To help out, here is a link to their new game for the iPhone – Pickin’ Time.

“We apologize for problems that iPhone and iPod touch Twitterrific users are currently experiencing due to the so-called Twitpocalypse.”

Ugh. Well, that saved me the time of writing up a bug report. But now I know it will be a little while before I can use my favorite Twitter application on the iPhone.

Update: At some point on Sunday evening an update to Twitterrific 2 for the iPhone and iPod touch had been approved through the App Store and is available through normal app updating methods. Seems to work peachy now.

Oh, and I’m serious about most of these. Darn serious. Seriousness level = 10.

Favorites. It is time. Dare I say, past due? I can not even begin to count the number of times I’ve seen a post on Brightkite that I’ve wanted to save for later, acknowledge its greatness, or simply file away into a list of great Brightkite objects. Anything and everything should be favoritable. I know one of the new terms on the Webz is “likes” – and you can use that if you’d like too.

Flickr preferences like Twitter preferences. The granularity of the Twitter preferences is one of the reasons I was able to begin using Brightkite painlessly. In The way Brightkite fits I wrote:

“Brightkite will update Twitter with any of your activity on Brightkite, but again, there are layers upon layers of options.  Remember I said that you don’t have to switch away from Twitter if you use Brightkite the way I do?  Here is how I have Brightkite set up to notify Twitter.”

“Layers upon layers of options” is not an understatement. You get to choose precisely which actions on Brightkite will notify Twitter, the way your Twitter messages are crafted, and more. Somehow, I need these types of options for sharing photos on Flickr through Brightkite.

I don’t mind if every single photo I post on Brightkite goes to Flickr. For me, it is more a matter of the metadata saved with the photo on Flickr that is important. I choose my titles carefully on Flickr. If Brightkite has its way it simply saves the current location (no matter how messy) as the title. Sometimes this works, othertimes it doesn’t.

What can I say? I’m picky. But Brightkite, usually, allows me to be my picky-self. So, you’ve spoiled me. Your fault Brightkite. You’ve created this animal.

Messages on the Web site like messages on the iPhone. The way that direct messages work on the iPhone is, in my opinion, a lot nicer than the way they are styled on the Web site.

Fix Childs, PA. This really isn’t a “wish list” type of request – because something is obviously fubar for my hometown of Childs, Pennsylvania on Brightkite. Posts, check-ins, photos, etc. are showing up from all over the world. No idea how this happened but it started a while ago.

Odd request: Move these two check-ins and one post. So now we’re getting really nitty – but my friends and I went to Goal Line Sports Bars (which I’ve now created a location on Brightkite for). I’d like the check-ins and posts found here (by myself and CamouflageNoise) to be moved to this location.  I suppose, at the end of the day, I’m asking to be able to move posts and/or check-ins myself via the Web site. So if this situations arises again, I can do it myself.

Hashtag support. If someone uses a #hashtag make it clickable to a post search for that hashtag.

Automatic wall creation. Walls are awesome. No doubt about it. However, if someone does a search – say for No Reservations – I think that it’d be nice to click 1 button and have it create a wall for you with the results of that search. (This is sort of related to the #hashtag support, because for me if I’m following an event, it would be nice to be able to go from a friend’s post to having a wall created for that event with two clicks).

A desktop application. Right now I’m using Fluid and the iPhone web application for Brightkite. But the iPhone web application is, in a matter of speaking, not a good solution to this problem.  Perhaps there is a Brightkite desktop application that I am not aware of that rivals the likes of Twitterrific or TweetDeck but I do not know about it.

Forward /username URLs.  Ooops!

Viddler video. We’ll talk.

I have said it before, I like Brightkite better than Twitter. But, is the above too much to ask? Thanks Brightkite.

But I think it is time to stop complaining and start helping.  How?   What if we created a list of “well built” applications that use the Twitter API?  By that I mean applications, tools, widgets, etc. that do a good job of not pummeling Twitter’s servers with requests.

The A-list of Twitter apps

I’m not foremost expert on scalability – but I know a well-built application from a bad one.  Any application, widget, or tool that does not use even the simplest form of caching, for example, will not make this list.

I will need your help.  So please comment below with any applications or tools I have not yet linked to, I’ll vet them a little, and add them to the list if it makes the cut.  If you are a developer – please include what you do to help Twitter with your link.

• MW Latest Tweet - by Eric Meyer – A WordPress plugin that shows your latest Twitter status anywhere on your WordPress-powered site.  In order to make sure that I am also helping Twitter, I’ve installed this here on my site.  You can see it on the sidebar of my front page.
• Twitterrific – by The IconFactory – A Mac OS X application that allows you to view your friends timeline and post to Twitter.  Twitterric only requests the Twitter API on a set interval (customizable, and I have mine set to every 15 minutes now).
• Twhirl – by Marco Kaiser and now owned by Seesmic – An Adobe AIR application, which means it runs on both Macintosh and Windows platforms, that lets you follow Twitter, FriendFeed, Pownce, and others.  The highlight of how this application helps Twitter is that it has a requests-per-hour-slider.  I’ve got mine set to 10 (but I only have it check for new statuses every 15 minutes).

Do you have any applications you think should be added to this list?  Why?  Leave them in the comments.  As I update this, I’ll notify people through Twitter, FriendFeed, and Pownce.  ”Follow” me if you dare.

Miscellaneous tips

A few tips and tricks to helping Twitter out, regardless of the tools you choose to use.

 

• Decrease number of requests.  No matter what applications you use, increase the interval (or decrease the number of requests per hour) between requests to Twitter for updates.  The common “side effect” of doing this is actually being more productive.  Give it a try!
• Don’t manually refresh after update. I’ve noticed myself doing this too.  When you send in a new status, don’t manually update.  Chances are it will take a few moments for your latest status to appear in whatever application you are using.  Send in the new status, if there isn’t an error, wait for the next scheduled request. I can’t imagine how many requests this could potential get rid of.