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Discussions > An alternative to Twitter?

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message 1: by Cassian (last edited May 06, 2012 10:09PM) (new)

Cassian Brown | 20 comments Does anyone know of an alternative to Twitter?

Twitter has yet again arbitrarily suspended an account of mine.

Worse, its restoration system does not work and its set-up makes it is impossible to communicate this to them.

This means many hours of work have been wasted.

I'm getting really fed up. Is there a rival to Twitter on the horizon, does anyone know?


message 2: by Scott (new)

Scott Marlowe (scottmarlowe) | 19 comments Google+ is trying to be the next, big thing, but not getting anywhere, IMO.


message 3: by Cassian (last edited May 07, 2012 07:42AM) (new)

Cassian Brown | 20 comments Carroll wrote: "Not that I know of. I am confused. "Arbitrarily suspended"?"

Hello Carroll - I'll try not to vent too much in responding.

By "arbitrarily suspended" I mean that Twitter

1. Suspended a second account I was running without any warning whatsoever.

2. Did not then explain just what it was I was doing that caused the suspension.

It seems its algorithms decided I was a spammer. I was led to a window that apologised for this and gave me a Captcha field to fill out so I could restore my account - but Captcha rejected my inputs and then kept throwing up panel after panel at me, accepting nothing I typed in.

OK. So far everything should be manageable. But there is no way to explain to Twitter that the restoration system is not working. I thought I'd use my existing account to seek help - only to discover a help page that makes it clear that the help desk won't help with suspended accounts.

I fired off an SOS anyway, and also have posted a letter to the company's San Francisco street address, but don't hold out much hope that it will respond.

I've lost hours and hours of work. A benefit of this, however, is that its made me realise the danger of building a dependence on a monopoly - Twitter does not have any obvious rivals to keep it customer focused. I think anyone who relies on Twitter to help them generate their livelihood is vulnerable indeed.

Well, I thought that banging that out might help me cool down, but, no, I'm still livid.


message 4: by Cassian (new)

Cassian Brown | 20 comments Ira wrote: "There's tumblr and my space? You could check them out."

Thanks, Ira, you can be sure I will do so.


message 5: by Cassian (new)

Cassian Brown | 20 comments Virginia wrote: "Linked In is catching on. I've heard it and doubted it ever would but I've noted personally the traffic growth. And, although I don't understand it very well, you should do that Google circles and ..."

Thanks, Virginia. I will have a good look at Linked In and at what Google circles offer.


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