Resistance is futile

[liv]

So. I joined Twitter, but I seem to be incapable of doing anything. Reading the FAQ just confused me further; possibly I'm too stupid to hang with the cool kids. Does anyone want to hold my hand and help me figure out how to make the thing work with Jabber or LJTalk, and how to add friends (I tried the obvious thing of going to profile pages and clicking on "add", but that just refreshed my homepage with no effect). I feel dumb.

Assuming I eventually manage to make it do stuff, please let me know if you're on the site and under what username so I can friend you.

Edit 3 pm: I managed to get the friending thing to work by means of using IE instead of Firefox. But still no luck with the IM system

Edit 5 pm: It's not me, it's Twitter; you have to try things a dozen times before it actually does anything. Thanks to pplfichi for testing for me

Comments

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

I have to say, the one thing that doesn't seem to be mentioned is what you actually *do* with it. It implies that you already know all that.

I don't use twitter, but:

This (http://help.twitter.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=28) [help.twitter.com] appears to cover how to add the LJ Talk/Jabber interface and This page (http://help.twitter.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=10) [help.twitter.com] appears to cover how to add friends - If I read it right, typing add+friend's_mobile_number in the web interface or though LJTalk/Jabber once you set that up) is the right command to add a friend. add+username *might* work too, but that's only a guess based on what I'd expect to work.

[liv]

Yes, the help page on Twitter was the first place that I looked. I have tried several variations on the procedure to activate Twitter through LJTalk, and none of them have any obvious effect. I don't know anybody's mobile number, (basically because none of my friends live in the same country as me, so it would be pointless) and if it's restricted to people who have the kind of relationship where they would know that, then maybe I can't get much out of the site after all.

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

Procedure I followed (my IM client is Pidgin (what Gaim renamed itself to))

Settings (top right) -> Phone & IM

Typed pplfichi@livejournal.com in into the Instant Messenger text field, and selected LiveJournal from the drop down. Hit save. Added twitter@twitter.com into my LiveJournal buddy list in Pidgin (I got it wrong once and pasted an extra space; that didn't work...), and answered yet to the authorisation question pidgin popped up. Opened an IM window to twitter and pasted the verify string into it. It told me that it worked.

A quick test later and it actually seems to work.

Clicking on the add link on people's profile (in the actions box on the right) appears to work for adding friends, but I think you've figured that out for yourself already?

[liv]

Thanks! It failed about 15 times before it worked, and at first I thought it was something I was doing and kept changing things, but I did eventually get it set up. A lot of work though; I'm amazed Twitter is so popular if it's this much of a pain to get started. (As far as I can tell, the profile add link works in IE but not in Firefox; seriously, Twitter is supposed to be the latest cool thing, how is it not compatible with FF?! But maybe it's just that it works intermittently, and happened to fail on the several times I tried it in FF.)

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

The server fails about every second time I try to use it; it's not Firefox *pets it*, it's twitter (which does seem to have its issues).

[(Anonymous)]

It probably works intermittently - I used SeaMonkey and that seemed to work fine. It took me several attempts to do a test using Pidgin (it spouted errors at me) and once just ate it. If it's always this bad I have no idea how it's gotten this popular...

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

That was me!

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Did you get my Direct Message??

I'm, well, my lj handle. *g* Friend me and see, and try direct message-ing me.

[liv]

I have not received any direct message, either on the web or by email or via IM. I did get an alert that you had friended me, but when I tried to friend back it didn't work. That is, I clicked on the "add" link on your profile and it just refreshed to my homepage, but still showed me as having no friends. That's why I posted here asking for help, because there's got to be some obvious step that I'm missing.

[monanotlisa.livejournal.com]

Nah, there isn't -- you did it all right, TWITTER is often being difficult: lots of bugs, lots of malfunctions. *eye-roll*