Although Twitter is a website, the use of it isn’t confined to just a web browser. With so many third-party applications, it’s becoming harder and harder to find someone that uses the web interface (don’t quote me on this – it just seems that way.)

Twitter Links

If less and less people are using the Twitter web interface, why should we link to it? I see stuff like this all of the time: http://twitter.com/home/?status=I+love+this+website:+http://gulati.info. I would love to tweet about how much I love gulati.info, but I don’t use the web interface! I would have to login to Twitter before tweeting this… that would take me a little while. I don’t even remember my password, I have it saved in my 3rd party application.

Let’s Look to AIM

AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) knows where it’s at. Check this out: AIM Hyperlink Command Codes.

You can do simple actions with someone’s AIM application. All you have to do is create a hyperlink. Pretty cool, huh? We should apply that to Twitter. Here’s a few examples:

twitter:gotweet?tweet=I+love+this+website:+http://gulati.info

twitter:profile?user=austingulati

Things like that would be extremely helpful for us that don’t use the web interface.

Disadvantages of this System

Here’s a few things that could be bad because of this new system:

1. Application developers will have to add support for it.
2. If someone doesn’t have a 3rd party application, how will the request be handled? There has to be a way to redirect them to twitter.com in that case.
3. This could be used for massive spam/annoyance techniques.

It seems like a pretty good idea, though. If it ever does get implemented, I’ll take credit for the idea. ;)

Tags: AIM, Hyperlinks, Twitter