If a DM falls in a forest . . .

On Twitter, when you try to send a direct message to someone using the web interface, by entering “d nobody My message” (where “nobody” is a username), and the person you are trying to reach doesn’t follow you, you get a nice error message:

The same is true when you use SMS or IM to interact with Twitter.

However, if you use a Twitter client, what happens?

On Twitterific, nothing. The message appears to be sent, nothing shows up your timeline, no error occurs.

Is this a limitation of the API, or of the application’s handling of it?

Update:

@Twhirl tells me (via Twitter) that:

twhirl should display an error message informing you about it.

Maybe time to change? I sent the twitterific developers a note letting them know of the bug.

What does your twitter client do? Tell me in the comments, please.

Tantek Çelik on Open Media Web

The second episode in the OpenMediaWeb series is Tantek Çelik:

I wonder if the trajectory he describes whereby proprietary data formats are ultimately superceded by open ones will also hold true for all this FLV video being created – as I recall the file format/spec is already well understood, and I know I’ve seen FLV players which were non-Adobe created.

Prepare for the New Openness

Optaros is sponsoring (with Red Hat) a webinar on Wednesday: Are Your Products Open or Closed? How to Respond to the New Openness

Registration (free) is required.
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Hacking Hardware at Berkman Center

If Ethan Zuckerman apologizes for being three days behind in blogging his notes from a Berkman event, how much do I have to apologize for being three weeks behind?

On January 30th, Beth Kolko spoke at the Berkman Center luncheon series on “User, Hacker, Builder, Thief – Creativity and Consumerism in a Digital Age.”

You can see the video (.mov link) or download the audio (mp3) at Media Berkman.

As usual from the Berkman Center (I wish I could go every week to these talks) it opened more questions than it answered. I’m the guy asking a very rambling and not so articulate question about the simultaneous appearance of a popularized DIY ethic (Make magazine et al) and the DMCA with its tighter limits on what you can “hack” in the broadest sense.

My “notes” follow – not really notes but a series of near quotes and interesting bits – hopefully enough to pique your interest to go listen to the MP3 or (better) watch the video.
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Fair Use in User Generated Content

The Center for Social Media at American University put out a report in January on the concept of “fair use” in user-generated content: “Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video.”

I bookmarked it at the time, downloaded a copy to my “to read” folder (a dangerous thing to have) and then ignored it for the last month or so. You should not do the same. This may be your only chance to explain away the hours you wasted watching dramatic chipmonk videos as “work-related.”

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