By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-02-24 22:30:09 | Word Count: 664
If you are a Blackberry user who is also a huge fan of the Ubertwitter Twitter for Blackberry application then your world came crumbling down on Friday afternoon. It happened so suddenly. It’s Friday afternoon, time for the weekend, I’m ready to whine down so I did what every young, hip and technologically savvy adult did. I attempted to access Twitter. This is a normal routine so it is done seamlessly and with a certainty that within a few moments my timeline will be flooded with witty banter, news updates and weekend calendars.
What happens when you go to get your “dose” of Twitter and you’re met with an obnoxious “Forbidden!” stamped across your phone screen? You lose it, that’s what happens. What? This can’t be right! What’s the meaning of this “Forbidden!” you wonder? You think your Blackberry just needs to be refreshed. No avail. You’re anxious to get to the bottom of this so you rush to log in to Twitter from a desktop computer and what do you know? The headline reads Twitter Suspends UberTwitter and Twidroyd. Your connection to the world, as you know it, is over.
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On Friday, February 18th an announcement made by Twitter Support blog revealed that UberTwitter and Twidroyd had been suspended due to policy violations. A Twitter rep later revealed that “Today we suspended several applications, including UberTwitter, twidroyd and UberCurrent, which have violated Twitter policies and trademarks in a variety of ways. These violations include, but aren’t limited to, a privacy issue with private direct messages longer than 140 characters, trademark infringement, and changing the content of users’ tweets in order to make money.”
The suspension sent a shock through Twitter World. UberTwitter flew to the top of Twitter’s trending topics where many users expressed their shock and dismay with tweets from desktop computers quoting “RIP #ubertwitter” and “#ubertwitter gone but not forgotten.” The loss was real; it was unexpected and it was unwelcome. Twitter seemed unmoved to reinstate the suspended applications despite the cries of users until necessary changes were made. UberTwitter and Twidryod users scoured every blog and tech site to find the loophole or the alternative but there was nothing. Instead users, quite reluctantly, opted for the standard Twitter for Blackberry and Twitter for Androyd applications offered through mobile carriers. It was this or nothing at all.
This seemed to be the beginning of the end. Not only for Twitter but also for my Blackberry (with most of its appeal coming from the cool Twitter app it offered). Well, that was until Monday morning.
On this gracious Monday morning, UberMedia CEO Bill Gross announced that after reconstructing apps over the weekend to come into line with Twitter’s policies he was “Happy to say that UberSocial and Twidroyd are back online.” If he’s happy, I’m thrilled. As part of their adjustments, UberTwitter changed its name to UberSocial as it had previously been in violation of Twitter’s trademark on its company name.
Along with the change in name I’m wishing all other necessary changes were made as to avoid this “mishap” again in the future. Please never leave me again, UberSocial, I need you.
