Yeah, it really is an asnine platform as well as Facebook and all the rest. I used to use Facebook, but backed out some four years ago and will never go back. As it was, I never used my real name. I do have Twitter, but that's mostly to stay abreast of what Github, hacker crap and other stuff is up to. It's also easy for me to complain to a company on Twitter as well.

RoWin7 said:

I have a phony name and alternate email address on FB too. I've used it exactly once to complain to a company when I was desperate for help. They told me to use their email support, which I already had. Do you think Twitter is better for that purpose?

Maybe, maybe not, depends on how good that company is at listening to customers. Did they ever get a JD Power award for customer service? No? Then don't expect much. Especially since you sent an email.

If they are really bad you can file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I did that once with a game hosting company that had real crap support. Plus, my server would always lag out.

this is Twitter (& yes, I do use it fairly regularly, having mostly left Fb. but it (Twitter) can be annoying)

RoWin7 said:

I've used it exactly once to complain to a company when I was desperate for help. They told me to use their email support, which I already had. Do you think Twitter is better for that purpose?

I know more than one case in which Twitter was definitely better at this purpose. A friend called an ISP asking for some support about outages and they didn't gave him a too good response and just make him "wait for a technician". Then he used Twitter to post a public message, tagging them, about the issue and "magically" they called him back to solve his problem.
Coincidence? I don't think so.

I wouldn't say that Twitter is better because it's Twitter. Companies HATE public shaming, and they happen to listen to Twitter, sometimes it's some other website. But frequently it's more helpful than their official communication ways (and that's say a lot about the company).

this is (slightly?) off topic. but there is/was a site called trackalytics.com . they tracked twitter follower numbers for whatever acc't you typed in. very useful, and obviously not something that twitter was aware of? (because obv twitter want to charge for that info) because twitter have just stopped releasing exact follower numbers, so the twitter section of trackalytics no longer works

anyone know of sites that track (twitter) follower numbers on "any account you ask"? I wouldn't expect there to be (and was vaguely surprised when I found trackalytics existed 6 months ago)....it's the sort of information people want to make money out of

If it isn't allowed in the Twitter API, then there won't be a website capable of doing this. I guess the reason why the website existed prior was because the Twitter API allowed it.

it does sort of make you wonder. was Twitter not aware of the information they were giving out? given that it's over 12 years old...had no-one at twitter realised what information was being released?

if I was twitter mgmt, I'd want to charge for this info