Dear Twitter: Please Make Three Minor Changes Posted on 19/11/08

Don't get me wrong: I like Twitter. I'm not a slobbering obsessive who wants to marry Twitter and give birth to a bunch of little matt-inman-tweetlet-bird-babies, but generally speaking I like it. I've used a few Twitter clients for both the iPhone and desktop, but most of the time my interaction with the community occurs on the twitter.com website. These are 3 minor fixes that I believe would make the website substantially less painful to use.

1. If I receive a new reply or direct message, show it in the sidebar - don't require me to click through and refresh that entire page. This wastes my time and requires another hefty page load from your server. Also, showing the total number of direct messages in the sidebar is useless, instead show the number of new messages.

2. Highlight replies to me in the list of tweets.

3. Autocomplete twitter usernames when I'm replying. Sometimes when I want to tweet @someone I can't recall their exact twitter username. I either have to google them or scroll through all my followers to figure it out. You should add an auto-completing search box similar to facebook.



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Simple, right? I'm not asking for a massive overhaul of the site, just a few minor tweaks. Rails is agile, and I know you guys at twitter are super clever, so get to it!

I'm not one to ask for free work, however, so in exchange for these fixes I'm offering you something priceless: a new mascot. The little bird isn't cutting it anymore, so I've taken the liberty of drawing you a new character to represent your website. What better animal to embody the spirit of Twitter than a pterodactyl with chainsaws for feet?