Twitter Wishlist

Have been using Twitter for over a month now, and I must say that I've really grown to love this service. It's such a quick-and-easy way to post an update to my blog, especially when I have no time to post a real meaty blog update. I feel less guilty that way. :-P

I still haven't seen the effect my recent mobile twittering will have on my phone bills, though, so perhaps my opinion will change when the next bill arrives. haha!

I know that less is more when it comes to web applications (I've been reading 37Signals' Getting Real book, so yes, I really do get it). But I still can't help but wish for a few enhancements:

1. Getting messages on my phone with the correct timestamp for my timezone. Right now, I'm getting text messages from an SMS center somewhere in the UK (at least I think I am, since the country code is +44). So when I receive the message, they're timestamped 7 hours earlier than my equivalent time (since my timezone is GMT+8). That's downright disconcerting, especially when I'm scrolling through my Treo's inbox (which sorts the messages by date-time).
2. Sending an MMS (not an SMS) as my Twitter update, so that photos can be attached to the message. The photo should, of course, be different from my profile photo so the latter doesn't get overwritten. I suppose what I'm looking for sounds a lot like photo-blogging, but hey, if Twitter is a form of mini-blogging and each twitter post deserves to have its own permalink, then why can't I use it as a photo-blogger as well, especially since so many phones and phone networks now support MMS? Ev's vacation twitter messages from Marrakech, Milan, and Santorini would surely have been even more interesting if photos came with them. And I could have twittered some photos of the damage wrought by typhoon Milenyo.
   
3. Finding out how many people have actually visited my Twitter page, i.e., knowing which of my friends (and how many non-friends!) have actually been checking in. Think of it this way -- I can add a visitor counter to my blog, but I can't do that with my Twitter page.
   

So there you go. The top three items on my Twitter wish list. I'm sure I can think of more but everything else is of lower priority to me right now.