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?
> "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.
I agree. Something like a "Streams" tab in the app would be awesome. Once Twitter (most likely) rolls out this feature natively with its Persicope acquisition, it would make it a lot less spammy than the way Meerkat handles it. I want to be able to differentiate between tweets and live streams.
Meerkat makes it fairly clear that "everything that happens on Meerkat also happens on Twitter" – and the comments on a stream only go to Twitter as replies to the original invite tweet.
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's not 'automatically… to many users" but specifically to those viewing a thread, and only when individual users compose individual replies.
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.
Pretty sure you only get Meerkat messages if you install the app or enter/comment-on the streams. That might reasonably be an 'opt-in', depending on the descriptions offered at each step.
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.
It's the meerkat app that sends out the tweets. So, you are saying that the meerkat app still has the ability to let all the followers of an individual know that a live stream is on? Seems like meerkat still has "broadcast access" to the twitter social graph then.
AFAIK they did not, in fact, do this. Here is what they did do:
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.
5 minutes ago I opened Twitter to find my stream had items that Meerkat was retweeting, of people I don't follow. Good strategy to increase usage, but I unfollowed and have now deleted the app.
Disagree. I think they abused Twitter and made twitter feeds noticeably worse. All their tweets are essentially useless after a few moments and just litter feds. I may be naive but I think if Meerkat was closer to following the rules and respecting user feeds it wouldn't have been cutoff (i.e., Twitter's supposed competitor was not the reason).
Given that twitter is a stream of a whole bunch of tweets each one of which you can read really really fast, I've always been a bit confused by complaints about useless tweets. Some fairly big % of your stream is always going to be useless tweets. Has Meerkat really increased that percentage all that much?
I can see why people might disagree with me here though.
> Some fairly big % of your stream is always going to be useless tweets. Has Meerkat really increased that percentage all that much?
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!
They have, by far, the shortest shelf-life of all the tweets in my feed. It would be one thing if they were published by Meerkat, quite another that they are "published" be people I follow.
And actually, I find the signal:noise ratio in my stream to be very high.
I still haven't managed to click on a stream that was still going on. (somehow even clicking on the streams that are happening in X minutes but didn't)
If feels like Meerkat could be an order of magnitude more powerful if streams were saved for at least some amount of time. That's gotta be on their roadmap somewhere.
Yeah. Could still be "ephemeral" but give us 5 or 10 or 30 minutes or 24 hours. I don't think that would compromise the live-ness" of it, whatever that really connotes.
I really really don't want a push notification from meerkat telling me about everyone i follow on twitter doing something. That would be really really awful. I'm glad I didn't in fact sign up for meerkat.
If so: burn them with fire.