one-click follow

[pnoeric]

Hey, is there a one-click "follow this user" link? I'm adding social
bookmarking features to my site and one of them is "Follow us on
Twitter." Currently I sent them to my Twitter page (http://twitter.com/
flwbooks) and they have to click below my icon, then click following.

I'd prefer to have them land on a page that just said "Ok, you're now
following @FLWbooks" (or even a simple "Do you want to follow
@FLWbooks? yes/no" page).

It sounds minor, but every click counts, so thought I'd ask... :-)

Eric

[Stuart]

2009/2/26 pnoeric <er...@ericmueller.org>

No there isn't, since it would be wide open to abuse. And a yes/no page would not reduce clicks so is rather redundant IMHO.

-Stuart

-- 

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[Pete Warden]

Well, actually there kinda-is:
http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2008/12/how-to-create-a-oneclick-twitter-follow-button.html

There was a hole in December that allowed the user's twitter.com authentication cookies to be used by another page's Javascript. That's now been fixed, so the technique now brings up a dialog asking for the user's name and password when they click. A pretty confusing user experience though, so I no longer use it.

From a UI point of view I'd prefer to have a dedicated Twitter landing page that you could send people to that just contained a 'Do you want to follow X?' rather than having the ubiquitous 'Go to this page and then find the follow button' text on every source page. Just my 2 cents though. :)

Pete

[TjL]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:09 PM, Pete Warden <search...@gmail.com> wrote:
> From a UI point of view I'd prefer to have a dedicated Twitter landing page
> that you could send people to that just contained a 'Do you want to follow
> X?' rather than having the ubiquitous 'Go to this page and then find the
> follow button' text on every source page. Just my 2 cents though. :)

That's exactly how blocking works.

http://twitter.com/blocks/confirm/NAME

shows what blocking means and asks if you want to do it.

I'd love to see something like:

http://twitter.com/follow/confirm/NAME

which would explain following and "notifications" (and give them a
chance to turn notifications on/off right there if they have a device
defined).

[Nicole Simon]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 11:40 PM, TjL <luo...@gmail.com> wrote:

That's exactly how blocking works.

but blocking is a rare plus also a 'negative' action meaning it requires
an extra step because it is unusual to the users of twitter and
it should be additional to avoid mistakes.

following on the other hand is at the core of twitter and
comes right after tweeting - it is nothing where the user
really has to think about "oh how do I do this" but rather
leading to the part where they make their usual decision
if or if not to follow somebody.

I'd love to see something like:

http://twitter.com/follow/confirm/NAME

which would explain following and "notifications" (and give them a
chance to turn notifications on/off right there if they have a device
defined).

in this case I would have to go to the real profil to make my decision
and then click on follow - 3 steps instead of 2, there is not
really an advantage.

Nicole

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[TjL]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:49 PM, Nicole Simon <nee...@gmail.com> wrote:
> following on the other hand is at the core of twitter and
> comes right after tweeting - it is nothing where the user
> really has to think about "oh how do I do this" but rather
> leading to the part where they make their usual decision
> if or if not to follow somebody.

You're assuming that the only way that anyone gets to Twitter is via Twitter.

What if I want a link on my blog which says "Follow me on Twitter"?

Click the link, see the text (read it if you need to), say "Yup, I
want to follow this person on Twitter".

What if you get a TwitReport ( http://tr.im/twitreport ) for a new
follower and think "Yeah, this is someone I'd like to follow? What
would you rather do, load their entire profile page just to click the
"Follow" link, or just load the part that you need?

Now assume you're on your iPhone or Blackberry. Which would you rather
do? There's no 'Follow' mechanism for the mobile Twitter.

BTW, a TwitReport gives you the block URL. But I can't give a follow URL.

>> I'd love to see something like:
>>
>> http://twitter.com/follow/confirm/NAME
>>
>> which would explain following and "notifications" (and give them a
>> chance to turn notifications on/off right there if they have a device
>> defined).
>
> in this case I would have to go to the real profil to make my decision
> and then click on follow - 3 steps instead of 2, there is not
> really an advantage.

Only if your imagination is limited to the idea that no one ever comes
to Twitter except from Twitter.

No one is suggesting taking away the follow link as it exists. But it
has limitations.

TjL

[Chad Etzel]

It is entirely possible to follow somebody by not going to the twitter
website by using the API. The catch is that it is an authenticated
method, and so the UX for that is not so friendly if you want to keep
it off of twitter's website. The other catch is that it is not
one-click.

example:

Have a link that says "follow me on twitter". If the link is clicked,
an pop-up, or div w/ z-index of a billion, or, etc... appears and has
a Username and Password text box and a button that says "Follow Me!".
They enter their creds, click the button, boom... you've been
followed. Removed the pop-up/div/whatever. It's done.

Now, when OAuth rolls around and becomes the exclusive mechanism for
interacting w/ the API, this becomes useless, and implementing a
"Follow Me" OAuth app would (to me) seem to be more trouble than it's
worth since the user would have to authenticate through twitter
anyway.

So...
Is one-click possible? No.
Is it possible to do off of twitter's site? Yes.
Is it worth it? Maybe (my personal opinion is No).

Would I find a twitter page that is just has "Follow @user" related
text useful? No, but I could see TjL's point if you've already
received a TwitReport and have already seen the info that would
otherwise have been presented to you on their profile anyway.

-Chad

[Matt Sanford]

Hi all,

    Resurrecting an old thread in order to kill it, or at least wound it. We just deployed a /friendships/add page that is the opposite of /blocks/confirm. Check out http://twitter.com/friendships/add/mzsanford for an example. There are upcoming plans to build out that page some more, so don't everyone reply at once about what's not on there ;). Since this isn't the highest priority change being discussed I wanted to get a minimal version out so people could use it while we talk it over.

Thanks;

  — Matt Sanford / @mzsanford

[Chad Etzel]

OIC,
you just want more followers :)

This is pretty cool. I am assuming that there will be no additional
API call introduced here since friendships/create already does this
API-wise?

-Chad

[Matt Sanford]

Hi Chad,

    Correct. This was just for sites that have a Web UI, want to suggest people to follow, and don't want to collect passwords just for that one action. Things like wefollow.com (though they didn't ask for it) are a prime example.

Thanks;

  — Matt

[TjL]

On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Matt Sanford <ma...@twitter.com> wrote:

> There are upcoming plans to build out that page some more, so don't everyone
> reply at once about what's not on there ;). Since this isn't the highest
> priority change being discussed I wanted to get a minimal version out so
> people could use it while we talk it over.

Thanks! I've already added a "Follow" link to TwitReport's email report.

TjL

[Abraham Williams]

The http://twitter.com/friendships/add/abraham links appear to no longer work. Was there an announcement in regards to the removal of this functionality that third party applications might be relying on?

Abraham

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[Raffi Krikorian]

hmm.  thats news to me too.

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Twitter Platform Team
http://twitter.com/raffi

[ImproperUsername]

I'd like to have a link on my website that visitors could click that
would, if they are logged in to their Twitter account simultaneously,
directly add them as followers.

I have attempted to modify a Classic ASP script that did status
updates, for this purpose:

'function asp_twitter_update(strMsg,strUser,strPass)
strUser=YOURUSERNAME
strPass=YOURPASSWORD
from_user=TWITTERACCOUNTTOFOLLOW

dim oXml,strFlickrUrl
strFlickrUrl = "http://twitter.com/friendships/create/" & from_user
&".xml?follow=true"
set oXml = Server.CreateObject("Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP.3.0")
oXml.Open "POST", strFlickrUrl, false, strUser, strPass
oXml.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-
urlencoded"
oXml.Send "follow=true"
asp_twitter_update = oXml.responseText

If Err.Number = 0 Then
If oXml.Status = 200 Then

str_GetURL = " You are now following " & from_user
Else
str_GetURL = "Bad URL"
End If
Else
str_GetURL = Err.Description
End If

response.write str_GetURL

response.write asp_twitter_update

Set oXml = nothing
'end function

It gives me the message that I'm following the user, but doesn't
actually work. Any suggestions?

I used the original version to make it so that when someone submits a
classified ad to my site, the site's twitter status updates with an
announcement about the ad. Very nice. It also logs it in a database.

[ImproperUsername]

Apparently, that Classic ASP script does work. It seems that the
Twitter account I was attempting to follow was one of those that holds
followers pending until approved.
Theoretically, you could have a link to the script and with ajax make
it so people with Twitter accounts who are signed in could follow you
with one click. Theoretically ? you could have a form that they put
their login credentials into also, but that would not be secure, so
perhaps that wouldn't be a good idea.