4 ms·

An Open Letter to TwitPic

83 points by screeley 16y ago

tptacek 16y ago
What's the Posterous/TwitPic drama?
- protomyth 16y ago
  The link is in the open letter: http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/29/twitpic-posterous-lawyers/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/29/twitpic-posterous-lawyers/
logic 16y ago
Well, that explains why I haven't been able to reach TwitPic via my Slicehost-hosted proxy.
- mrtron 16y ago
  Which begs the question why doesn't Posterous use multiple proxies from various providers. Perhaps they are now - but it seems too late for other Rackspace clients.
drgath 16y ago
Twitpic is dead to me. The fact that they are shutting out developers is quite comical considering the whole reason they exist is because of the Twitter API.
- Cabal 16y ago
  It looks to me like they're shutting out competitors looking to replace their service. That's apples and oranges compared to Twitter, which they are supplementing.
  - cheald 16y ago
    If your users are moving their data over to another service, then a) it's their prerogative to do so, and b) maybe it says something about your service. "We IP block competitors" is not a bullet point in your defensibility strategy.
    - Cabal 16y ago
      If your users are moving their data over to another service, then a) it's their prerogative to do so, and b) maybe it says something about your service. No one has suggested otherwise, but you're under no requirement to help your competitors.
  - joelhaasnoot 16y ago
    True, but Twitter breathes down the necks of everyone in the space of supplementing and complementing services. Twitter is looking to own the ecosystem and keep control of the user experience. One of these days Twitter will buy an image service, make it the default, and say to all the others: "oh, you can play too, but we're the default", effectively shutting others out. Just look at bit.ly and other URL shorteners and what Twitter has done.
    - Terretta 16y ago
      Yes, look at what Twitter has done to shorteners, vs. bit.ly's continued business: bit.ly offers great reporting, use with services besides Twitter, and bit.ly pro to integrate your own domain. So bit.ly remains the shortener of choice for professionals.
- jscore 16y ago
  haha, very true and ironic.
ericz 16y ago
Twitpic's solution was to block Rackspace Cloud entirely? I don't know much about their conflict with Posterous but I do know that they're taking a wholly terrible approach
- mrtron 16y ago
  Why is that a terrible approach? It seems to have worked. If a wound is bleeding profusely - you put a cloth on it. Sure it doesn't heal you, but it is hardly a terrible approach.
  - woodall 16y ago
    Terrible Approach -> Give all Posterous import tool users goatse Bad -> Block a whole rack space Good -> Negotiate some sort of deal with Posterous Better -> Let this site access the rss feed Say I run a blog on the Rackspace Cloud, and want to use my own custom script to rip photos from my personal TwitPic account. Well, I can't because it is banned. In it's entirety. It seems to have worked in the sense that the Posterous import tool no longer functions. It does not seem to work in the sense that they banned, albeit small, section of their user base.
    - mrtron 16y ago
      From what perspective? From 99% of users' perspective: blocking rackspace has no effect on them unless they try to switch to posterous. You are one of a handful of users running something else on rackspace for personal use. Sure for 5 users this was a bad approach. From twitpic's persepective: it stopped them from losing users to posterous. Win.
      - Terretta 16y ago
        What makes anyone think this stopped TwitPic from losing users to Posterous? I would imagine any user sophisticated enough to think of moving, would have some opinions about data liberation and services that try to lock them in. On the contrary, I would imagine this puts more users on notice that TwitPic is locking users' own data in. Such users will begin looking for other places to post pics to.
datums 16y ago
Why not implement a workaround (plan b), while you work on getting de-listed ?
- pwim 16y ago
  Embedly is an api that allows you to embed over 100 services in your site. Twitpic is just one such services, so it is probably not worth their while to make a workaround.
mseebach 16y ago
Posterous should make a client-side proxy for pulling the feed. Just a small Java applet, or Flash or whatever (I'm not 100% sure how cross-site protection is implemented), and have users run that to down- and upload the pictures. Once that's in place they can send an email to twitpic, telling them that they've circumvented the block, and they should feel free to unblock Rackspace.
- bradgessler 16y ago
  I'm pretty sure this could be implemented with JavaScript.
  - mseebach 16y ago
    For the RSS, yes, but I don't think JS can download and then upload an image.
    - windsurfer 16y ago
      With HTML5, you can.
      - whyleyc 16y ago
        How ? Do you have links to any sample code at all ?
        mseebach 16y ago
        HTML5 File API, it seems - https://developer.mozilla.org/en/using_files_from_web_applications https://developer.mozilla.org/en/using_files_from_web_applic... Looks pretty sweet!
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
screeley 16y ago
All better. TwitPic made changes to whitelist Embedly. http://blog.embed.ly/twitpic http://blog.embed.ly/twitpic

83 points by screeley 16y ago

tptacek 16y ago

What's the Posterous/TwitPic drama?

protomyth 16y ago
The link is in the open letter: http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/29/twitpic-posterous-lawyers/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/29/twitpic-posterous-lawyers/

logic 16y ago

Well, that explains why I haven't been able to reach TwitPic via my Slicehost-hosted proxy.

mrtron 16y ago
Which begs the question why doesn't Posterous use multiple proxies from various providers. Perhaps they are now - but it seems too late for other Rackspace clients.

drgath 16y ago

Twitpic is dead to me. The fact that they are shutting out developers is quite comical considering the whole reason they exist is because of the Twitter API.

Cabal 16y ago
It looks to me like they're shutting out competitors looking to replace their service. That's apples and oranges compared to Twitter, which they are supplementing.
- cheald 16y ago
  If your users are moving their data over to another service, then a) it's their prerogative to do so, and b) maybe it says something about your service. "We IP block competitors" is not a bullet point in your defensibility strategy.
  - Cabal 16y ago
    If your users are moving their data over to another service, then a) it's their prerogative to do so, and b) maybe it says something about your service. No one has suggested otherwise, but you're under no requirement to help your competitors.
- joelhaasnoot 16y ago
  True, but Twitter breathes down the necks of everyone in the space of supplementing and complementing services. Twitter is looking to own the ecosystem and keep control of the user experience. One of these days Twitter will buy an image service, make it the default, and say to all the others: "oh, you can play too, but we're the default", effectively shutting others out. Just look at bit.ly and other URL shorteners and what Twitter has done.
  - Terretta 16y ago
    Yes, look at what Twitter has done to shorteners, vs. bit.ly's continued business: bit.ly offers great reporting, use with services besides Twitter, and bit.ly pro to integrate your own domain. So bit.ly remains the shortener of choice for professionals.
jscore 16y ago
haha, very true and ironic.

ericz 16y ago

Twitpic's solution was to block Rackspace Cloud entirely? I don't know much about their conflict with Posterous but I do know that they're taking a wholly terrible approach

mrtron 16y ago
Why is that a terrible approach? It seems to have worked. If a wound is bleeding profusely - you put a cloth on it. Sure it doesn't heal you, but it is hardly a terrible approach.
- woodall 16y ago
  Terrible Approach -> Give all Posterous import tool users goatse Bad -> Block a whole rack space Good -> Negotiate some sort of deal with Posterous Better -> Let this site access the rss feed Say I run a blog on the Rackspace Cloud, and want to use my own custom script to rip photos from my personal TwitPic account. Well, I can't because it is banned. In it's entirety. It seems to have worked in the sense that the Posterous import tool no longer functions. It does not seem to work in the sense that they banned, albeit small, section of their user base.
  - mrtron 16y ago
    From what perspective? From 99% of users' perspective: blocking rackspace has no effect on them unless they try to switch to posterous. You are one of a handful of users running something else on rackspace for personal use. Sure for 5 users this was a bad approach. From twitpic's persepective: it stopped them from losing users to posterous. Win.
    - Terretta 16y ago
      What makes anyone think this stopped TwitPic from losing users to Posterous? I would imagine any user sophisticated enough to think of moving, would have some opinions about data liberation and services that try to lock them in. On the contrary, I would imagine this puts more users on notice that TwitPic is locking users' own data in. Such users will begin looking for other places to post pics to.

datums 16y ago

Why not implement a workaround (plan b), while you work on getting de-listed ?

pwim 16y ago
Embedly is an api that allows you to embed over 100 services in your site. Twitpic is just one such services, so it is probably not worth their while to make a workaround.

mseebach 16y ago

Posterous should make a client-side proxy for pulling the feed. Just a small Java applet, or Flash or whatever (I'm not 100% sure how cross-site protection is implemented), and have users run that to down- and upload the pictures. Once that's in place they can send an email to twitpic, telling them that they've circumvented the block, and they should feel free to unblock Rackspace.

bradgessler 16y ago
I'm pretty sure this could be implemented with JavaScript.
- mseebach 16y ago
  For the RSS, yes, but I don't think JS can download and then upload an image.
  - windsurfer 16y ago
    With HTML5, you can.
    - whyleyc 16y ago
      How ? Do you have links to any sample code at all ?
      - mseebach 16y ago
        HTML5 File API, it seems - https://developer.mozilla.org/en/using_files_from_web_applications https://developer.mozilla.org/en/using_files_from_web_applic... Looks pretty sweet!

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

screeley 16y ago

All better. TwitPic made changes to whitelist Embedly. http://blog.embed.ly/twitpic http://blog.embed.ly/twitpic