset a lot of people. Damaged his reputation, and near ruined the potential of his product. This will have been a very steep learning curve for him. But I suppose what he can take from this is a brief moment of Social Media Fame.
If you are reading this and your name is James Cunningham you should consider getting in touch with me, I’m more than happy to give you some advice and share my experience with you.
If you’re not James maybe you’d like to share some advice here for him too?
8 Comments
What slightly concerns me more than James’ actions are the fact that everyone was very quick to “sign up” to Twifficiency. Its fair enough to accept that the oAuth signup does give you protection and allows you to opt out at any time but the “click first, worry later” attitude is, in my opinion, not a safe one.
How else does malware such as the Facebook “dislike button” spread so rapidly?
Nice post Andrew. I have seen tweets about this today and clicked on it to have a look. I clicked on the application and then it asked me to confirm and I rejected it as I really don’t like automated tweets.
I have built a professional twitter application myself which is in beta testing at the moment called http://www.tweasier.com it has been a long road but our testers have been worth their weight in gold. The best ones have been those that are constructive and give real feedback. We are hoping to launch some time very soon incorporating all the feedback we got. If you want a beta invite drop me an email and I will send you one over.
Keep up the good work.
C
Generating an type of o-auth based auto tweet w/o the ability to either tweak it or not do it all but still participate, is rule number one in creating any type of twitter based measuring app that you want to go viral…
Its not developers like James that need to be taken to task but the twitter users who, with total abandon jump on these bandwagons, apparently seeking validation that they or their activity has some meaning and can be compared in a numerical way to that of other people. If tweeters are really so insecure about their popularity or efficiency or ‘klout’ they’re probably more in need of the services of a psychiatrist.
I agree with #1 and #3, but strongly disagree with #2.
The need for market research/focus testing is old media thinking. It means you cover your backside not launch. Your friends/colleagues/acquaintances will always tell you everything that is wrong, thinking they are helpful.
Better to launch and see how real users use the product.
Of course, this is a disastrous strategy if you are not incredibly focused on your point 3.
Thanks for the comments. Just some thoughts I thought I’d share with you guys;
Phill – Yes! Click now worry later is not a great attitude. But I think people were expecting more information once they had clicked – especially considering in their mind the app had been “endorsed” by someone whom they trusted an follow.
Anne – I agree with you in one sense yes for some people it was used for ego and validation. But I think that people that work in social media were intrigued by a new tool and wanted to find out more. As I said in my post there were many angry cries once they had the measurement asking what it meant. And we have still yet to get a full explanation of how James Cunningham works it all out.
Marc – Yes it is. But the whole point is that James was trying to learn how to use oAuth. He didn’t intentionally set it up to Auto-Tweet. After all the interest it’s generated I hope he realises that an opt in to tweet is essential – auto will just upset all your users.
Chris – I have heard of Tweasier actually! My Social Media Strategist (Lucy Payne) uses it for her personal profile and would love to use it with our corporate profile. I’ll get her to drop you a line. I’m glad you agree on the testing issue.
Nicholas – I’m afraid that I am going to have to vehemently disagree with you over testing. Maybe you should take a look at some of Jacob Nielsen’s work! Nielsen says that designers aren’t users. And I thoroughly believe this. I’m not suggesting testing on family members and friends. What I am saying is to test with a small number of people actual end users, that’s why I use the term target audience.
I wouldn’t say James has really upset anyone. He’s given quite a few people something to react to but really what damage has been done?
I don’t think he planned this, I think he caught a break, and naughty or not he reacted just slow enough to let this thing get enough airtime.
As a result he’s got a burst of traffic to his website, positive and negative press coverage and a general boost of awareness – that’s what I’d call successful entrepreneurialism. If he’s sensible he’ll follow it up and take one of job offers he’s likely to get in the next few days.
Had he had more “Twitter etiquette” (wtf does that even mean?) in the first place or taken the app down as soon as problems surfaced then we’d have carried on with our day, never heard of this guy and found something else to rally against instead.
I’m sure you’ve broken a few rules in the process of setting up and growing three businesses.
Andrew – Digital Strategy – Ziggurat Brands –
http://www.zigguratbrands.com
Follow me: @AndrewJDavison
I’m with you Andrew – the proof is that when this whole thing broke on my twitter stream on Tuesday morning, the news of the auto-posting also broke at the same time.
Yet through the day, evening and even now, I’m still seeing twifficiency scores. Despite the app now giving you the option to not post to your profile.
People obviously didn’t think the auto-post itself was such an offensive act. Rather it was that they didn’t know it would autopost.
What I’m more surprised about is that twitterers are using this tool to calculate a score without knowing what the score even means.
It could be plucking a number out of thin air and displaying it as your twifficiency score, and we’re all believing it.
I think THAT is the real issue here.