Today, Twitter offered an explanation of the Deletions issues a number of Twitter users have been experiencing: Updates on deletions

Status deletion has been re-enabled.

User restoration has also been re-enabled.

User deletion remains off as it still represents a significant problem for the stability of the service. In the past several months, we’ve had to turn off user deletion many times in order to keep things running smoothly. Each time we turned it back on, we’d hoped we had sufficiently patched the existing system to prevent it from being a problem.

We’ve now concluded that the user deletion system needs to be rewritten and we’ve started that effort. Until we finish, user deletion will remain off. There’s a number of places throughout the site where we will need to message this better. We’ll be making those changes as well.

Certainly, this is a concerning issue, only one of which plagues the frequent twitter users in the tweetosphere.   Without any knowledge of exactly how they’re handling the routines for handling user deletion, aging, and load experienced on the system I could only offer the briefest of a question of how it is being addressed with suggestions.

We’ll see if the Tweetosphere continues to suffer from Performance issues such as this, and the frequent Site Outages experienced throughout the week.  Always raising the question and concern of have they properly accounted for the scale of this volume and the user communities peaks and valleys for system load.

I’ll keep my eye on it, but here is your word from the Twitter itself! @cxi – Christopher Kusek

The other day on Twitter, ABC7 was looking for Feedback in the form of Tweets on our take on the Economic Bail out – Well, my voice was heard! (Well, my tweet was posted and read! ;))

So, for the whole of the twittersphere – Here is my little few moments and 140 characters or less on economic bailouts! (I come in at about 1:07 seconds)

@abc7 Govt modifying the bailout plan to take real action will be beneficial so long as it is not used to line pockets.

Thanks to all of you out in the twitterland, and you can certainly find me here on twitter

You can find the original link to this on ABC7’s website!

I guess that’s right! According to Truemors, Blogit and this article here at Bloomberg.

Twitter may charge companies for access to its users so it doesn’t have to ask venture capitalists for more cash, said Williams, the company’s chief executive officer. As the value of Internet companies plunges this year, investors are asking for a bigger chunk of the startups they invest in.

“The VCs have the money, but they’ll just negotiate harder,” said Williams, who sold his previous venture, Blogger, to Google Inc. in 2003. “I want to manage things so I don’t have to raise money in 2009.”

So, be careful out there! Non-business folks you should be fine! But the reckoning may come (Can you fit extra ads in 140 characters? :))

Stay tuned for more Twitter-News as it comes up!

In the Twitter-Sphere, there has been controversy surrounding “Twitterank!” and its requirement of you entering your credentials.

This initially prompted this response and update from the Author of the tool:

Disclaimer

I’m not out to steal ur twitterz. Frankly, I wish I didn’t have to ask for your account info, but Twitter doesn’t offer APIs using any other authentication mechanism (according to the docs). So blame them. Read more about what I’ll do with your account info/data in the FAQ.

I will not store your password. I will only use it once to calculate your Twitterank.

However, that still did not stop these other blog posts:

Gullible Twitter users hand over their usernames and passwords – did you get your Twitterank yet?!

Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

And other ones.

I initially rebroadcasted (From a trusted source) the links to this very Data, however at the urging of a concerned Party – I took it up a notch and contacted Ryo of Twitterank directly.

He advised that they do not store passwords, nor is it being used as a phishing operation.

Though he does agree that people ought to be more careful about sharing their passwords.

Which brings us to the lesson for the day.  Twitter is a great phenomenon.  And it’s a good thig we have trusting well intentioned souls such as Ryo out there.  But remember.  Not everyone will be nice, and the next cool site (Which may not be trustworthy) could indeed be capturing your data, reselling your DM’s and any other number of things.

So do be careful out there.  At the moment I do retract initial concerns of Ryo himself causing any harm, but do be concerned with any Web Based App that you do not trust, as a mechanism for releasing your Twitter credentials, or any other credentials for that matter.

Thank you for your time, and if these details change, I’ll certainly be the first one to say “Doh! I’m an idiot!” :)

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Twitterank in any fashion, nor have I ever used its Services! However, I have changed my password just in case recently, so sorry @Guykawasaki I think I broke the auto-alltopper which would feed off of my account!

#Addition#

@axelator reminded me of this lesson – Wondering, Why is it we would do this? share our twitter credentials, trusting implicitly a site to do with one of our tools?

This is reminiscent of the early days of the Internet (late 80’s, early 90’s) which were Trust was implied.   A lot of you may not have thought that these credentials are indeed the keys to a kingdom, whether you meant them to or not.   Luckily, this was not intended with harm in mind.  But this is a wake up, this isn’t the first time, and certainly won’t be the last.

Be Careful out there.

Special Props to T_rank for this new blog to address the questions as well.

Also, think about your passwords – Sarah Evans makes it succinct here:

Do you share your password(s) freely?

Wow, another bombshell dropped us on by Congress! The clause that Small Businesses in Defense (and other) areas for a guaranteed budget allocation has been squelched.

This previous instance set some serious precedence with no end in sight.

(re: “Preferential Treatment” for minorities called unconstitutional a court has ruled)

So, fresh from the halls of Congress is this little gem:

“Small business program declared unconstitutional”

As Nick Wakeman has had to say,

I think this story is just beginning. Small business advocates will likely be on Capitol Hill explaining ways that Congress can address the court’s ruling. Some will argue that many socio-economic groups still are discriminated against. Another argument is that small business programs foster economic growth.

We definitely need that now.

Perhaps this will drive innovation in these smaller businesses in order to be more agile, nimble and able to take those monies from big business.   But without any major reform in addition to these new lines of ‘reform’ initiated from Congress and declaring things “unconstitutional” we’ll be stuck with more of the same, Big Business Wins, small businesses collapse and Monopolies all around!    The question is, who will be the Thimble and who will be the Car.

Good luck out there small businesses. It’s definitely an uphill battle from here.