Webtropic

A couple of days ago I came across this terrifying presentation from John Graham-Cumming.

Although the topics covered weren’t entirely new to me, put together in one presentation, had an impact.  I came to wonder if and how would the major web 2.0 sites work, if javascript was out of the picture.

I decided to make a little test to find out: I disabled javascript from my browser  and started logging  in such sites to see how would they behave.

Here is the outcome for the three most important for me.

a. Twitter

Most of the functionality was in place: the timeline, friend and followers. From the various buttons on the tweets and the timeline pages, the reply did work but not the fav button.

The direct message and delete buttons did not work either. Same with the drop down where you select a follower to dm, and finally, the followers and trending topics buttons.
But all these are rather trivial. Because most of the tweet buttons replicate user behavior (putting the @ sign in front of another user name for a reply, or the d letter for a direct message).
Not being able to fav, or, more importantly, to delete is a loss, but not a major one.

b. Facebook
Things are worse in Facebook: while Home, Profile, Friends and Settings are accessible, the inbox and chat are not.
Also, from the bottom bar, the applications menu is inaccessible. Most of the edit links and buttons don’t work either and finally the status updates, link sharing , photos etc cannot be submitted.

c. Youtube
Here things are disastrous: without javascript you cannot see the videos! On top, you cannot access your account settings or you mailbox. There was no point looking for more.

A small gallery with pics of the failure areas of the above web applications follows

The recent update  of twitter’s  Terms of Service, brought to my attention this page from twitter support :  The Twitter Rules. Is it not a long read but it is quite educative as to what twitter considers as spam or spamming behavior.

It is interesting to note that there is no rigid definition of spam:

What constitutes “spamming” will evolve as we respond to new tricks and tactics by spammers

Instead, the following  14 points list of spamming behaviors is cited.

• If you have followed a large amount of users in a short amount of time;
• If you have followed and unfollowed people in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive follower churn);
• If you repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile;
  
• If you have a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following;
• If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates;
• If a large number of people are blocking you;
• The number of spam complaints that have been filed against you;
• If you post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account
• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #
• If you post multiple unrelated updates to a trending or popular topic
• If you send large numbers of duplicate @replies
• If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies in an attempt to spam a service or link
  
• If you repost other user’s content without attribution.
• If you have attempted to “sell” followers, particularly through tactics considered aggressive following or follower churn.

The one  in bold has a special interest.

If your updates contain mainly links  you are considered a spammer!

Well this is news!

There’re thousands of accounts in twitter that do just this. How? By linking a blog feed to a twitter account. In such a case all twitter updates are links back to the blogposts.  Leaving aside the fact that these might not be appealing accounts to follow, considering link-posting as a spamming behavior  contradicts the presence of major media organizations in twitter and there are no signs that twitter actually objects their presence.

But if link-posting is ok for, say, CNN why would that  be bad for blog xyz with the 20 followers? The rule becomes a size discrimination.

Another notable notion in this rule is that twitter seems to still attribute value to the personal updates.  For me personal updates are irrelevant but that is not the issue. The issue is that one should have the right to write about the things he truly cares. If drinking coffee with his spouse is one of them, that’s fine. But if not, that should be fine too.

Besides, in order to have personal updates you must have a person too. With all these business accounts, what sort of personal updates is to be expected?

I thought it was just me but a search (employing Facebook search) reavealed that this is a widespread issue. See the picture.

I haven’t seen any announcement anywhere. Or a post in one of the tech blogs. Anyone?