According to Twitter’s status page, Twitter (now) says that it is/was under a denial of service attack (Wikipedia entry for Denial of Service Attack).

In a statement to CNN, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone (Wikipedia entry for Biz Stone) said:

“There’s no indication that this attack is related to any previous activities. We are currently the target of a denial of service attack. Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users. We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we defend and later investigate.”

Twitter now claims that the web site is now back up… however, somecanuckchick (still) cannot access Twitter, via the web site, TwitterFox, TwitterTools, etc.

In the meantime, here is a list of alternative things to do.

Update, from Twitter’s post regarding its recovery from the DoS attack:

“As we recover, users will experience some longer load times and slowness. This includes timeouts to API clients. We’re working to get back to 100% as quickly as we can.”

I have also noted an increase in email over the last month, with respect to my cessation of twinterest, reflected in the removal of certain kinds of tweeple from my Twitter stream.

Without further ado, here are the top 5 reasons I will (likely) not follow you, or stop following you altogether on Twitter.

1. You have no Twitter avatar — When you sign up for Twitter, you are encouraged to upload an image that will represent you in the twitterverse. With it, your Twitter profile appears more personable, identifies you in your followers’ Twitter stream, and helps you to relate others.
2. You have no Twitter profile — Again, when you sign up for Twitter, you are encouraged to fill out details about yourself, specifically your location, link to your web site, and a little blurb about yourself. This helps others to ascertain how interacting with you could add to their overall Twitter experience.
3. You have less than 25 followers — And you are following hundreds upon hundreds or thousands upon thousands of Twitter users. In my opinion, Twitter is about quality, not quantity.
4. You have never updated your Twitter status — Or, you rarely update your Twitter status, or you have less than 25 Twitter status updates, or you update your Twitter status every 5 minutes.
5. Any and/or all of your Twitter activity has been, is now, and will continue to be about marketing a product and/or service to the twitterverse — A product and/or service which I will never ever want, much less need.

Basically, a combination of any and/or all of the above could/would/should result in a lack of twitterprocity on my part, or a #followfail. However, neither of these should reflect negatively on my twittequette.

Feel free to email somecanuckchick regarding twittequette, twitterprocity, etc.

Now, Twitter Giveth Back… Kinda.

Twitter claims to have learned a lot between yesterday and this afternoon.

Twitter now has a band aid solution in place to #fixreplies.

As of today, updates beginning with @username—that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon—will be seen by everyone following that Twitter account.

Twitter also says that a new feature—which will give folks more control over what they see from the accounts they follow—is being designed.

In short, Twitter will not be reverting to the previous @replies system.

Twitter acknowledges that while Twitter users loved the feature, it was confusing and caused a sense of inconsistency.

What do you think of the band aid solution? Do you think Twitter can do better than the previous @replies system?

Let somecanuckchick know!