December 1, 2008. That was the last day I got a Qwitter notification. I don’t recall qwitting Qwitter, it simply stopped working for me. Until today. When it just puked in my email inbox.
For those unaware, Qwitter is a service that emails you every time someone unfollows you on Twitter. It tells you their name, and the last tweet you sent that may have caused the unfollow. Naturally, when I saw the huge influx of emails today, I decided to visit the site again — and guess what, it does appear that they’re back. As they note, “We’re Back! How could we possibly quit catching QWITTERS?!? Fear not… notification emails have returned, giving us all something to look forward to during the day!”
Not only that, the service promises that “premium services” are coming soon. Agora Technology, the group behind the app, promises faster email notifications without ads, and the ability to become a featured Qwitter user if you sign up (more details are coming soon).
There’s just a few problems with the new Qwitter. First, they’re sending all of these emails with a completely broken link. The “Visit Qwitter Therapy” link takes you to the following URL: http://root_url/therapy. Clearly, that’s the result of some bad coding. And I have about 60 emails today all with the same broken link. More importantly, I’m not sure the all-important unsubscribe button is working. I clicked on it to unsubscribe earlier, and I’m still getting the notifications. Others are noting that they qwit Qwitter a long time ago, and have started getting the notifications today.
These Qwitter emails are also now promoting TweepML, a Twitter grouping service, which we’ve covered in the past. And interestingly, it appears that Qwitter may be under new management. Previously it was a group called Contrast that ran the service (here’s an interview we did with them), now it’s listed as being run by this Agora Technology group — which is the same group behind TweepML (which just sold).
I’ve never been thrilled by the idea of Qwitter because it adds social pressure to Twitter. Without it, if you unfollow someone, they’re unlikely to notice (as Twitter won’t notify them). But with it, they’ll get an email and things may get, well, awkward. Likewise, getting an email letting you know that you’ve been unfollowed probably makes you feel a bit uneasy inside. Well, okay, unless it’s one of the thousands of spammy accounts on Twitter. Still, at one point they cared, and now they don’t.
[photo: Paramount Pictures]