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I came across an interesting article this morning via the USA TODAY asking whether Twitter was a spiritual experience.

In the linked article, Frederic A. Brussat raises 25 reasons why Twitter indeed is a spiritual experience. After taking a read of his points, it seems that he took some time to develop his ideas and craft his language carefully to describe them.

There are many things in life that people would consider to be “spiritual experiences”—including baseball games, music concerts and the like. But can we really consider a social networking website to be a spiritual experience? Brussat certainly raises points for us all to consider.

Take a read of his article and vote in the poll below. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.

(Photo Credit: redteam)

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Now that the holiday season has almost passed, there is no better time to look forward to 2010 and make some predictions and goals. Twitter is always seeming to improve as a platform, but there are still some changes that the service can make to drastically improve the user experience of nearly all of the users.

Here are the five biggest ways Twitter can improve their service in 2010.

• Streamline the retweet system.
  

The old-style vs. new-style debate has to stop: Twitter should come up with a way to make everyone happy with retweets in 2010. It could mean reverting back to the old system, going all out with the new system, or finding a good happy medium (while merging the two retweet ways together).

A recent Mashable poll showed that 64% prefer old-style retweets to new ones, so the question becomes, why change something that isn’t broken? Retweets are such a huge part of the Twitter experience, and this issue should be at the top of Twitter’s changes or adjustments as we head into 2010.

• Free up the dead accounts and expand the username pool.

As more and more people join up on the service, the available number of usernames will continue to shrink. Unfortunately, many Twitter usernames are taken by spammers or automated programs, limiting the choices available to new members.

As noted in an earlier post, the username is very important to the overall Twitter experience. Twitter should find a way to identify the dead, inactive or spam accounts and free up the usernames/handles for others to select.

• Rethink the “Twitter jail” system.

A Twitter user who ends up in “Twitter jail” must tweet over 100+ times per hour, or hit a daily quota of 1,000 tweets. One thing is for certain: that is a lot of tweeting. (Update: Some users have experienced Twitter jail updating under 100 times/hour.)

For repeat high-velocity Twitter jail offenders, Twitter should increase time penalties with each successive violation. More users will be joining up with Twitter, and the last thing that the service needs is more noise (tweets with low or no value). If Twitter raises the penalties, this will likely discourage heavy-volume tweeters from sharing excessive updates.

Twitter should differentiate users who get retweeted often from those who are barely retweeted to allow for variable tweet limits. In other words, users who need the tweets to reply back and share new content should be able to do so without being penalized under the “Twitter jail” system.

• Make a “Mutual Follows” option available to users so everyone can see who they are connected with.

Twitter would greatly benefit from a “Mutual Follows” page where a user could see which Twitter users he/she has in common with another. Similar to the Facebook option under their friend request system, it would make it easier to identify real Twitter users with common follows.

This would also help to better identify spam accounts. If spammers are following each other to game their following/follower number, one would easily be able to realize this. In addition, Twitter would benefit by being able to identify and take out groups of spammers at a time.

• Expand the “Verified Account” system to more accounts in an attempt to limit impersonation and rumors.

Now that Twitter is being indexed by Google and Bing, the services’ use for breaking news will only continue to rise. Twitter should reach out to news sources and attempt to verify them all to stop impersonation and false information/rumors being spread.

In addition, Twitter should contact some of the elite Twitter users (judged by retweets and a list number) and offer a verified account badge to those users as well. Well-respected and widely-recognized Twitter users should be acknowledged just as much as the authoritative news services and sources that enhance the Twitter experience.

Do you have any thoughts on how Twitter could improve in 2010? Let me know in the comments.

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Every now and then, I get a direct message from a service called TrueTwit, which provides an external link to a website featuring a captcha. The purpose: to differentiate the human followers from the spam followers.

Users who decide to implement TrueTwit send an automated direct message to all new follows asking for validation. The perceived benefit is that they will know which followers are legitimate people and which are spam followers.

But does it really benefit anyone? Here are some points to consider with implementing the service into your profile.

• Not every follower will get the message.

Most power users check their direct messages on a regular basis, but for more casual Twitter users, they could go days without checking their direct messages inbox. Realize that even though an automated DM is sent, it does not necessarily mean that it will be read in a timely manner (or at all). The result: an unverified follower.

• Some followers may dismiss it as spam due to the automation or text.

Twitter has gotten better with regard to controlling direct message phishing and hacking attacks, but spam is still rampant in Twitter’s direct message system. A user that has not seen TrueTwit before may not ever find the courage to click through to the link, so a user runs the risk of losing a potential follow due to the automated look of the message.

• Some followers may see it as a waste of time.

People are naturally busy on Twitter: whether it’s with work or tweeting itself. The fact is that some users may simply not want to spend the time verifying themselves to follows.

Unless you are a Twitter superstar with clout equivalent to Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk), chances are that some people will not verify just because it takes time.

• Followers could get disgruntled with the captcha.

This isn’t a huge issue on TrueTwit since the captchas are generally very easy to read and retype. But in the (admittedly rare) event that a user types the captcha wrong, it could result in a click away from the website. Yet another way to lose a potentially great follow.

• No guarantee that the user will follow back.

Some followers may opt to not fill out TrueTwit captchas just from the sheer idea that there is no guaranteed follow back. In a Twitter universe that is seemingly hungry for more attention and followers, all that the TrueTwit proves is that you are a real person. There is no guarantee that the user will follow the verified follower back, which could turn some people off to filling it out.

• If the service continues to grow, the chances that all TrueTwit captchas will be filled out decreases.

For TrueTwit: the more users that join and use the service, the worse off the system is. Think about it: if every other DM was a TrueTwit validation message, the odds would fall that the user would take time to fill all of them out. One way that TrueTwit could fix this issue is through a one-captcha form for all outstanding validation requests. This would save the follower a significant amount of time and help TrueTwit grow their service.

Do you use TrueTwit for your Twitter account? What are your thoughts on TrueTwit?

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