I’m just about to restart my PC to see if the error continues, but at the moment, it appears I’m only seeing Tweets posted 40 minutes ago - and all my updates are being displayed in order at the top…
If it continues after a restart, I’ll grab a screenshot and start trying to get some more details…

Strange Twitter error occurring

Update: 19.52 GMT

I’ve also just noticed that the Twitter warning about the recent phishing attacks which was visible on the main page has now mysteriously vanished for me.

There’s nothing on the official Twitter blog, but it comes strangely soon after the first major Twitter hacking of 33 celebrity accounts, and the first large scale Twitter phishing attack.

Update: 19.56 GMT

Checked the @Twitter account, and there’s a simple sentence on the Twitter Status Blog.

‘We’re experiencing some delays in the amount of time it takes for updates to appear in timelines. Working on this now.’

It was apparently posted an hour ago - I do wonder why messages are split between the official blog and the status blog.

Cli.gs, a short url service with analytics, has released stats and analysis of 10.2 million tweets and 2 million links to see which domains are most used.

Unsurprisingly Tinyurl leads the way as the default shortening service automatically provided by Twitter.

Interestingly the data scrape being analysed contains data from 8 million users - a higher number than most people have assigned to Twitter. And from that figures comes the figure that tinyurl provides 75.09% of shortened links.

The next is is.gd with 7.67% and my own favoured choice of bit.ly in third with 4.84%.

Cli.gs itself is in a creditable 10th, with 0.35%

From all links, Twitpic is the third most popular, with blip.fm and brightkite also in the top ten.

Go and see some more interesting information at the original post on the Cli.gs blog.

And there’s a huge list of shortening services on the Microblogging Tools page.

Wikio has just updated the rankings for UK blogs, and 140Char has appeared in the list for the first time, going straight in at number 59!

Not only that, but apparently we’re 749 overall:

Wahey!

Particularly as it means I have two sites in the top 100 UK tech blogs, with TheWayoftheWeb at 71.

Not a bad start to 2009.

Following my previous post on the implications for Twitter of the first large scale phishing attack, I’ve seen a few interesting responses:

First up, @benbarden responded to my concerns over short urls by suggesting that people could host their own, e.g. 140char.com/link1 etc.

A pretty cool idea, and one that Ben is apparently running on a site already (I might have to beg him for a guide!). The only flaw is that a lot of people run hosted blogs, and will therefore still be at the mercy of shortening services. But for those of us paying hosting costs it’s worth considering.

Then the always friendly @mingyeow from MrTweet asked my opinions on a blog post ‘Addressing Privacy Concerns‘. Suffice to say it’s a very eloquent explanation of how and why the developers of one application are aiming to keep your accounts safe:

One of the points raised is that MrTweet will support OAuth as soon as it becomes available, although it won’t answer every security question, because, as they quite rightly say, securityand convenience are always a trade-off.

There’s some really interesting debate around the use of OAuth from both Jesse Stay on LouisGray.com, and Dave Winer.

Twitter has been hit by the first major effort to ‘phish‘ account details and spam users with links to a fake login page by Direct Messages from comprimised accounts.

The Twitter team has responded with a warning on the main web access page, and a warning on the Twitter blog. You can see the uproar it’s causing on Twitter via Twitter Search.

Currently the DMs are enticing people with:

• Here’s a funny blog about you
• Your picture is on this blog
• You’ve won a free iphone

Luckily the phishers are at least sticking to the grand tradition of email spamming by either trying to entice you with a blatantly ‘too good to be true’ offer, or something personal with the link to a fake Twitter log-in page displayed in full, so hopefully the word has spread to most people.

However, this is likely to be just the start. As Pete Cashmore pointed out at Mashable, this is a sign Twitter has reached a big enough size to be a viable target for scams - a positive sign for Twitter’s growth perhaps, but also a sign that the scammers and spammers are coming, with pretty big implications for Twitter users.

Shortened urls:

For starters, we were all lucky in some ways that the bloggers obviously aren’t familiar with Twitter culture, and were displaying the full url of the fake website, meaning that even if the DM came from someone we absolutely trusted, we had a warning before clicking.

But given that the character limit of Twitter means that shortened urls are the norm, it will make it almost impossible to detect whether a link is likely to be fake before at least visiting it - meaning an urgent need for preview functionality of shortened urls at the bare minimum.

Warning systems:

A lot of Twitter users picked up on the scam emails via friends, and stayed up to date with information via the #phishing hash tag etc - Twitter responded promptly with a warning on the website and blog. But what about the many, many people using a client to access Twitter and their Direct Messages? And those using mobiles to access the service?

Will everyone get a warning via each client and application? Unlikely at the moment, unless there is a type of ‘emergency signal’ which could be broadcast across all clients and apps.

Verified App Store:

Which brings me to the next possible implication - a few people have suggested that the fake log in page is in fact working as a Twitter application to utilise the stolen accounts and passwords.

It’s long been a matter of contention for users and app developers that any 3rd party application which requires a certain level of functionality has to ask for usernames and passwords - but now the 3rd party developers could be hit by a huge loss of trust from users.

So could this be an opportunity for a verified and approved Twitter application resource? Possibly monetised by charging a fee for consumers (unlikely), or for developers to have their application tested and approved (more likely)?

This could have implications for the speed and amount of Twitter applications and clients being produced, and also move such development away from bedroom coders depending on the fees for such services.

It certainly means that there could be a move for more users to utilise more than one Twitter account to allow them to test applications and clients etc without comprimising their main account.

So what other implications do you think the arrival of large scale phishing attacks could have on Twitter - and what suggestions do you have for other Tweeple - and Twitter itself, to try to minimise the damage of future attacks?

It’s a popular question today, after both Techcrunch and Mashable covered the launch of The New Platforms Fund, which will invest between $1000-$3000 in 10 ideas (plus human support), in exchange for a minor equity stake.

Techcrunch was pretty disparaging about the idea (headline: If you are really, really desperate for cash, these guys will give you $3k) Mashable’s take was a bit more open about the diea.

If you want to apply, the form is here.

But what is quite interesting is the debate in the TC comments around how much this could actually fund - obviously it’s not enough to pay for a team of developers for a year, but could it help 1 or 2-person start-ups just out of college to spend a month or two on one idea?

Or, given the current state of the economy and job market, could it be enough to make the mortgage payment for a month whilst you try something different? Or to get the services of a developer or designer for a week or two to make a simple concept into reality?

After all, Stocktwits got more funding after just two months.

But do you think $1-3k is enough to get something started? And is it worth giving up some equity in order to reach another round of funding?

Are you a fan of the same people? (Pic: wvs on flickr)

Unlike the people who apparently follow thousands publicly on Twitter, and then have a second account to follow the people they actually listen to, I only have the one main Twitter account.

And until today, I proudly stated that I’d only ever unfollowed two people - but following 1970+ was beginning to stretch even my Twitter Addiction Disorder.

So I thought I’d do a quick check, via Twitter Karma.

In the end, I reduced my Following figure by about 30 or so. Not major, but I don’t think I can realistically go over 2000 for the time being and still interact with a reasonable percentage of people - so it frees up 30 more follows for people.

The criteria for unfollowing was a combination of:

• If the account hadn’t been updated in over 100 days.
• If it was someone spammy I’d mistakenly let through.
• If it was someone whose interests etc were completely unrelated to mine, their blog didn’t help, and I’d never interacted with them in any way.
• Or if it was a fake account or a discontinued service.

What surprised me was the amount of followers for accounts that hadn’t been updated in a year, or for discontinued services.

I wonder how many people are following dead accounts, or those that have since been revealed to be fake, or changed purpose.

So do you ever review who you’re following?

Just spotted that the Israeli Consulate is using Twitter for a press conference on Gaza attacks.

Spotted via Doc Searls.

More information, here.

Really interesting example of how politics and world events are intertwining with what some people still see as a niche networking platform - but one which in my opinion radically changes the dissemination and interaction with information.

I wonder how international diplomacy may change with UK, U.S and Canadian politicians already in evidence. For instance, UK ministers on Tweetminister, US Congresspeople on TweetCongress, and the same opportunities and tools for collaboration and interaction which individuals and businesses are already able to benefit from?

Update: @rafaelprince has a log of the conference here.

Update 2: It’s also inspired a great post by Laura Fitton on ‘Microsharing as Humanitarian Act‘ - well worth reading.

The ability to instantly update was highlighted at the weekend, when Mike Wilson (@2drinksbehind) tweeted ‘Holy fucking shit I wasbjust in a plane crash!’

As he continued to post updates it emerged that it was the second crash he’s experienced, some of his experiences and possible causes (flagged up as such), and the fact that Continental Airlines wouldn’t serve drinks to the passengers once they were all safely away from the plane.

Silicon Valley Insider has screenshots of the whole thing, and there’s interesting commentary from Loic Le Meur, Jeff Jarvis, Mashable, Laurel Papworth, and The Blog Herald -  and that’s just sources from my RSS feeds!

What’s interesting is how Loic, for example, points out spokespeople weren’t able to give out any details on live TV news, despite the fact we could all follow Tweets from somewhere going through the experience - and Pete Cashmore at Mashable points to the changing roles of news and newsrooms.

Apparently Mike has now been interviewed by Fox News. And apparently the chairman of Continental Airlines was on the replacement flight!

He’s also gained a lot of new followers as a result of the experience.
The implications for news reporters and news sources are becoming more and more important with every piece of breaking news on Twitter. Mike was able to send messages and images from the crash site - and could have also shot live video, all from his mobile, and all distributed instantly online.

For the visceral experience of an event, nothing can compete with that.

Where news sources still provide value is in finding the context of those individual experiences - for instance, when a spokesperson appeared to say they couldn’t say anything, where was a reporter asking about Mike’s messages?

We’ve already had

• Mumbai
• The U.S Election
• Earthquakes

I wrote about how news sites have to change back in July. At that time, the LA Times was the first new source I’d seen to reference Twitter. The fact it’s got a Twitter account probably helps. During Mumbai, both the BBC and CNN were referencing it alongside Flickr.

And there has been plenty of reaction by readers of traditional news sources, as well as from the blogosphere. Many have questioned whether instant updates can be trusted, and whether they’re the sort of thing we expect from traditional news sources.

Part of this, I suspect, is from people who don’t use Twitter and therefore don’t have the human filter as a way of referencing trust. (Incidentally, David Armano’s diagram is one of the most succinct and effective ways of explaining Twitter I’ve seen!).

The Human Filter by David Armano (Logic+Emotion)

And the other part is that news sources are still slowly developing from their coccoon and haven’t fully worked out how to implement Twitter and the meaningful context and analysis on top of it in a readily apparent way.

The sooner websites integrate Twitter, Flickr, Qik, etc, the sooner we can see the value they layer on top.

Twitter marketer and celebrity Laura Fitton (@Pistachio) has come up with a great charity campaign over Christmas, having realised that just $2 from each of her followers would mean $25,000 - enough for a water project for a school or hospital by Charity Water.

The impetus for this is the fact that 5,000 children die every day from the lack of clean drinking water.

And as a bonus, if $10,000 plus gets raised, it’ll be matched by Tipjoy and Betaworks. Plus all fees are being waived for micropayments via Twitter for this case by Tipjoy.

But Laura puts it far more passionately and eloquently than I can (plus there are more details on the charity, payments, and even an easy form to use), so

• Go and visit the Well Wishes post on the Touchbase blog right now.

If that isn’t enough, Squidoo is also giving money to charity - Every time you tweet a message from the list of 21 charities, it’s a vote which means $1 is donated to that charity (one per person, per day), up to a maximum of $30,000.

Both might be slightly overshadowing my own Twitter charity pledge - @digitalmaverick and myself are racing to 2000 followers, with the loser doing a charity forfeit. Plus I’m giving £20 to a charity chosen by my 2000th follower!