I'm going to be giving a presentation at the WebMapSocial meetup on Tuesday, Nov. 17. Want to come?  Find out all the info right here.  It's at the Google campus in Mountain View - I'm excited for an excuse to go visit!

I think I'll be talking about iTweet.net and the upcoming Local Trends API that Twitter is going to be releasing soon.  I also may be talking about the SaaS product I've been building, NetConference.tv.  It's only kinda-sorta map-related, but it IS shiny and new, so I'm excited to show it off.

Thanks to my friend Catherine Burton, host of this group, for the invite. She is an avid mapster and innovator - check out her unique company Endpoint Environmental.

Ahh, it reminds of olden days when Twitter was down more than it was up. 

iTweet.net has been down since yesterday morning (with a few short reprieves) due to the DoS attacks that are happening.  I'm keeping an eye on it and will update this post when service is restored.

Adding to the confusion, I am not able to post any tweets from Twitter.com or even via SMS, so I am unable to respond to those of you who have asked me what is happening.  Sorry! I hope you've subscribed to my blog's RSS feed.

Twitter has confirmed that the downtime is only affecting some clients, also that SMS is unavailable for some users, and that they are working on the issue.  I guess I'm just lucky enough to fall into both categories!

Update: iTweet.net is back online, after some changes from Twitter and some refactoring on my end to accommodate those changes. Yippeee!
(August 7 2009, 4:30pm PST)

I just noticed in my web app iTweet that Twitter is reporting a maximum of 150 API requests per hour now! Hurray!  This is great news for Twitter clients, as the API limit is a constant challenge in user interaction.

Twitter had mentioned that this was in the works, but so far I haven't heard mention of them actually launching this upgrade.  I hope it is here to stay!

They have also recently fixed a long-standing bug that caused followers/following methods to report incorrect data. Along with this fix came some new API methods for managing follow relationships - I will be updating iTweet with a new follow/unfollow UI just as soon as I can get to it!

There are some really great improvements coming soon to iTweet.net - stay tuned for much much more.

A nasty worm is sweeping through Twitter this weekend. Up till now iTweet.net has been immune to the attacks, but a newer, trickier version was causing browsers to redirect to the spammer's website.

In response I've temporarily disabled the site while I work on a fix.  Thank goodness I seem to have caught it within minutes of the new version spreading through the Twitterverse.

IMPORTANT:  The worm was not able to spread via iTweet, nor was any data compromised (usernames and passwords are well-encrypted). The worm was exploiting actions specific only to twitter.com and causing people to automatically tweet deceptive links which caused itself to spread as others clicked those links. This didn't work with iTweet's different structure, it simply caused the page to redirect to their script where it stopped. I do recommend clearing your browser cache and cookies as a safety measure, and avoid using web-based Twitter clients until this worm is dealt with.

Please check back here on my blog for updates about iTweet, and check the Twitter status blog as well as their main blog for up-to-date information about the worm.