Title: I lost... Fair & Square Date: 21 April 2008 URL: https://ralovely.com/blog/2008/04/21/i-lost-fair-square/ Author: Raphael Campardou Archived: yes --- This is an old post, kept here for posterity. Some links may be broken, opinions may have changed, and technology has certainly moved on. --- This is one of these moments... A bitter taste and a hard time getting through. I was just beaten, Fair & Square, on the finish line, building a small web app. Here is how it started. Like many I was first confused when I heard about [Twitter](https://x.com "Twitter"), a few months ago. Some kind of broadcasted one-way IM, 140 characters limited. I didn't even _Twitt_ at first. [I only started this January](https://x.com/ralovely). As Robert Scoble - respected [blogger](https://scobleizer.com/ "scobleizer") and heavy [Twitterer](https://x.com/scobleizer) - understood it, the [secret to Twitter](http://scobleizer.com/2008/03/23/the-secret-to-twitter/ "Scoble on Twitter") is the number (and quality) of people [you are following](http://scobleizer.com/2008/04/13/twitter-and-inadequacy-er-the-great-friend-divide/), not the other way around. I also like these two twitts about [noise](https://x.com/Scobleizer/status/779385744) and [signal](https://x.com/Scobleizer/status/779386231). None of my friends are on Twitter. So I started following people from the Mac community and from the Web developer community. But it wasn't enough. So I went through the list of people followed by the ones I was following. You follow me ? Of course, this would be cool if it could be done automatically. _"Hey! I could write it !"_ - he said to himself. I first searched for an existing product - Nothing, I'm good to go. Fame & Glory are mine ! Then I searched the [Twitter API](https://x.com/help/api "Twitter API"), fired up Textmate, and coded it. I started 2-3 weeks ago, late at night, after everyone at home was asleep. I have all the backend, I even registered the Domain Name: `TwittsOfMyTwitts.com`. (What you have there is only the development pages. It works, but there is not a single line of styling, nor Javascript/Ajax). And tonight, browsing the web, I find [Twubble](http://www.crazybob.org/twubble/ "twubble")... The exact same thing (but finished and polished), gone public 2 days ago. Aarrrrgh. It was written by [Bob Lee](http://crazybob.org/ "Bob Lee"), a software engineer @ Google. Here is an [interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnxaV8jt_28 "Bob Lee Interview") of his experience writing Twubble. OK. STOP. Introspection time: - The idea is dead simple. Probably dozens thought of it, and way before. - He finished it before me. Even a few days counts. - His code is nicer than mine. **but** - My domain name is better ;) . - I'm not a software engineer @ Google nor a software engineer, nor an engineer at all. I'm not even a web developer, yet ! - My final product would have been really close to his (_You will have to take my word for it on this one_). So, all in all, that's not such a bad day. I'm OK, losing this one to Bob Lee. Being so close might even be a compliment. It still sucks: I was pretty eager to **finally** have something going public. P.S.: Bob, If you read this, I just wonder: - How did you get past the 70 requests limitation of Twitter ? - How the hell did you land on _this_ page ?! --- For the humans reading the machine-readable version: hello. You're thorough. I appreciate that.