There has been only one.

Only one single service that has done this properly, and having tried out PR-laden SXSW hype-beasties #Hashable and Ditto this week (as well as countless others, Quora included), I’ve experienced it once too many, turned incandescent with rage and this post is the result.

Stop trying to own my social graph.

Stop trying to make me add friends in your app.

There are two, and only two, services that serve it for most folks. For me, it’s Twitter. For most others, it’s Facebook.

I am your target demographic. I am your beta tester; the guy that will bother to send you feedback because I want you to make something that’s useful to me, not that satisfies your own slightly dated business goals (hey, guys, let’s build our own friending system! We need to own all our data, right?).

I tend to my Twitter followers regularly. I add, I subtract.

I imagine those of you who are in a similar line of work do the same: a carefully curated mix of the funny, the famous, the familiar and the fabulous.

It’s the only service that I do this with since it returns value for the time and attention it consumes, so when a shiny new thing comes along and asks me to sign in with Twitter, then I want that magical, pre-populated list of familiar avatars popping up.

What I don’t want to do is have to re-friend that person over and over again. Is there a more awkward digital social interaction? It’s the equivalent of texting somebody to say ‘Hey! Just checking we’re still digi-friends! After all this time! Bye!‘

The only memorable service that’s delivered on this magical potential is the quite wonderful Lanyrd.

Sign in. One click. Everybody’s there. Perfect. Immediate value. User for life.

As for the rest of you, well I’m tired of the mental torment of seeing rows and rows of ‘follow’ buttons next to avatars of people I have already been following for years. Import them all, and turn that button into a ‘mute’ if necessary, but for goodness sake don’t make me have to bother them again with another pesky email sitting in their inbox.

It leads to a terrible user experience for me and my friends.

Mute, don’t re-follow.

This hashable example was particularly disappointing. Signing in with Twitter only pre-populates a few of the fields in the registration form underneath. So, it’s not signing in, and it’s certainly not ‘maximum fun’.
Once past this screen, I’m greeted with the increasingly familiar view of re-adding or inviting people I already know.

 

Those responsible for the larks of the Twestival Twitter meetup are at it once more. The first batch of tickets for Twestival London were released this afternoon.

There are more coming later this week apparently. There was one major usability problem – so I grabbed the Flip to film Kai booking his ticket.

But hey, 350 twitterers have managed it thus far so maybe I’m just being picky.

Here’s the result. Kai says sorry for swearing:

Buying a Twestival ticket – usability fail from Simon Doggett on Vimeo.

See you at the party folks

Future of Web Apps starts next week. Exciting.

Probably my favourite event of the year, and in 2007 it was partly responsible for helping our team really push forward. Just like a really great conference should.

So here’s my (unashamedly honest) FOWA todo list.

Talk to Kevin Rose without coming across as a babbling fanboy

Steal a Microsoft bean bag

Get at least another ten Twitter followers

Learn amazing stuff from Matt Biddulph

Try not to lock myself out of my hotel room

Find some brilliant UI developers who don’t shrink at the mention of ASP.

Find a really, really talented freelance Facebook developer (or agency)

Don’t lose all my expenses receipts. Again.

Stay awake during the Zuckerberg keynote

Drink lots of Adobe beer. Party.

Are you going? What’s your FOWA strategy? I need more ideas!

Disclaimer: I am totally trying to win this competition.

Last night was the inaugural Harvest Twestival; organised perfectly by Amanda and Ben and sponsored, in part, by us.

It was the best meetup event I’ve been to for a long time. If not the best night out for ages.

The London Twitter crowd are a genuinely lovely mix of people. A vibrant mix of creatives, webby types, designers, bloggers, developers, musicians, podcasters, PR folk and everything inbetween. We talked about music, user experience, Twitter, iPhones, booze, photography, becoming a MySpace band. Everything.

We met those we’ve followed for ages and got to put faces to usernames. I met friends of friends who I didn’t even know were on Twitter to start with. What more could you want from an event?

All in all it was a brilliant chance to catch up with old friends and acquaintanc

es, as well as a perfect chance to make new friendships and tap into the collective wisdom of our local Twitter scene.

We’re anticipating the next one. No pressure guys!

Twestival on flickr.