It would seem that all you need to be classed as an entrepreneur and get loads of media attention these days is to copy an idea and spam Twitter. Great.
Over the last couple of days everybody from TechCrunch to Time have been writing about Twifficiency as it "sweeps" over the Twitterverse cluttering up our Twitter feeds. In case you didn't know it, Twifficiency is a poor man's Twitaholic, Twitter Grader, TwitPwr and countless other Twitter tools that tell you your "social reach" or other such gubbins that some people think is important. BTW it's not.
What surprises me is that the whole reason the press has picked up on it so much is because the creator @JamesCun somehow managed to "forget" to code in the bit of the site that asks permission for anyone who uses it to tweet out the results. And because of this people's Twitter stream's were inundated with this crap until he fixed the issue today.
So let's get this straight, he builds an inferior version of Twitter Grader with less features, an ugly interface and builds it wrong so he spams Twitter and then he gets called an entrepreneur by Doug Richard's (ex Dragon's Den) School For Startups?! Really?
Don't get me wrong, the guy obviously has some average coding skills and he is after all only 17. And who knows he may go on to develop bigger and better things. I'm just a bit bemused by all of the media attention he's gotten. Mind you there has been a lot of negative stuff too but to have TechCrunch. School for Startups and Time to write about you is pretty cool. My advice to James would be to milk his 15 minutes for all it's worth, build up some industry contacts and then go and build something that's really cool (and original).
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Twifficiency: An unoriginal idea that spammed Twitter but got the creator mentioned in Time
13 Responses to Twifficiency: An unoriginal idea that spammed Twitter but got the creator mentioned in Time
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You’re right of course, you can start a trend on Twitter by doing something bad, doesn’t mean you’re a genius!
BTW you left the “t” off the end of the creator’s Twittername
This is not his only thing he has done, this is raw talent of a 17 year old programmer who if he hooks up with the right people might go far, keep in mind Graeme who is a director in two of my companies was 16 when I meet him over 10 years ago, he done some online tools for website owners.
Before I posted my comment on Twitter to Dan and was then used by Time I had already researched him and noticed he was the only Scottish Programmer at Rewired State event and personally I would like to work with him to build a decent business out of his skills before college gets a hold of him and destroys his creative spirit
No doubt the guy has skills and good for him for trying things out, I think what’s out of kilter here is that a lot of the Twitter traffic was caused by people being concerned it was malicious etc (on top of the auto-tweet spam) but some just see a trending topic and think “amazing, guy must be ace!”
I have to admit I was surprised to hear that you would offer him a job as I imagine that you could build what he did, with one hand tied behind your back. Good to hear he’s done other stuff too.
Yeah of course that’s pants but it was about showing initiative and ability to just go for it, as you know I have like 20 years worth of project ideas, some will be hits, many will be misses but can’t do them all without hiring folk and the people that excite me are new undamaged talent, you know they up all night programming it just cause they love it types, not many of them around.
It also shows that people will jump on bandwagons and seldom blink at giving the ability to broadcast from ones social accounts w/ little thought for the outcomes. It shows that some of us are pretty hung up on this number bullshit and really need to grab a bigger slice of this thing called life!
I look forward to the copycat apps a la twunt, twick and twidiot!
By the way this was what I found when I stuck his name in to Google and added “programmer” to the end http://blog.rewiredstate.org/post/937744317/young-rewired-state-2010-roundup
An Awards Winner “Best coding” – James Cunningham – NatuSearch in our industry we have a big party, and give him a big paper weight for his efforts, the Government gives you a Lego Mindstorm
Hi Stephen, indeed, most of the am are ex-journalists who are Online PR Experts “can use Twitter and Facebook”
Too true!
That’s pretty impressive. I can see why you’d want him.
Of course the paperweight is on top of what you’ve already made from your business- but if you can pay him with toys, so much the better
Here is an effective business plan: do something that’s not so smart, make sure that a lot of people know about it and then either end up an Internet sensation or with your own reality TV program. I hope this fad ends and people start getting recognized for doing the right things, rather than the wrong things all of the time. I have no doubt that he is a good coder from the comments here and what I have heard, but does his mistake really grant him all of the media hype?
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I think it is typical of the times to be honest. You can literally get something for nothing these days in terms of the media. There are way too many people who are famous for being famous and this is a variation of the same issue.