terms of service - TheWayoftheWeb

Publish to Twitter with a voice message…

September 3, 2009 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

New service Twitwoop will help anyone who has an urge to tweet but can’t type at the time, as it allows you to publish to Twitter with a voice message from your phone.

Register your phone with the service, call the access number relevant to your location in the U.S, UK, Norway, Netherlands, Ireland, France or Germany, and your message gets published as long as you haven’t masked the identity of your phone – if there’s no caller ID, the message goes into the public Twitwoop timeline on Twitter.

It’s been created by German Voice Application Service Provider, Woopla, and the FAQs states that it uses the official ‘Sign in with Twitter’ process to avoid using your login and password.

All good so far.

Interestingly, the service doesn’t say how your voice becomes text, although it does state in the Terms of Service that your messages will be available to anyone on the internet with a direct link in your tweets. So hopefully not making it liable for the same debates and intrigue as voice-to-text service Spinvox has been experiencing.

Things not to like:

I can live with the service auto-posting that I’m using it, especially as I can delete it.

Not so happy about the following:

‘You furthermore accept to receive private messages from twitwoop on your private account or become informed about new twitwoop services or features using your registered phone number.

By signing up to twitwoop you automatically become a follower of twitwoop on Twitter.

You can delete the twitwoop messages from your timeline at any time because those were placed acting on your behalf. Deleting the files however can only be done by calling one of twitwoop’s numbers where you can delete your number and all of your data.’

So if I accidentally upload something I want to remove, I have to go through a phone menu to delete everything?

And in the meantime I have no choice about receiving private messages to Twitter, or worse to my phone?

Hmmmmm

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: conditions, handsfree, legal, messaging, terms of service, tweeting, tweets, twitter, twitwoop, voice

Did Twitter play a part in Facebook rolling back Terms of Service?

February 18, 2009 By Dan Thornton 1 Comment

An interesting post on the Twittown apps and widget community blog suggested Twitter ‘Took on Facebook’s Zuckerberg and Won‘.

It tracks the timeline between Facebook updating the Terms of Service for the social network, and rolling back to the original terms due to the outcry over ownership of content uploaded.

And while I don’t believe that Twitter outcry alone led to the decision to move back to the original terms and consult users about updates – Google blog search shows the outcry through full length blogging – the Twittown post does suggest that Twitter opinions had a significant effect.

And I would expect the Facebook team to be monitoring Twitter alongside all other channels – especially as FB considered Twitter important enough to try to buy it!

And it shows how monitoring and responding to probably the largest, and certainly the quickest online focus group makes sense for adding value and monetisation, whether it’s by Twitter, or third-party applications like Tweetdeck.

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Filed Under: twitter Tagged With: added value, facebook, groups, monetisation, outcry, protest, services, terms of service, tweetdeck, tweets, twitter

Pepsi – the taste of the web 2.0 generation?

October 27, 2008 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Although I’d already heard about the new logo, I picked up on Pepsi’s more social activites via Edelman Digital’s Steve Rubel, who is working with them, and having joined up, saw some early commentary from Chris Brogan.

Chris talked about How corporations should view comment polices, and I agree that offensive content needs to be filtered unless there is an age restriction on the community. And also that off topic comments and conversations can detract in a single room (I’d recommend having on-topic rooms, and a general one where possible). After managing and moderating forums including those on www.motorcyclenews.com for about 7 years, I’m fairly well versed in polite emails about offensive behaviour and swiftly editing posts on legal and good taste grounds!

There is pre-moderation on comments – a little annoying for speed of response on a microblogging, lifestreaming, conversation service – and even more annoying when the Pepsi team have finished for the day and comments are left hanging. (Note to Pepsi team – the other side of the world is still awake! Maybe find a Pepsi employee in another timezone to help?)

But it will be interesting to see the response to a couple of comments I’ve made about Pepsi’s Terms and Conditions. (I had an acknowledgement from Pepsi’s John Karpf, so it’ll be interesting to see what evolves.) At the top of the Friendfeed Pepsi Cooler room, there’s a hyperlink to ‘a few notes from our lawyers’. Which links to the Pepsi.com Privacy Policy.

Hmmmm

While I acknowledge the need for Terms and Conditions, and stating the standards for a community are necessary, I could have sworn Friendfeed has it’s own Terms of Service, and doesn’t need Pepsi essentially annexing a room! I’m hoping they find another way to express the principles of the room they wish to encourage in a way which doesn’t seem quite so much like our caffeinated overlords have arrived!

But fair play to them, I’d ignored the new logo, and become fairly loyal to Coke due to the cokezone loyalty promotion, (I’m a sucker for free Xbox games!), yet the prospect of a Friendfeed room has made me take a bit of an interest in what they’re up to at Pepsi. I’ll let you know what comes out of the vending machine at work when I go for a drink!

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