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Twitter Blues

By |2023-07-26T20:36:51+01:00July 9th, 2023|Categories: News|Tags: , , , , |

Where did the feed go?

Easy come, easy go. If you have visited the website over the last few days you’ll have noticed that the Tweets no longer appear on the website. It seems that the API restrictions implemented by Twitter have finally caught up with the WordPress Twitter widget. This new escalation of restriction, along with the stopping of automatic tweeting of new WordPress Posts, Instagram images and more, just adds another nail in the coffin for the platform.

Twitter Blues

I’ve mentioned on the podcast a number of times my growing dissatisfaction with Twitter. It used to be great for finding new photography and photographers. Over the past few weeks and months, the feed has become less and less relevant. The platform also seems to be much more negative, a place of arguments, political fighting and just plain abuse. It’s now far removed from the exciting platform it was some ten or more years ago.

Will I stay or will I go now?

So will I delete my account with Twitter? The quick answer is NO…. for now, the level of engagement I have with the platform will;l be greatly reduced. Maintenance mode only unless something changes to improve things. With the introduction of the new platform Threads which is connected to Instagram, there are now at least options. I cannot see the Twitter API restrictions disappearing soon, and although it is very early days for Threads, I will probably move the website over to using the Threads feed, once that becomes available, rather than Twitter – assuming the Twitter API is ever opened up again!

Moving On

It’s a sad moment. I’ve been tweeting since 2008 and I have to admit that I’m rather reluctant to say goodbye to that history. That said, recent changes have only taken away the relevancy of using the platform. Maybe it is time to move on to something new and just remember the good, exciting times with Twitter many years ago. The decision to stay really all depends on Twitter’s next moves. More restrictions or not, the ball is firmly in their court.

Ten Years on Twitter

By |2018-10-16T14:25:52+01:00October 16th, 2018|Categories: News|Tags: , , , |

October 15th marked a special anniversary. It’s ten years since i signed up for myย @richflintphoto Twitter account at 1.43pm on October 15th 2008.ย 
With the large and very active photography community regularly discussing everything photography, it’s become my number one source for keeping up-to-date with news and events in the photography world.

The last decade on Twitter has been a interesting journey, though the first few months saw little in the way of tweeting. Having set up my account i just didn’t know what to do with Twitter!ย Fortunately by January 2009, I’d slowly started to figure out how i could use my new Twitter account. Over the years my approach to tweeting has changed quite a lot. Just like most people’s first tweets, mine won’t win any awards. Most of the time i use Twitter as a quick way to link to photography i think people should see.ย  I even tweet about i’m up to occasionally!

It’s not always been a smooth journey though. Like many other social media networks, it can be intense at times, even overwhelming. A data stream overload of images and opinions rushing by you like speeding traffic. A number of times I’ve been very tempted to delete the account, but fortunately I’ve never acted on the impulse. I’m glad i haven’t. It does have value and i’d miss it. Twitter’s strength is the great community it builds who that only informs but educates too. I’m just thankful to be a small part of it.

Twitter’s future seems pretty secure. Fortunately it hasn’t really changed that much in the last ten years. The recent doubling of characters to 256 for tweets was a very welcome change for many, but otherwise the improvements have been far more subtle. Why try fix something that isn’t broken. Editing a published tweet would be handy to correct those spelling errors that can creep in, but it doesn’t seem high on Twitter’s priorities.ย 

So ten years gone, here’s the the next decade worth of adventures on Twitter atย https://twitter.com/richflintphoto

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