Perhaps the biggest problem facing Twitter these days is the influx of users who just wish to use it for spamming purposes. When someone follows you, it’s hard to know their intentions at first and you may follow them back. If they’re a spammer, your stream will be bombarded with junk. A new startup, Chirpio, wants to solve this problem and offer better user recommendations with a Twitter rating system.
While there have been plenty of other service that you can use fo find Twitter users you should follow, notably Mr. Tweet and WeFollow, Chirpio offers a very simple solution that everyone will be able to understand. When you sign in to your Twitter account on Chirpio via their OAuth support, you will see your tweet stream as you would on Twitter. But below each tweet you will see a way to rate the user up or down. More importantly, you can mark them as “Spam” and easily unfollow them. Below each user’s icon, you will see their composite rating score.
Along the top of your stream there are filters that you can use once you have rated users. For example, if I only want to see the ones that I rated as “good” (the up vote), I can do that. Likewise for “bad” — why you would be following “bad” users, I don’t know, perhaps just to drive your hatred of them. It’s important to note that a down rating is not the same as a “Spam” mark, so it is actually a useful rating for people who you follow on purpose but don’t really like.
In the right side column of Chirpio, you can find your own profile to see how users are rating you (you cannot see who voted what way). Below that is a “Top Rated” area showing the top rated users across the network. Obviously, the concern here is about people gaming the system, but co-founder Gee Chuang tells us they are developing an algorithm that would give different weight to different votes based on certain activity. He says this is similar to the way Digg weights diggs differently based on activity.
You can also rate users on Chirpio right on Twitter itself. Simply use the syntax “@chirpio @parislemon +” if you like me or “”@chirpio @parislemon -” if you dislike me. The same works with “spam” and you can also substitute “good” and “bad” for plus and minus, as well bulk rate people by including multiple names in these tweets.
It’ll take a lot of users using the system and rating people to see how well this will actually work as a recommendation system for Twitter. But I like how easy this is to use, and the simple idea behind it.
Founders James Fong, Daniel Khamsing and the aforementioned Gee Chuang built the service on Google’s App Engine, and have self-funded the project. Chuang says that an API is coming soon which will allow for Chirpio integration with other Twitter-based services.
Ehhh it seems like it would be easier to just be careful about who you follow in the first place. It’s not that hard to tell if a user is spam or not. I generally avoid the follow back for strangers unless something *really* entices me to click through to their profile. But, it doesn’t happen too often.
If you filter the crap out of twitter you will have just about nothing left.
Exactley
Depending on the frequency of tweets by those you follow . . . what is the value of having someone follow you if you are merely one of hundreds or thousands.
Unless seeing the number of your followers makes you feel or think in way that is “valuable” to you.
What does that say about you if you base your self worth / esteem on how may “followers” you have on Twitter, MySpace, FaceBook, etc. ?
It will be interesting to see where these sites go over the next 6 to 9 months . . . switching is becoming easier . . . how will they defend their share?
I hope they do not deem http://www.worstpizza.com as bad, cause I send out a lot of posts about pizza daily! I guess they could unfollow me if they don’t wanna see them anways!
This functionality belongs to Twitter and not some third party.
Imagine what happened to all those ppl who tried to pull out user ratings from eBay. Where are they?
it’s such a great idea to help get rid of spam and I like that I can comment on users too. So easy to use.
User ratings are a must-have for most public services like this (and ebay etc)… not sure why Twitter doesn’t have it already, but its great that someone is stepping up to try to fill the void. Gonna be tough but its a great start!
It is a known fact that spammers are typically bald, fat, and clinging desperately to their youth by hanging out on social networks.
Obviously there is some form of advanced heuristic filtering being exploited on Twitter profile images.
Oh wait…
Ha.
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If their algorithm is anything like digg’s this will certainly be gamed. Digg is disgraceful in it’s bias against all things conservative. Getting anything conservative to the top in digg is nearly impossible because of the ability to bury and digg apparently likes it that way. While I don’t really see the appeal of this app, it will be problematic unless they manage to actually be unbiased.
Plus, I never follow anyone without actually looking at their stream. That’s really all you need to do.
Ok, riddle me this…. How can you find your own rating, and how does it affect others?
Ihttp://www.chirpio.com/matchesmalone =D
Dear Mr Crunch,
Oh how you’ve made me whole again by informing me that:
@Astro_Mike has updated from space, one small keystroke
@QueenRania believes Twitter can change the world
@IvyBean104 is the oldest user, bless
@gavinbate updated from Mount Everest, typing was difficxult
@Sockington is a cat with half a million followers
@oprah hit 1 million followers in 28 days, and just 42 tweets!
@kanyewest wasn’t really Kayne West, and he’s furious, grr
@nickbrownmp was a fake too, ooh shock horror
@Scobleizer’s head explodes, n.e.e.d. t.o. t.w.e.e.t…
@aplusk thinks @ev is bigger than the dog and bone
And all that happened in the last 30 days. Wow. TechCrunch is THE place to reach tech enlightenment. Twitter rules. Period. Respectz
Love you x
James
Thanks for the writeup MG! Hope a lot of you find this useful or just fun
Remember, you can also leave comments on people’s profiles if you have something to say… like “omg this guy has the best tweets” or something… haha enjoy!
don’t forget twibe, one of the earliest player in the twitter recommendation world. MG, check out my twitter blog, would like to connect
Does anyone know if Google app engine support Ruby/PhP, if not, when will they? (currently Python, Java)
twitter is for twits. noone will be using it by 2010.