Now Using TinyChat with Twitter Verification
I’m sure a lot of you liked how it was easy to just choose a nickname and start chatting but unfortunately due to impersonators, I decided to change the chat system in place here. After last night’s chat with a Chris Pearson impersonator, and the real Chris Pearson taking notice, I quickly realized I needed to make a change fast to somehow verify users in chat.
I asked for feedback on this a few weeks ago, and a number of you echoed my concerns that impersonators may be a problem in the future. Since this chat seems to spread so virally on Twitter, I was looking for a solution that would allow users to login with their Twitter accounts. TinyChat seems to have that feature, and a lot more, so I decided to make the switch today.
From now on you’ll need to sign-in with your Twitter account into TinyChat. I know it may be a little annoying as it will automatically tweet a message from your account saying you’re in there. Rest assured you will know you are talking to the person behind the Twitter account.
I made the layout here a bit wider to accommodate the wider chat app, but you’ll also be able to chat directly from TinyChat at this URL if you prefer. I’d also like to thank designer extraordinaire Chris Wallace for his help with setting up the #wpchat room on TinyChat.
Let me know what you think of the change below in the comments below.
Update: Although yesterday when I tested it, I made sure it required Twitter login, although looking at it today it seems TinyChat still allows you to login with a “nickname” thus bypassing the Twitter verification. I’ve contacted TinyChat support about resolving this.
4 Comments so far
I think this is a really good call.
Otherwise, it’s flash based and I can’t use it until I update my computer.
(short version: I’m on a 64 bit Linux build that doesn’t support Flash of any kind.)
Ah, that’s too bad. I was thinking I could maybe keep the old chat page around for more informal chats, but put a disclaimer at the top about the lack of verification.
You are too much of a nerd!