Jersey, Suburbia

Todd Jordan said on May 14, 2008, 6:53 pm:

Been there, tried that, not a lot of folks helped.

Twitter so needs to recognize that what they call a short down time is exactly the thing that turns potential biz partners away. Maybe a walk out would work if enough folks could be convinced.

Best of luck.

Noah David Simon said on May 14, 2008, 6:57 pm:

come on… you love it. admit it.
besides… twitter goes out and I’m on friendfeed too.
you can run… but you can not hide

J’amore

lynette said on May 14, 2008, 7:05 pm:

It’s **FREE** If I paid money for Twitter I’d be mad.

Susan Beebe said on May 14, 2008, 7:09 pm:

Twit-Out!

Jack Lhasa said on May 14, 2008, 7:09 pm:

I’m in, Andrew.

Vidi said on May 14, 2008, 7:17 pm:

Painful as it will be I am in, tough love it is.

Noah David Simon said on May 14, 2008, 7:25 pm:

ba ha ha ha j’amore …see yall on friendfeed. new technology means more flaws. and I get my name back after twitter deleted me

Voyagerfan5761 said on May 14, 2008, 7:48 pm:

I’d like to blog about this myself. What’s the licensing on the image? If you’d like to retain copyright, I can has purmishun for yoose? (Er, can I have permission for use? Sorry, carried away with lolspeak.)

Bwana said on May 14, 2008, 8:02 pm:

Twit-out!! I’ll bring the chips and dips on FF!

Warren Whitlock said on May 14, 2008, 8:04 pm:

Twitter should be flattered that they are so useful as to get people this riled up.

Of course the boycott will not work.. they almost never do.

The funny part is that the people asking us not to use twitter for a day are saying that twitter is bad for being down for a short time.

Hmm.. when was they last time they were down for a full day?

I complain when it’s down… like I do when my car breaks down or there is a power outage. But one big different. I PAY FOR THOSE.

If you really want to get their attention.. petition them to take you money for a QOS guarantee.

Twit-out | May 21st, 2008 said on May 14, 2008, 8:04 pm:

[…] the people ARE Twitter.  Susan Beebe came up with the day called “Twit-out” (logo by Andrew Dobrow) and the rest should go down with history.  The recommendation by me is to use FriendFeed only, as […]

Shey said on May 14, 2008, 8:10 pm:

Sweet logo Andrew!

Twit-Out FTW!

Dani said on May 14, 2008, 8:15 pm:

Heh, is this like the gas boycott thing that goes around now and then?

Wesley said on May 14, 2008, 8:22 pm:

Ghandi didn’t stop eating for a day. If you really want to boycott, 24 hours ain’t gonna do it.

Sean Reiser said on May 14, 2008, 10:03 pm:

at the risk of being contrary, I really don’t understand this whole twitout (take a look here http://seanreiser.com/node/1435 for more information). I don’t think this is mistreatment, I think it’s incompetence, something that protests don’t fix.

Voyagerfan5761 said on May 14, 2008, 10:18 pm:

@Andrew Cool, thanks! Don’t worry about pigeon-holeing (that’s a new expression for me; correct my tense adaptation if it’s wrong) me into giving credit; I have a personal custom to always credit images from other sites when I use them. And I like Bwana’s idea for linking it back to this post; I’ll have to fight with Blogger about that. :D</p>

Danny said on May 14, 2008, 10:57 pm:

If you don’t like it demand a refund.

Freaking welfare generation!

Chris Anthony said on May 14, 2008, 10:59 pm:

Andrew, Wesley has a point. When you say “Gandhi was also not fighting a social networking site, but an empire”, I hear “this just isn’t that important to me”. If you’re going to do a boycott, do it right. Stay away as long as you can (even though I’ll miss seeing your tweets!). Convince other people to make it a marathon, like webcomics’ Daily Grind. Sneak aboard Twitter’s servers and throw tweets into the Boston harbor. That sort of thing.

Also, I’m not convinced that the name for your boycott is apropos. The Great American Smokeout is intended as a motivational tool for people who are trying to quit smoking - in other words, the people who participate are actively trying to stop doing what the boycott has them stop doing. You don’t want to stop tweeting forever! And the Great American Gas-out, which is a more direct parallel, is at best misguided (gas companies won’t notice, because they tally their gas totals weekly) and at worst a cruel hoax.

I’ve mentioned other concerns over at Sean Reiser’s blog.

I want Twitter to be stable and reliable as much as anyone; I’m just not convinced at all that a boycott is the way to accomplish that goal.

Aaron NZ (@faxmachine) said on May 15, 2008, 2:43 am:

@chris makes a good point - 24hrs isn’t long enough, esp. as Twitter knows we’ll be back the next day. The best thing to do is boycott the service until they get their crap sorted. That said, I don’t want the problems fixed be ‘ads by google’ - one of the reasons I’m not on Jaiku permanently, besides loving the icons yet the people not being as cool as the people I follow on Twitter!

Susan Beebe said on May 15, 2008, 4:50 am:

Reply to Chris Anthony: I selected “Twit-Out!” name as it sounded very similar to “Sit-Out”, not “Smoke-Out”. =)

Bloggers Unite for Human Rights: A Definition - Profy.Com said on May 15, 2008, 7:26 am:

[…] Last night, however, as I was reading his links, I was really hoping to not want to come back to the last link he put up, and I told him so in the comments on the post. Today is the day that bloggers are supposed to be uniting and posting about human rights issues in the world, and what are people planning? A Twitter boycott. […]

Jean said on May 15, 2008, 9:22 am:

I agree that they should be a bit more caring if they want to retain the community as it stands and also to make it grow but honestly, its not free. Not for them. We use it as a privilege not a right. Who are we to complain about a *FREE* service? What makes us think that we really do have any rights? I’m not on their bandwagon by any means but I pay for my website and I know that added bandwidth actually does have fees. If we’re so bothered then maybe we should offer to buy subscriptions and then, as paying users - we would have rights and this would all be a non issue.

Foomandoonian said on May 15, 2008, 9:48 am:

Do you imagine for one second that they’re doing it deliberately? Do you think they don’t realise the upset that downtime causes? I think if they could fix it, they would, but the problem is either incompetence or inevitable.

Go and protest earthquakes or something instead.

Twit Out? | JeannieGrrl said on May 15, 2008, 10:15 am:

[…] Show Twitter you care through a temporary boycott on May 21st! We’re doing it, because we love them. It’s just time for some tough love. - [link] […]

Paula Thornton said on May 15, 2008, 10:40 am:

If you really want to show Twitter who’s in charge, throw money at them to suggest just how much the platform is worth to you. That would be tellin’ them.

Jamie Noguchi said on May 15, 2008, 10:59 am:

I think Foomandoonian has it right. Twitter hates the down time as much as its users do. This isn’t like the LJ situation where they were shutting down accounts without warning. Twitter has grown far faster than they could have anticipated. Of course there’s going to be some down time to deal with user load, even with just 140 characters.

Although, if you all stopped using it for a day, that might give them more breathing room to build capacity. Ah well. Good luck with the Outness.

ShannonRenee said on May 15, 2008, 1:12 pm:

I must not be on as much as other folks, I haven’t that any issues. Now, I have had some trouble with twhirl, not twitter. Are you sure you’re boycotting the right thing? Futher, it is free, if you don’t like it, then don’t use it. You’ll be using FriendFeed during the boycott, why not continue using it, why go back to twitter?

Richard’s blog » May-21st for a twit-out, boycott of twitter said on May 15, 2008, 2:02 pm:

[…] Sourc   […]

warzabidul said on May 15, 2008, 2:06 pm:

Those issues are so commonplace they’re part of the landscape, which is why some of us are so annoyed with twitter’s downtime.

The problem is that the community on twitter is so big that it’s hard to break away. As soon as there’s a popular alternative I’ll stop using this badly run pile of junk.

I’m talking with 26,000 tweets and a year’s tweet’s experience by now.

I’m Boycotting Twitter Until They Get Their Act Together » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest said on May 15, 2008, 2:49 pm:

[…] Some folks over on FriendFeed are talking about a “Twit-Out” boycott of the Twitter serv…. […]

Daily Iteration » Twit-out: a full day without Twitter (and with Pownce?) said on May 15, 2008, 2:51 pm:

[…] it at Andrew Dobrow’s blog: as a protest against Twitter’s continuing availability issues, he sugests people take o […]

Fernando said on May 15, 2008, 2:51 pm:

And how about for this day folks switch over to Pownce?

Ed Roberts said on May 15, 2008, 3:15 pm:

Really confused here… do you think a Twit-Out day is going to sting them enough for them to take notice of their issues. They know they’re issues. And how exactly will it “sting” them anyway. They’re not making any money off it yet. Lack of traffic only saves them money and you’re going to come back after the day is over anyway. So, no loss.
Will it get their attention? Maybe, but like I said, it’s not as if they are not aware of their problems already.

Susan Beebe said on May 15, 2008, 3:17 pm:

Wow, @Webomatica is boycotting Twitter entirely until they get their act together… see his blog post –> http://www.webomatica.com/wordpress/2008/05/15/im-boycotting-twitter-until-they-get-their-act-together/

Now he’s hanging out on Friendfeed instead (like so many of us already are due to frequent twitter outages lately) http://friendfeed.com/webomatica

Britney Mason said on May 15, 2008, 3:24 pm:

Who needs twitter? I have friend feed!! Okay, I want my twitter back….

Twit-Out: 24-Hour Twitter Boycott | introspective snapshots said on May 15, 2008, 7:24 pm:

[…] a better term) a boycott of Twitter on Wednesday, May 21st.  Read more about this on posts by Andrew Dobrow and Bwana McCall, even picked up on the Buzz Out Loud […]

Twitter Boycott Defeats its Own Purpose « Mediaphyter said on May 16, 2008, 11:54 am:

[…] |   Apparently some disgruntled Twitter users are organizing what they are calling a Twit-Out (aka a Twitter boycott) this coming Wednesday, May 21. The thinking is that we need to prove to […]

Michael said on May 16, 2008, 1:03 pm:

This is the STUPIDEST thing that I have seen in a long time!! I agree with Mediaphyter, if you cannot stand the outages then either (1) send them money and ACTUALLY help them out, or (2) GET OFF THE SERVICE!

I like twitter as much as the next person, but, sheesh, I don’t freak out when it is down. I move on to something else on the Internet.

Feedonomics » Blog Archive » Entitlement is as entitlement does said on May 17, 2008, 5:19 am:

[…] when they demand better service but reject the idea of any form of monetization. The idea of boycotting a free service as a form of protest is a “group tantrum” as she correcty points out. […]

Isn’t Web 2.0 About US Taking Control? | introspective snapshots said on May 17, 2008, 12:47 pm:

[…] US Taking Control? May 17, 2008  in Social Media. Tags: conversation, twitter. Since Twit-Out was announced there has been a lot of feedback via FriendFeed, Twitter, and several other places. […]

Riley Kaminer said on May 18, 2008, 7:09 pm:

Well, I would love to, but I am not sure if I could really make it a whole day WITHOUT TWITTER!

Schneeengel.de - Der Blog » Blog Archiv » twit-out am mittwoch said on May 19, 2008, 12:14 pm:

[…] something wrong”-seiten vom zwitscher-dienst. für mittwoch, den 21. mai ist zu einem twitter-boykott aufgerufen - kurz “twit-out” genannt. damit soll gezeigt werden, dass “wir […]

Dan Thornton said on May 19, 2008, 1:18 pm:

There is a ‘we’re working on it page’ but I suspect during the serious outages, the whole thing is so b0rked that even the error page doesn’t display.

And speaking as someone who has had to apologise for website downtime, I can safely say they’re aware of it, they want to scale, but with a large growth in users, it can be pretty tricky..

Alisha said on May 19, 2008, 1:26 pm:

Twitter doesn’t appear to be down for me as often as people make it out to be. Is it just me?

I’m not going to boycott Twitter. And, why would anyone? You don’t pay for Twitter. When you start paying for Twitter, then boycott it for being down.

Crystal said on May 19, 2008, 1:28 pm:

@Warren Whitlock Thanks for being the voice of reason, along with a number of others.

This may be a chicken/egg “Which came first” thing, but if we paid monthly for Twitter service, I suspect they would maintain and expand their setup with the regular income. It’s a reasonable assumption: Look at how much they’ve done for free?!

If we paid for Twitter, we’d likely have fewer outages. If we had fewer outages, we wouldn’t mind paying for Twitter. Something’s gotta give, and they’ve already given a lot. Maybe it’s time for us to do some giving?

So after you take your stance against Twitter with your community boycott, try passing the hat for a community contribution.

If you love Twitter and you value the community, then show your love by investing in it, instead of bailing out on it.

Now THAT’S tough love.

Mark Fishgrab said on May 19, 2008, 1:39 pm:

Re: Update 3

There’s the money. How many of us would survive if when have a little time that customers only get a “404 page not found”? I think there’s very little grace given for not having some kind of warning or apology.

And the “Get Satisfaction” site doesn’t count! Warnings of downtime need to be tweeted to the community.

Rosiewosie said on May 19, 2008, 1:47 pm:

Don’t get me wrong. Because I do understand the frustration, but you shouldn’t forget the fact that you do not pay for this service. It’s a free service.

You do have a good point though. The community is what makes Twitter big. I’m not denying that. And I would also benefit from it if Twitter wouldn’t be down so often (like many people, I have a Twitter block on my website. If Twitter is down, my site can take ages to load). But I’m unsure whether or not I’m going to boycott Twitter all day long. Kind of depends on my activities. Maybe I’ll join. I have to think about it.

Charlie on the PA Tpk said on May 19, 2008, 2:12 pm:

I have to honest: anyone who expresses concern whether they could get by without the otherwise fine, free service of Twitter has - in my opinion - a case of misplaced priorities.

Loraleigh Vance said on May 19, 2008, 2:15 pm:

I would but I might start having that problem again! http://tinyurl.com/6jjulh

thehun said on May 19, 2008, 3:22 pm:

This is pretty idiotic, dude. I’ve worked for community sites for years, and ain’t nothing more pitiful than a tiny bunch of self-righteous users making a “protest”. You think Twitter isn’t trying to make things better? And you think your “boycott” will actually change things? Pleeze.

Anyway have fun on your stupid protest, the rest of us will enjoy the slightly reduced load on Twitter’s servers.

ingrid said on May 19, 2008, 5:51 pm:

I never know how much of a demand I can make on a free service? What rights do I have when the service is completely free and my participation is voluntary to begin with?

riomx said on May 19, 2008, 9:03 pm:

Well, I’m not going to call you a self-centered prick Andrew, but this would be a complete dick move (this blog post already is a big one).

Not only do you try to justify your own narcissistic and illogical actions, but you try to bring others into it to make yourself feel better.

I find it terribly sad that you think by “punishing” Twitter when they’re having trouble, that somehow that’s going to make them up their stability.

It’s disturbing to think that somehow, you think that a free service provider is going to value a community that is agressive, rather than supportive of it.

Twitter isn’t a cable company that’s twisting your arm and making you overpay for sub-par service. They have good intentions and want to socialize the Web as much as possible.

Lastly, the greatest sore spot of your post is that you never mention offering any sort of monetary support. No, instead you simply want to hurt the service.

Simply unbelievable. Twitter and the social Web would be much better without you. You should think about staging a permanent boycott from Twitter.

Noah David Simon said on May 19, 2008, 9:18 pm:

that guy was cooking ur tush. How does it feel andrued? u like? some take online life way 2 serious. let me at ‘em. I’ll drive em insane.

Noah David Simon said on May 19, 2008, 9:32 pm:

comments need more cowbell
http://www.playlist.com/standalone/21718675/yes

Zach Flauaus said on May 19, 2008, 9:32 pm:

To be honest, it’s not about it being a free service any more. It’s supposedly received more funding ($15 mil+?) so it’s obviously that they can’t afford it. It’s simply about scalability.

And anyways, heaven forbid some people might actually want to take a break from Twitter for the day. You know, smell the outside world for once?

Twit-Out: The much talked about event : Zach Flauaus said on May 19, 2008, 9:44 pm:

[…] Will this get anything done? Probably not. Does it make a point? Yes. As my friend Andrew Dobrow (@anjrued), Twitter is about community, and if you make that community mad enough, they’ll […]

Terry said on May 19, 2008, 9:50 pm:

I think that’s the big thing. Twitter is free. I’m all for chucking them a few bucks here and there to help them with their server issues. I don’t think a free service should be protested. They are trying their best, okay they could probably do with some better feedback to the users though. check this out.

Boicot a Twitter « Tecme y Puma said on May 20, 2008, 2:44 am:

[…] leído en el Blog de Andrew Dobrow que un grupo de poderosos usuarios de Twitter discute a través de FriendFeed cómo darle un buen […]

♥ Rosana Kooymans (NL) ♥ » Twitter boycott? said on May 20, 2008, 4:35 am:

[…] met alle respect, er zijn ook mensen die de downtime op Twitter gewoon niet aankunnen. Als we een service moeten gaan boycotten, puur […]

Boycott of Twitter scheduled for tomorrow : Twitter Gossip said on May 20, 2008, 10:00 am:

[…] Twitter users are planning a boycott of the service tomorrow, May 21st. According to one of the organizers, Andrew Dobrow (@anjrued), he and others have been frustrated with […]

The Problem With FriendFeed(ing): It’s Not Twitter | SheGeeks said on May 20, 2008, 4:35 pm:

[…] seeing today due to Twitter being down and also because of the proposed Twit-Out for tomorrow (here, here, and here). […]

Twit-Out, huelga de tweets para el 21 de Mayo - esTwitter.com said on May 20, 2008, 6:46 pm:

[…] he visto este mediodía la iniciativa de Twit-Out no me ha gustado, pero esta noche al no funcionar bien Twitter me ha sentado muy mal y no me […]

Twitter Is Down Again: Quit Twitter For The Twit-Out » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest said on May 20, 2008, 7:55 pm:

[…] a reminder: The “Twit-Out” - a day long Twitter boycott is going on tomorrow. Quit Twitter (love the sound of that) to send a message that you’re sick of the outages and […]

Twitter isn’t failing on purpose, but it’s still failing » VentureBeat said on May 20, 2008, 10:34 pm:

[…] of those users are apparently planning a boycott (cutely dubbed a “Twit-out”) of the service tomorrow in protest of the services […]

Turulcsirip - attilacsordas said on May 21, 2008, 12:53 am:

[…] about - not too intensively - this TwitOut action for the next 24 hours: http://jerseysuburbia.com/2008/05/14/twit-out-a-day-long-worldwide-twitter-boycott http://friendfeed.com/e/44c4c4b9-8c4b-435c-9636-c65ea26d1962 « előző | attilacsordas […]

MyTechnologyCompany.com » The “Twits” Come “Out” said on May 21, 2008, 2:19 am:

[…] Everyone’s favorite new mass communication service, Twitter, has been having some issues lately. Namely, two down times on consecutive days. This has cause some Twitter-ers to organize a “Twit-Out” to “send a message to the powers that be“. […]

mobilebuzz said on May 21, 2008, 3:11 am:

Leave Twitter alone!!! Why don’t you folks put your money where your mouth is for once: http://tinyurl.com/3gxgrq

Nick Bignell said on May 21, 2008, 4:57 am:

Well up until these twit-out articles have been popping up on Digg. I’d never heard of it, if this boycott is successful it might even make it to more forms of media.

So, the extra publicity the twit-out will provide might even help twitter out.

Just like most people didn’t know what myspace.com was until those ‘anti-social’ stories made it to newspapers and television.

Twitter Love Day - A Proposal « Mediaphyter - A Communications Cocktail said on May 21, 2008, 10:03 am:

[…] said it before - while I do not agree 100 percent with the some of the proponents of today’s Twit-Out we do have the same goal in mind: make the service better. We […]

randomlife said on May 21, 2008, 12:16 pm:

Has Twitter themselves responded to the idea of a Twit-Out? I’d like to hear what they have to say.

Linkpost | 5.21.2008 | dailytechnews.info said on May 21, 2008, 12:26 pm:

[…] Twit-Out: A Day-Long Worldwide Twitter Boycott — Protesting the service’s lack of […]

Twitter Is Killing Itself, Slowly but Surely » David Risley said on May 21, 2008, 12:59 pm:

[…] get your act together. FriendFeed is abuzz with talk of Twitter outages. Bloggers are even staging Twit-Out, where they will, for a day, boycott Twitter and use FriendFeed exclusively. Bwana may have started […]

♥ Rosana Kooymans (UK) ♥ » Twitter said on May 21, 2008, 5:53 pm:

[…] another blogpost about Twitter. It’s becoming a regular subject. There’s the Twit-out that took (and is still taking) place today. And it doesn’t seem to have much impact on […]

Twitter in 2008 is like eBay in 1999 | mad dog in the fog said on May 21, 2008, 10:56 pm:

[…] are frustrated. People are calling for a decentralized Twitter and some people even organized a Twit-out, which was a 24 hour boycott of the Twitter service. Even some of Twitter’s biggest […]

Teen Bloggers Network » Twit-Out: The much talked about event | The First and Original Blogging Network by Teens for Teens said on May 27, 2008, 1:47 am:

[…] take it. 2) Will this get anything done? Probably not. Does it make a point? Yes. As my friend Andrew Dobrow (@anjrued), Twitter is about community, and if you make that community mad enough, they’ll leave. […]

Porqué falla Twitter? said on May 31, 2008, 12:57 am:

[…] otro lado, usuarios se proponen hacer “huelgas” de twitter para presionar al management team para que realicen mejoras […]

Over at ZDNet - Q&A with Twitter’s Biz Stone « Mediaphyter - A Communications Cocktail said on June 12, 2008, 3:30 pm:

[…] of the microblogging community even organized a Twitter tough love protest (aptly dubbed a “Twit-Out“), which sparked some intense discussion about the service, its features, seeming lack of […]