The backstory here is that Meerkat downloaded users Twitter friend lists (or "the Twitter social graph") and used it directly to send unsolicited messages to them?
If so: burn them with fire.
If so: burn them with fire.
> "The @reply and Mention functions are intended to make communication between users easier, and automating these processes in order to reach many users is considered an abuse of the feature. If you are automatically sending @reply messages or Mentions to many users, the recipients must request or approve this action in advance. For example, sending automated @replies based on keyword searches is not permitted. Users should also have an easy way to opt-out of your service (in addition to the requirement that all users must opt-in before receiving the messages)"
Although this behavior is still in the app I believe. Regardless, this, along with the [LIVE NOW] spam, has resulted in me unfollowing/muting everyone who uses Meerkat on Twitter, which has significantly reduced the effectiveness of Twitter for me, and which is why I think Twitter is in the right for wanting to restrict content.
That's not 'automatically… to many users" but specifically to those viewing a thread, and only when individual users compose individual replies. It's not a clear violation of the quoted policy… if at all. And as you note, that's not the behavior Twitter has started.
That doesn't /mean/ anything.
Correct, but due to the Twitter mechanic where replies are shown in your feed if you are following both people (which was the case for me as the initial users are techies), it can still be a mess.
I'm following a lot of people who've announced Meerkat streams, and I've watched a Meerkat stream via the web – but I've not received any unsolicited messages.
Nope, my twitter stream is buried with |LIVE NOW| tweets from people who are using Meerkat. I'm hoping that will stop now.
If the people you follow on twitter want to send out meerkat tweets that's their own business.
Meerkat can send a tweet. It can no longer examine the social graph to determine who will see it.
1) Say that you follow me on twitter.
2) You download and run meerkat
3) I download and run meerkat. At this point you get a push notification from meerkat indicating that I've done this.
4) I start streaming on meerkat. At this point you receive a push notification from meerkat indicating that I'm doing this.
At no time do I get anything about you (unless I'm also following you on twitter).
I don't think meerkat did anything user hostile. But they did do something that was hostile to twitter (given that twitter is apparently launching a competitor) so it's no shock that they are getting cut off from the social graph.
I can see why people might disagree with me here though.
Sounds like it. I unfollow people sending too large a % of useless tweets, even if I find some of their feed interesting. And those were hand-written tweets written without the benefit of spammy automation!
And actually, I find the signal:noise ratio in my stream to be very high.