If you use Twitter you have noticed something quite distressing over the last few weeks: uptime for the service is getting worse. This time around Twitter has been forced to cut API rates, lost @ replies, suffered through very high error rates, and has had no choice but to turn off features to deal with traffic influxes.
In short, everything that was broken on Twitter that we hated so very much to see stop working before is still doing just that: failing. Twitter still can’t handle its growth, its traffic, its usage spikes, and these weaknesses are every day occurrences. Be honest, when was the last day that you did not see at least one fail whale? And yet, we cannot live without Twitter. It is far too ingrained into our lives to let go for even one day.
So, on behalf of the Twitter user community, I vote that some snappy developers start a service that, using your Twitter credentials, creates a running usable backup of your Twitter stream. Not a lifelong archive, but a 24 hour database that you can search and use whenever Twitter decides to give up the ghost. This would be a frozen view at the most recent tweets from everyone you follow in order, all your Lists’ updates, a tally of your @ messages, and copies of your DMs. It would be a full shot of one day’s Twitter for yourself, updated whenever Twitter would let it.
This would only be a useful service for the most dedicated Twitter users, but to be able to access all Twitter information that we want from the last 24 hours that is relevant would be a boon worth paying for. Combine that with what RowFeeder has done, and you have the ability to get 95% of what you want from Twitter, everything except the most breaking updates, in a format that you can search from your desktop when Twitter is kaput.
If you don’t know RowFeeder, they handle custom Twitter searches that are archived into online spreadsheets, allowing you to track specific terms on Twitter over the long-haul. You can also dig farther into the data when you have it pre-collated, making RowFeeder the information junkie’s box of delights.
Perhaps I am one of the few, but I suspect that I am hardly alone in wishing for a third-party method of seeing what Twitter would show me if it was not down when it is.
How often would this service come in handy? At least three times a week if Twitter continues having what I would call its normal rate of meltdown, more if it continues to suffer as it has in the last few weeks. What do you do when Twitter is down and you need information?
I use CoTweet, I believe it does what you’re asking. It’s an online Twitter client but it doesn’t go down when Twitter does. Most clients keep your updates viewable when Twitter is down right?
In a small way, but this would be a much larger volume of Tweets displayed in a format that would be easier to search.
Alex, Cliqset version 2.
As part of the new Twitter integration your entire Twitter social graph becomes part of Cliqset. Your timeline, DMs, mentions, are all backed up and part of Cliqset. If and when Twitter goes down, everything you would have seen in Twitter is still accessible in Cliqset. And if the people you want to interact with are using Cliqset as well, you won’t even lose contact with them.
In this regard, you can think of Cliqset as a transparent Twitter failover solution. :)
Damn, that is actually rather sensible. I have not tested this, how far back does CQ save? Can it go back more than say 6 hours? Do I have to have CQ open for it to cache? I have never used CQ when Twitter was down I don’t think.
Once you enable the Twitter integration, Cliqset will retain 90 days worth of Twitter timeline history. DMs, mentions, replies are also stored permanently (or until you delete your account).
If Twitter wasn’t so damn flooded with people trying to sell you crap, it would run just fine. Filter the spam and solve the problem.
I truly believe people should have to go through a real identity clearance to have one twitter acct. Once you confirm it’s a real person then they get an account. If they abuse the system they no longer are allowed an account. game over.
we need to stop making things free. Even if it cost $10 to get a lifetime twitter account, that would stop a lot of bots.
Filters are everything.
Give nsyght.com a try, we were profiled here @ tnw a few months ago by Martin B.
Our service has pretty damn good archival and real time search for twitter (and others) – as well as other things like faceted and filtered search…you get the idea.
Your “backup” is here. You can view it, search it, grab the RSS, whatever you want. Even if the fail whale lurks elsewhere.
http://nsyght.com/ext/twitter/alex/
Google is the only one could do that take YouTube like example so twitter should be sold to Google
Alex, I don’t know how much archival stuff we have for you at nsyght, but I would hazard at least 3-4 months or more. This includes posts, replies, mentions and even RT’s.
this is nonsense
Why not a decentralized\distributed alternative to twitter? It would solve a lot more problems to begin.
It will be interesting to see what happens once user streams are released into production. I’ve been using Twitter’s Streaming API (not user streams, but their other “filter” stream) and even when Twitter is down, it still continues to deliver tweets. And it will make something like what you’re saying a little bit easier to achieve.
Also, thanks for the RowFeeder mention! :)
I concur! If they haven’t started on improving their downtimes and traffic solutions, they should seriously start working on it.
free ber