Twitter Please Fix Direct Messages or Eliminate Them

Anyone else frustrated with Twitter Direct Messages?  I occasionally use Direct Messages  they are convenient for sharing a small piece of information outside of the public stream, they are also incredibly frustrating.

1. The limitations on who can send a direct message to who are absurd.  While I understand that only allowing the sending of a Direct Message to a person following you makes sense from an anti-spam perspective, if someone follows me and I send them a Direct message they should be able to respond regardless if I follow them or not.  If I had a nickel for every tweet I have seen imploring someone to “follow me so I can DM” well I would have a nice collection of nickels.

2. It is just to easy for a Direct Message to become public by accident, this might be a case of ‘user error’, but the fact that Twitter’s support pages have an entire section on how a DM can become public tells me it is just too easy.  (one of the reasons I keep the Twitter for Android Client on my phone, is that has a very clear visual difference between sending a tweet and and a DM it is the only mobile client I will use to send a DM).

3. Many of the longer conversations I have had via DM would have been much better served taking place over Skype, Sametime, Phone or maybe even carrier pigeon.

Do you use Direct messages on Twitter? Have you ever tweeted what you meant to be a Private message?  I would be fine with Twitter simply eliminating the feature.

One more thing, if you send and receive a larger number of Direct Messages good luck going back and finding information you might need from a DM, Twitter will only show you the last 100.

Where are my direct messages?

 

4 Responses to Twitter Please Fix Direct Messages or Eliminate Them
  1. Harald Gaerttner
    December 28, 2011 | 9:21 am

    In regards of spam … the spammers went to the “Mention”-Feature. It’s amazing to see how often I am mentioned by someone I don’t know with a text totally unrelated to what I post or do … just for trying to get me clicking their spam and/or ad-link.

    Personally I have much more problems with people that mention me just for spamming in comparison to receiving a direct message. If it’s a spammer she/he/it gets blocked and reported anyways.

  2. Bill Dorge
    December 28, 2011 | 10:26 am

    I’d agree, the DM is broke, and they either need to fix it or turn it off. It’s frustrating when someone DM’s you with some help and you can’t even respond to say Thank you.

    It would be nice if they let you respond to that message, but not start a new conversation if your not followed by that person.

  3. Steve Mullen
    December 28, 2011 | 10:38 am

    Totally agree. I like Bill’s idea to let you respond to a message but not start a new conversation if you’re not followed by that person.

  4. Chris Miller
    December 28, 2011 | 1:58 pm

    I agree that adding the reply feature would be beneficial. I think there is a need for the DM however