218 karma · joined May 23, 2010
It's really painful working with Twitter now. Twitter's display 'requirements' and other aspects of the API are super restrictive after their latest update.
However, the sad truth is that the population of Twitter users isn't going to be shifting anywhere else anytime soon. Most users hardly care about the 'openness' of the platform. I imagine the best way for a competitor to succeed would be by allowing users to cross post statuses to Twitter.. but Twitter API restrictions would kick in there too!
- I've used an exponential decay similar to the one used in HN, except much faster in decaying.
- Only tweets from today are shown.
- The rating of a tweet is determined by 2 factors: the number of retweets and the votes on TweetFad (retweets have a much smaller weight compared to votes).
- Users can add their content by simply including the hashtag '#TwtFad' in their tweets. To submit tweets to a particular category, the users can add #[category_name].
- For each category, I've added some influential twitter accounts and hashtags to monitor for tweets. These are automatically added to the listing if they have a retweet count greater than a threshold.
I would love to hear the comments and suggestions of the HN community. I'm a long time reader of HN, and this community has helped me learn a lot I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone here!
The first time I used facebook, I was like whaa? What's a WALL? What's the difference between a post and a note? How is sharing a link specifically different from embedding it in your status?
Lots of complexity there, but we learn it after a while.
I realize the intention is good, but there must be another way to get the message out.
They'll learn to be independent anyway, just a bit later.
I help maintain my university's portal, and often the biggest problem is to convince people that the way they collaborate needs to change.
I'm primarily interested in working part-time on a project that would give me more experience in web or game development, and more crucially get to work with people who know how to get traction.
I obviously don't have a lot under my belt right now, but I'm a quick learner and avid reader of HN. I have PHP, Python, C++, Java and web designing skills. I made a web app for local sales and events in Pakistan a while back (http://www.itaaza.com), though it's a bit dead at the moment.
I've also worked a bit on mobile game development. Made a game for the Nokia Calling All Innovators contest, and working on an android game right now.
contact me at taha.rafiq@gmail.com
Often just having a deadline for doing something is enough motivation to actually do it. I find myself procrastinating on personal projects, while I can finish (or at least get close to finishing) projects with clear deadlines pretty much on time.