After a successful viral spread through the twitosphere fueled by auto-posts reporting a member’s score, many people ultimately concluded Twitterank was a twishing site. This idea was helped by some prominent articles leveling that charge, but suspicions were already raised by a number of cues—the poor presentation, use of Internet speak, no attribution or ownership by the developer, and a rating completely without context.

It took some quick reaction from developer Ryo Chijiiwa to calm the masses. The web site has changed, with more accountability, a more polished design, and a re-working of the programming to eliminate the need for users to enter their Twitter password. Had this been the model that was put out into the world, the reaction would have been quite different.

The second incident was the new ad campaign for the over-the-counter pain-relief drug, Motrin. The slick looking ad is very well produced, bringing to mind the great “Le Grand Content” by Clemens Kogler, Karo Szmit, and Andre Tschinder. However, the content was, at best, out of touch with the consumer group they meant to persuade.

Motrin’s ad targeting baby-carrying moms

… and the #motrinmoms response to seeing that ad.

Jeremiah Owyang wrote a great synopsis of the biz-tech dynamics that evolved, including several screen shots of tools that show how quickly this reaction developed on Twitter. While Owyang focuses on the reaction and impact on the Motrin brand, both of these are great examples of ways to mess up a design.

In a human-centered approach, the designs arise out of a real need that can be identified only by understanding the person or group of people who are meant to benefit from the outcome. In the case of Twitterank, the user group was largely unstudied and the process was decidedly technology-centered. Ryo built the code, and paid a price for its initial form being incompatible with his intended audience. For the Motrin ad makers, it seems only a superficial understanding was gained of its intended market audience. It is only speculation but plausible to think that the idea for this particular ad came from studying business spreadsheets with an enterprise goal of wanting to get more moms to buy Motrin. Even if the aftermath reveals focus groups and vetted ads, it will be easy to question the methodologies used by the company in light of the highly-motivated opposition to the 30-second spot.

It is clear, too, that the rules of engagement are changing. The swiftness of response and the willingness to become active in opposition made some quantum jump in the past several weeks. Personally, I’m not sure if the Motrin ad is offensive, even if it is flawed and misaligned, but enough people made enough noise to catch the attention of the company, who pulled the ad campaign with apologies. Blink, and the world changes.

Over the weekend, I finally made good on a months-long pledge to build a website that would archive tweets from local twitterers. The Indiana Twitosphere uses a WordPress platform and Charles Johnson’s great RSS plug-in, FeedWordPress, to keep tabs on the individual contributions of over 150 known Hoosier twitterers. Most of these people are from Bloomington and, more specifically, the IU School of Informatics, but I expect to test the limits of the plug-in by doubling that total by summer.

I started a Twitter group on Smaller Indiana to help spread the search into other parts of Indiana. Doing so could make the Twitosphere project bend a bit or break under the stress of other cities. Another Twitter project I am involved in threatens to do that just within the School of Informatics, so I am a bit wary about scaling up to statewide involvement.

There are some restrictions that keep the Twitosphere from being comprehensive and 100 percent accurate. The baseline for the project are the 2,686 posts that kicked off the site today, including some early adopter accounts that were so dormant their 20-tweet RSS feeds dated back to January 2007. It is unlikely I will take the time to go back and fill in the missing pieces, but Twitosphere should allow me to keep a master list of local Twitter members and build a nice repository for later research.

Are you twittering?