Twitsper, Group Tweeting App, Could Change Twitter As We Know It

For those who use Twitter, ever think to yourself I only want this tweet visible to a small group of people? I just want this subset of followers to see it? Sounds like a dream, right?

Beyond tagging multiple people through the 1-to-1 @ mention system, there's no way to do that right now. But it could soon be a reality.

If Twitter itself doesn't create this feature, a group of academics in southern California is already on it.

Guided by professors at University of California-Riverside, computer science and engineering PhD students Indrajeet Singh (@itsInder) and Michael Butkiewicz (@mikebutki) built Twitsper for private group tweeting.

The open-source app is only available to Android mobile phone users at the moment, but that is set to change.

"Over the next few months, we plan to port our implementation for use on other mobile phones, on desktops, and from the web," Harsha Madhyastha, one of two professors overseeing the project, tells The Huffington Post.

"Our current release is intended to demonstrate that it is possible to have private communication on Twitter with groups of people, something which is impossible given the current state-of-the-art," he added.

Currently, Twitter users can only set all of their tweets to private or all of them to public (the default). There's no middle ground.

But Twitsper drastically changes the Twitter experience.

You can say, hey, I only want my closest friends to see this tweet. And this one's about sports, so I only want my sports buddies to see that one. And this tweet is a work-related inside joke, so I only want my work colleagues to see it.

You do this on Twitsper through pre-set lists. The creator and others on the list have the ability to send tweets back and forth that only they can see by using the app, which the developers hope will one day be integrated into Twitter itself.

Currently, while Twitter has list support, there is no way to tweet only to those people at once. It has become a dilemma of sorts for those who want to tweet about varied interests, as a strong, focused voice is one of the best ways to build a following.

By nature, humans are three-dimensional beings with multi-faceted lives and many interests. Sometimes you want to share everything, but if you actually do, it does more harm than good.

Some have combated the problem by creating a second account, whether one for business and one for personal, or just for a second persona in general.

There's no such problem for those who use Twitsper, created with privacy in mind first and foremost and allowing you to divvy up different parts of your life.

"We believe that the right level of privacy differs from one person to another," Singh said. "The best person to choose this balance is the end user. We provide them with a convenient tool to do so, without breaking the pre-existing system."

The concept of groups on Twitter could bring subsets of people closer together and lend well to real-time chats. However, if it becomes the preferred method of tweeting, it could also drastically change the way Twitter is used, perhaps decreasing opportunities for discovery. That said, it also cuts down on noise.

Ultimately, such a feature sounds like one thing: a major win for the user.

It's not a dream after all. This type of technology isn't so far away.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the concept of group tweeting.

UPDATE (11/20/10): Twitter user Kevin Sablan (@ksablan) discovered Twitsper works by sending direct messages to a group of people on a list. He later issued this tweet: "my apologies to all who just got a dm from me. I didn't realize twitsper was sending mass direct messages."

GigaOm senior writer Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) retweeted Sablan and added, "this is very bad."

Harsha Madhyastha, one of the four working on Twitsper, responds to concerns about how the app works in our comments:

As we mention up front in our FAQ (http://twitsper.cs.u cr.edu/faq.html#q4), a whisper to a list works by sending a DM to each person on the list. This automatically has the consequences:
1. Sending a whisper to multiple people does not use up characters.
2. Just like DMs, for A to send a DM to B, B must be following A.
3. When B responds with a whisper, his/her response is not public.

I completely understand that some people may be initially spooked at the thought that when they send a whisper, their friends on the list each gets a DM, but this is the only way to implement "private group tweeting" without creating a completely new social network or without requiring everyone to use Twitsper.

LOOK:

Similar to Twitter client Twimbow, Twitsper filters tweets through color coding. Twitsper sets itself apart by letting users keep these color-coded group conversations private.

Follow the author of this post on Twitter: @ckanal.

Comments

[craft ryan]

10:38 AM on 11/23/2010

This functionality has been around for years at GroupTweet.com....

1) You can communicate with the group either privately or publicly
2) None of the users have to sign up for GroupTweet except for the "moderator" who creates the group account.
3) Nothing to download only need to use Twitter' OAuth system. Don't need an Android phone.
4) GroupTweet works with any Twitter client out there, no need to download or signup.
5) A single message from one group member is always sent out to the rest of the group
6) Can moderate messages, whitelist authors, etc etc.

Let me know if you have any questions, but I don't see anything here that GroupTweet doesn't already cover.

[HarshaMadhyastha]

05:50 PM on 11/23/2010

Hi Ryan,

We have been aware of GroupTweet while developing Twitsper. The main distinctions between GroupTweet and Twitsper are:

1. The "moderator" account in GroupTweet has access to all messages sent to the group. In Twitsper, we ensure that messages you send to a list are only seen by people on that list; none of the messages are seen by our server.

2. GroupTweet implicitly enforces that every group is a clique; so it assumes that if A is fine with his messages being seen by B and C, then B is fine with C seeing her messages. In Twitsper, we respect the restriction that only people you have approved to be your followers on Twitter can view any of your private messages.

Please correct me if I'm wrong on either front.

[craft ryan]

05:05 PM on 11/27/2010

1. GroupTweet does not store any of the messages on our servers.

2. You are correct, everyone in the group can see each message. Groups can be set to private (just like any Twitter account) to prevent non followers from seeing any of your private messages.

[derekrogerson]

02:11 PM on 11/21/2010

no

[luvbird21]

09:18 AM on 11/21/2010

I agree with onemoreis I don't think targeted tweeting would be a good thing for Twitter as already expressed .Doing this kind of thing trivialises the concept

[ValdaDeDieu]

02:48 PM on 11/20/2010

It is not true that you have only the choice of public or private. There are lists (with followers) that you can create, customizing your tweets per list...

[Craig Kanalley]

03:02 PM on 11/20/2010

When you send a tweet, it is either public or private. There's no in between. Lists can be created but they're essentially "read only." You can't tweet to a list only.

[ValdaDeDieu]

07:03 PM on 11/20/2010

Thanks for the clarification.

[verbalcupcake]

01:54 PM on 11/20/2010

If Twitter would allow users to send a DM to multiple people, I would not really have a need for this app. For the most part, I see it as a way for colleagues to discuss work and for groups of people to plan events (though Facebook Groups so far seems to me to be a more effective way of doing both of those things, for a variety of reasons). That's really all this app seems to be, to my mind--a way to send one DM to more than one person.

[HarshaMadhyastha]

02:08 PM on 11/20/2010

There's more to Twitsper than sending a DM to multiple people. The key is in enabling recipients of whispers to reply back to the group.

If Twitter just supported sending DM to multiple people, everyone in a group has to create a copy of the list of people on that group in order to send messages to the group. In contrast, with Twitsper, when you receive a whisper, it automatically recognizes which list the whisper was sent to and lets each recipient reply-back to the group, without having to create a copy of the list again himself.

Of course, it would be much easier for Twitter to implement this themselves, and as we said initially, we would be happy for them to adopt this method of group communication.

[Craig Kanalley]

12:34 PM on 11/20/2010

Questions for Harsha from a friend karamat:

"When someone responds, is it public? Is it like DMs in that you have to follow each other? Or can one not follow the other & still use app? And, does it still use up characters like you do now when tweeting more than one person? Thank you, Kara"

[HarshaMadhyastha]

01:40 PM on 11/20/2010

Hi Craig,

As we mention up front in our FAQ (http://twitsper.cs.ucr.edu/faq.html#q4), a whisper to a list works by sending a DM to each person on the list. This automatically has the consequences:
1. Sending a whisper to multiple people does not use up characters.
2. Just like DMs, for A to send a DM to B, B must be following A.
3. When B responds with a whisper, his/her response is not public.

I completely understand that some people may be initially spooked at the thought that when they send a whisper, their friends on the list each gets a DM, but this is the only way to implement "private group tweeting" without creating a completely new social network or without requiring everyone to use Twitsper.

Fundamentally, we started off with the goal that all group messages must be private. To be backward-compatible with Twitter, the only two ways to send messages are either via tweets or via DMs. If instead of sending DMs, we used tweets while sending to a group, any of your followers can see on your timeline that you sent a whisper to group that he/she is not on. You wouldn't want to invite some people to a party and then have others not in the group learn that they were not invited.

The best solution to not have recipients receive DMs is to have all of them use Twitsper, which we hope to enable soon :)

[Craig Kanalley]

01:49 PM on 11/20/2010

Thanks Harsha for clearly laying this out. Many were curious how it works exactly.

I can see what you mean that DMs is the only way to carry this out currently based on how Twitter currently works.

[HarshaMadhyastha]

01:49 PM on 11/20/2010

BTW, just like DMs, since A can send a whisper to B and C, only if B and C are following A, Twitsper does not enable spammers to post to large groups of people.

However, we do realize that noise control at the receiver end is key. So, that's the main area we are currently working on (in parallel with porting our current implementation of Twitsper to other platforms).

[markfrisk]

06:28 PM on 11/20/2010

Okay. A can send a whisper to B and C if B and C are both following A.

But what if B is not following C?

Presumably C's response to A's original whisper would not be seen by B.

I applaud the inventiveness here, but there are definitely issues.

[onemorels]

01:02 AM on 11/20/2010

Sorry but I don't think targeted tweeting would be a good thing for Twitter in the long run.
The open conversation about so many diverse topics is what motivates new contacts and keeps things interesting. If you want private conversations there are already many other options to meet your needs.

[Jon Kerr]

09:13 PM on 11/19/2010

Craig- Great job with story. Anything that creates tighter, more niched ecosystems on the social web I'm all in favor of. Gives the user more choice as to the type of experience they have, i.e. whom they share information with. Based on the screen grabs you provided in the piece the API looks clean. One question...on the "select list" grab could these be lists you have already created on your personal list page? So the app would allow you to send a tweet to let's say, everyone on personal fitness list you have built w/o having to @reply each person on the list? If so, this would be a significant improvement as you are spot on about us being "three-dimensional" beings.

[HarshaMadhyastha]

09:19 PM on 11/19/2010

Jon, yes, the lists you are shown on the "select list" page can be created with any other Twitter client, including online at twitter.com.

[Jon Kerr]

09:52 PM on 11/19/2010

Good to know, Harsha. Thanks for response!

[Craig Kanalley]

09:31 PM on 11/19/2010

There you go, Jon! Harsha, one of the folks behind Twitsper, beat me to the punch responding to your comment. And there you go. Answer is yes! Really appreciate your comment and agree with the benefits that this app would provide.

[Danek Greori]

06:40 PM on 11/19/2010

Does anybody else see that these "advancements" are slowly just turning into a Instant Messaging system like AIM or Yahoo? O.o

[Craig Kanalley]

06:52 PM on 11/19/2010

You know, it does bring back memories of AIM, I'll give you that. One thing AIM didn't have though is a robust social graph and relationships that many people have built up already on services like Twitter and Facebook. So these new features can potentially tap into that and provide richer experiences.

[Danek Greori]

07:01 PM on 11/19/2010

"richer experiences"? That's an optimistic application of those words to this situation. Being assualted with every detail of the life of everyone I know or care about on a daily basis is not exactly what I'd call a "rich" experience. Worse even, tying that altogether in some kind of Twitter/FaceBook hybrid? Christ, why don't we all just cut out the middle-man and just mind-meld with one another already.

[JackHoffman]

06:05 PM on 11/19/2010

When will the desktop version be available?

[Craig Kanalley]

06:51 PM on 11/19/2010

They say additional versions, ie. other mobile phones, desktop, Web, etc., will be coming in the next few months.

[paulbalcerak]

06:01 PM on 11/19/2010

Reminds me a bit of Yammer, though that's strictly for businesses and it, of course, requires you to have another social account and login.

Could be a cool idea, especially for people who really want to stick with a niche. Me, though? I like having some variety in my Tweets. And I like those accounts that are definitely meant to sit within a niche, but that express some personality as well (@ebertchicago or @jaketapper, for example).

[Craig Kanalley]

06:16 PM on 11/19/2010

Great comment, Paul.

Yes, I agree that those who are in a niche but also express personality make for great follows, and feel the same way about @ebertchicago. Not all can do it so well though! I wouldn't mind a way to filter tweets to certain folks myself, at least occasionally.

[paulbalcerak]

07:06 PM on 11/19/2010

It's interesting to watch Twitter continue to trend toward more privacy (even if this is a third-party product) as Facebook does the exact opposite. I wonder if there's a middle ground that the two will eventually meet at.

[MikeLangford]

04:19 PM on 11/19/2010

Psst.... Tweetworks (group tweeting, both public and private groups) has been around for two years. No PhD's on the team though. :-)

The application also has fully threaded Twitter conversations and a robust API.

http://www.tweetworks.com/

iPhone App: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tweetworks-for-iphone/id368793915?mt=8

[Craig Kanalley]

04:35 PM on 11/19/2010

Thanks Mike! I will take a close look at this.

[MikeLangford]

05:42 PM on 11/19/2010

Thanks Craig!

For private groups on Tweetworks you are correct. In order to view the conversation you do need to use a Tweetworks powered client. Those conversations are on our servers not Twitter's. Public conversations are fully integrated with Twitter's public timeline though.

I didn't see it mentioned in your post but the only way to facilitate private communication via Twitter is with direct messages. So, Twitspter must be attempting to use a one to many group DM broadcasting approach if they want people to be able to use any client. The danger there is if I assume the conversation is 1 to 1, as is normal with DMs, and Twitsper is broadcasting to others... I might be a little annoyed.

There is also the challenge of people actually knowing they are participating in a group/forum type conversation. If a user is using Tweetdeck how will he know that tweets are meant to be part of a group and not just a standard tweet?

I applaud what they are doing. I would love to be able to post tweets that only a subset of my followers can see. It would be especially useful for geographically specific conversations. Example: I only want my Boston area friends to see this.

[HarshaMadhyastha]

05:20 PM on 11/19/2010

Hi Mike,

Great job with Tweetworks!

As I see it, there are two key differences between Twitsper and Tweetworks.

1. One of our main design goals in building Twitsper is that a user should be able to have private group communication with a subset of his friends even if none of them are using Twitsper. Whereas, with Tweetworks, as I understand it, for a group conversation to happen, all members of the group should sign up on Tweetworks?

2. Also, with Twitsper, if someone posts a private message to a group that I'm part of, I can view that message and reply back to the person who posted that message with any Twitter client, not just Twitsper. I need Twitsper only to reply back to the whole group. Whereas, with Tweetworks, it looks like I can view messages posted to groups that I'm a part of only when I'm signed into Tweetworks?

Please correct me if I'm mistaken.