I was chatting earlier on with Beirut (@beiruta) and she was complaining that her Twitter profile shows that she has only tweeted 850 updates, while just a few days ago it was showing more than 5000 tweets. Using Google’s cached results, I confirmed that, and by that time, Beirut had a few more people complaining about the same issue.
The Twitter Number of Updates Bug - comparing current vs. Google cached profiles
So far, comparing cached Google results versus current results, the following Twitter users replied to @beiruta’s inquiry and are facing the same issue at the time of writing:
- @arleigh, dropped 21,000 tweets from a cached count (13 Aug 2009 02:38:44 GMT) of 21,819 to 1,090 tweets!
- @MoGeezie, had an outstanding 15,894 tweets via cached results (10 Aug 2009 10:01:52 GMT) and now showing only 3,824 tweets – a drop of 12,000 tweets!
- @beiruta, Beirut A.H., now showing 850 updates, while a Google cache page dated “10 Aug 2009 23:43:01 GMT” shows 5,662 tweets. A 4,812 drop.
- @togetherwf, Susan Smith, dropped 4,358 tweets from 4,744 tweets showing via Google cache (13 Aug 2009 03:19:08 GMT) to 386 currently showing.
- @memachel, Michelle Brooks, is now displaying with a count of 10,880 tweets, while the cached copy (12 Aug 2009 04:42:53 GMT) has her at 11,473 – a drop of 593 tweets.
- @wallybock, Wally Bock, now showing 6,322 updates, while the cached page on “13 Aug 2009 18:07:02 GMT” shows 6,721. Dropping 399 tweets.
So far @arleigh seems to have the biggest *proven* drop at 21k! Did your tweet count drop?
Is this yet another Twitter bug, just like the tweeting up to 250 characters bug?
I asked Beirut (@beiruta) why that drop made her frown, and she replied…
Beirut’s response…
Let me tell you why I think this sucks!
I’ve been a Twitter user for almost 6 months now, working hard, every single day and even on vacations, to create and share valuable, “retweetable” tweets and status updates for all my followers to enjoy and benefit from. When I suddenly found out that the number of my status updates fell dramatically with no reason, prior notice or even an apology, here is what crossed my mind:
- Twitter is one of the most popular social media sites; how could such a supposedly well-maintained site allow for such a mistake? I mean seriously, I feel that all the effort I made all those months has vanished through thin air!
- Many people would not want to follow me now: I am losing the possibility of people adding me, as we speak, due to this mistake that shouldn’t have happened in the beginning! Who will get those people for me again? Those who will think I am inactive and would not want to add me? Will Twitter make it up for me? I highly doubt it!
- Many tweeps will probably unfollow me as well! I, myself, use Tweepi.com to unfollow inactive users and now I seem to be one of them unfairly! If someone decides to look over my profile or the number of my tweets, they will be disappointed to find them relatively low as compared to the number of my followers and those I’m following!
- Is it true that free is always not good enough? I mean we all know that Twitter is a free service, does that mean we have to suffer? Aren’t they profiting from our free usage anyways? We, the people using Twitter, are who made it what it is. Is this how we are repaid? Do I have to go to the blog to find out that the updates are not lost, as they claim?
Finally, I think corrective measure should be taken and they should be taken now! In Twitter I trust (or maybe not so anymore!)
Finally, did your tweet count drop?
If your number of updates count dropped too, sign your name below and how much you dropped, maybe Twitter will notice and fix it ASAP!
Updated with screen shots of the Google cached pages – as Google cache gets updated continuously.
