Thursday, August 23, 2012

How Twitter Mobile is Making Me CRAZY!

I'm on vacation at the moment. It's a kid-free, do absolutely nothing kind of vacaton. I'm really enjoying it. I've pretty much been laying in bed, in a beach chair, or by the pool with my iPad and reading. I've been reading a book that's been on my list for a while. I've been reading blogs that I haven't visited in AGES. I've been checking in on the folks on Twitter and Facebook. It's been great. Until today when Twitter has made me NUTS!

I don't have a million followers on Twitter. I don't even have a thousand. And I follow only about 500 (at the moment). But still, 500, at least for me, is to many to straight up follow without some sort of a system. My system: lists. I just have bunches of lists and I read different ones depending on what I'm in the mood for.

A while back, a new version of the official Twitter app for the iPhone eliminated the ability to update lists, including updating list membership. This blows. I do most of my tweeting from my phone, so eliminating a key piece of my functionality sort of sucks. Especially when the previous version of the app HAD the functionality. So sometimes I follow new peeps, but if they're not in a list, I really won't ever see their tweets. So then I have to remember to periodically login to my computer and put all the new peeps into lists. A major pain in the ass.

Today, I figured that I would outsmart the damn Twitter app and use the browser on my iPad. The iPad has a big enough screen to not be really annoying using the full version of most websites.

I pull out my iPad and go to twitter.com. My first thought: Why does it look just like the app??? Oh! I'm on the mobile site. Ok, where's the link to the full site? I look and look, no link. Anywhere. I type in "www.twitter.com" again like I'm a website idiot (I'm not) just hoping it will take me to the full site, fully knowing it won't. It didn't. I Google it. There's really no way to bypass it without downloading weird apps and other solutions that require WAY too much work. Fine. F*** it. I won't clean up my Twitter lists today, I'll just go back to reading blogs.

I read a few posts and then remember that I follow some folks on Twitter whose blogs I wanted to add to my Reader. Quick stop back at Twitter to get the blog URL's. Not.

First, another damn list problem. I know the three people I want to get URL's from are all in the same list, but there's no way to view list membership from the mobile site. All I can see is their tweets, IF they've tweeted recently. I scroll. And scroll. And scroll. Apparently they're on vacation, too, 'cause no recent tweets.

Fine, I think. I'll just search for them manually. (I know. My life is so hard, but really, this should SO not be necessary.) I can't remember the handle of one person. I know her real name (which is VERY common) and her avi. Neither of those are going to help me. Oh well. Scratch that one. I type in the handle of tweep #2. She comes up. I tap on the little link to "view full profile." No link to her blog! No, not because she didn't list it, it's just not showing! I confirm this by opening my own profile page. No blog link. Oh for the love of God!

I pull out my iPhone, search for the same someone, and go to her profile page. Voila! There it is. So I'm sitting there with my iPhone and my iPad together, searching for tweeps on my phone, and then typing their blog URL's into my iPad.

Seriously, Twitter. I love you, but THIS you've got to fix!

2 comments:

Kate said...

I didn't really process that that's how I should be using lists. It's like the sky just cleared and I saw the light. I feel so silly for not getting it til now.

CUTIE said...

i use Twitter as well.
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