If a homeless man defecated into a cup it would probably taste better than this Chobani non-fat yogurt. Just awful.

I laughed out loud as my finger tapped to tweet that remark. But after checking Twitter during my lunch break I saw that the Chobani company had written me a public message about what I’d said. Their response? “Ouch.” They went on to ask what I didn’t like about their yogurt. I immediately felt like an ass. A feeling of shame washed over me. I was only upset at having bought the non-fat version of their product.

Someone at Chobani had apparently searched Twitter for mentions of their brand and read what I said. What I had posted was truly over-the-top and absurd. I compared their food product not only to the taste of human feces, but I threw gasoline on the fire by adding that it tasted like a homeless man had shat in a cup. Instead of ignoring my searing remark, the company replied with a friendly “ouch” and asked why was I unhappy with my meal. It was completely unexpected. I was impressed.

Chobani went on to reply to me twice more in a friendly back-and-forth I’d had with them via Twitter today. They told me that they were not offended by my tweet. I apologized to them for what I’d said and thanked them for their sense of humor. In turn, they wrote me back and said they liked my sense of humor too. I was floored with how they handled my vile tweet. I’ll certainly buy more of their yogurt; even more so now, thanks to their delightful exchange. I have a new respect for them and their company. I’ll just have to make sure to not buy the non-fat variety next time. Hehe.

Well done, Chobani. I wholeheartedly take back what I said this morning. I offer my sincere apologies.

My tweet was clearly over-the-top, as I often am, but I do have genuine thoughts on this matter. Therefore, I have crafted and submitted the following list of advice and suggestions to the “powers-that-be” at Twitter.

Faster Pageloads

I would like the “New Twitter” site to be a little more responsive and serve faster page loads. I can’t help but feel like the Twitter website as a whole has gotten slower over time; even more so since the redesign this year. I am well aware that their servers process a mind-boggling mass of data every second, but the end-user experience at my computer can be less than ideal at times. This is one reason why I like to use external Twitter applications like Tweetie, and not use the website unless I need to.

Exporting Features

Twitter seriously needs to offer better exporting options for users accounts. I want to be able to download a complete archive of all of my current Twitter data in a variety of different formats at any given time. I’ve grown tired of fiddling with Twitter backup companies, and I’ve used several of them. I’ll say outright that Tweetbackup doesn’t work at all. I’ve never had that service work for me even once! Backupify is a reliable service that conveniently archives all of my tweets on a schedule, but I can only download that data in CSV format, which I have to load as a huge spreadsheet in Excel.

More importantly, exporting in general is currently limited by Twitter to your last 3,200 tweets. That is all you can view or access, period! They promised some time ago that this artificial cap would ultimately be lifted. To date, that hasn’t happened. As users accounts grow ever larger, this issue needs to be addressed. Longtime users can have upward of 10,000 tweets. Today, those users are left in the cold if they want to roll back to the tweets in their early years. Fix this now!

Archive View

I would like for the Twitter website to add a new dimension where you can view all of the tweets in your entire archive in an elegant presentation. One example of this today is Tweet Nest, a solution to archive your tweets on your own web server and display them on a page. The resulting page looks clean and has a wealth of information. Twitter doesn’t have to copy this model, but it is an example of what I’d like to see them create for its users. Users could access this theoretical new archive display by adding the world “archive” to their URL. For example: twitter.com/username/archive. I think this is a fantastic idea, and long overdue.

Longer Tweets

I still insist that tweets could be a little longer to make use for longer links and retweets. As I’ve said in a previous post, I’d like to see the current 140-character limit raised to 160 (thereby matching the traditional phone text message limit), or even all the way to 200. I’ve already mentioned this in detail in the past, so I won’t go on about that again here.

Tweet Counts

In my experience, Twitter’s total tweet count for me is fluid and seldom completely accurate. This is especially noticeable with the count in the Favorites feature. I can log in on the site and have 25 favorite tweets that I’ve previously starred. After I’m finished reading some of them and unstar a few, it takes a very long time (hours) for my Favorites count to show lower than the original count of 25. It’s annoying, and I wish something could be done about it.

Having said the above, the count numbers get even whackier when using the Twitter iPhone app, where it sometimes takes days to reflect a profile picture change or update my total tweet count. Why this this? Surely Twitter itself must be deliberately limiting calls for this data in its API structure. Can’t this policy be changed to allow more accurate information?

In Closing…

This is just a few of the ideas and suggestions I’ve sent to Twitter. The tweet count issue is complex and really not a big deal, but account exporting and a complete archive view are both essential. I’m growing tired of relying on countless third party solutions to compensate for Twitter’s built-in limitations. I hope they heed my words and make my suggestions a reality.

Twitter recently completely revamped their website, dubbed “New Twitter” by many of its users. Among the many great new features of the new site is that tweets you’ve flagged as favorites are clearly visible in their own group on the website. For example, if I read a tweet from a tech site that links to a page listing the top ten newest WordPress themes, I can simply star that particular tweet as a favorite in my phone. When I later pull up the Twitter website on my computer, it cleverly appears in my list of favorite tweets for me to review at my convenience.

Twitter Favorites are a very useful and handy feature. If you haven’t been putting them to use, you’ve been missing out.

You too can make such an archive of your tweets with TweetNest. To use TweetNest, you’ll need a web host with PHP5 and access to a MySQL server.

Long story short—It was fixed in an hour or so.

During the blackout, I used my iPhone to communicate with the outside world. I posted a couple of tweets to Twitter about my Road Runner connection being down. I was so frustrated! I know that TWC has a network status page, but I couldn’t find it on their overly-complex site while browsing with Safari on my iPhone.

Anyway, Twitter user “TWCableHelp” replied to me in a message and asked what was wrong with my connection. I was a bit taken aback. I should say that by the time I read their reply tweet, my Road Runner was working again anyway. So I, in turn, replied that it had been down but was now fixed and “hooray.” Surprisingly, they replied again and said that they were happy. Hmmm. I’m impressed that a bloated, mammoth company like Time Warner would have a tweeting arm to engage end users. Interesting. Hmmm some more, even.

I think that Twitter needs to increase the character limit from 140 characters to something higher. I’ve personally think that a better limit would fall around 200 characters. That would be a 60 character increase from the original service. I think that would be sufficient to make the service all that it can be.

Too often I see users post a single thought in two separate tweets due to the character restriction of today. The limit feels even tighter when one uses Internet links and hash-tags for trending topics. Entire industries have been created to cope with the strict character limit imposed by Twitter. The countless number of URL shorteners are just one example.

Sure, the beauty of Twitter is in its limited simplicity. I do appreciate that. However, I often find myself posting the same thought to Facebook and Twitter simultaneously. When I do so, I usually have to severely crop my original post to fit within Twitter’s limitations. The result of the final text is quite often a dimmer representation of what I was trying to say in the first place.

So come on, Twitter, give us all a little more space to say what we want to say.

The best thing about the new app is that it is now completely free, unlike the apps of the past. There are a few new bells and whistles in the new app, but overall, I haven’t found it to be all that different than Tweetie2. The app icon is prettier, but that isn’t much to write home about. Retweeting and other actions have been simplified in the new version, but I’ve found most of the changes to be quite subtle.

My only complaint is that users are still stuck with black text on a white background. The original Tweetie had an option to change the background color to black. Personally, I liked reading in that way. That option disappeared in Tweetie2, and at the time I went as far as to write the company and tell them I missed the feature. I received a reply from the company! They had said that a large number of users had written asking for that very feature to make a return. They said that it would be brought back in version 2.2, citing that they had too many important changes to make in 2.1. Now that Tweetie was bought by Twitter, that plan must have been scrapped. There is no option in version 3.0 to change the background color. Umph!

Despite that relatively minor complaint, it is still my belief that Tweetie/Twitter 3.0 is still the best Twitter client for the iPhone. I can only hope that they finally update the aging Mac desktop Twitter client, which is still stuck on version 1.2.6. Hurry up, guys!

Of more than a hundred iPhone apps installed on my iPod Touch, Tweetie2 has become my favorite. It’s often the first app I click when I turn it on. I often take the iPod in the bathroom (ha) or in the bed to scroll through the latest tweets and trending topics. Tweetie2 is a fantastic Twitter client and I recommend it above the competition.

I post at least one tweet to Twitter every day. That much is easy. I’ve been try to post daily to this blog. Due to the long form format, it takes time, and I won’t be able to continue it indefinitely. Often times when I see a great movie or find out about something amazing, I’ll tweet about it, versus hammering out an essay on the topic. I suppose that I’ve become lazy by the 140 character limit of Twitter.

Twitter is valuable. Over time, I have carefully managed the list of people that I follow. Today, I follow 175 people and companies, and I read their messages daily. I find out about things the instant they happen. With Twitter, I feel completely plugged in. This is especially true for tech news, of which I am very fond.

If you aren’t using it, I don’t know why. Everyone can sign up, and nobody forces you to post messages of your own. The value in crafting a list to follow of people who are important to you is immeasurable. In fact, I have exchanged direct messages with people such as the editor of MacWorld magazine, and others. It’s quite a community. I foresee using it for a very long time.

My latest Twitter updates are on display in the right sidebar of this blog. You can follow me @blitzcraig.

In fact, since getting my iPod Touch, the app I use the most is Tweetie. I can find a wealth of topics and information via Twitter. When I power up my iPod, I usually click Tweetie first and foremost, and scroll the posts and links of the people I follow. As of this moment, I follow 93 people, and I’m being followed by 100. I plan to continue using Twitter for the foreseeable future. I love it!

Some have a growing concern about the security and stability of such services, and the potential fallout from their long term use. These concerns range from hacks to the sites themselves, potentially turning innocent links into malicious ones, masking the true address of the site you are about to visit, and the adding of a middleman layer that adds more bulk to the entire web.

Here are some links to a few popular URL shorteners. A simple search on Google or Yahoo will bring back dozens of such sites hoping to snip your URLs. It’s become quite a field day of startups.

• tinyurl.com
• is.gd
• bit.ly
• tr.im
• u.nu

I am using the free ad-based version, in which the ads are barely even noticable. To purchase the program, the author is only asking $14.95. In addition to Tweetie for Mac, a version for the iPhone is also available. This little program is a gem on any platform.