The Quick Bar #dickbar introduced into the official iPhone Twitter app last month and the subsequent blunt guidance issued to developers are interesting not least because they appear to be the first bad moves the company has made in its five years.

Specifically on the #dickbar issue; I think what probably annoys people the most about it being dumped right at the top of their lists every time they load up the Twitter app, is that it so inelegantly gives the finger to the very essence of Twitter.

We spend time carefully choosing and pruning the list of people we follow on Twitter and so our lists are therefore precious and individual to us, we care about them more than we probably realise.

The implementation of the #dickbar is so pernicious because it completely ignores the key curation principle that Twitter has so successfully embodied thus far - we choose who we follow. And so the #dickbar offends our sensibilities so much because it has more in common at an emotional level with website hacking and defacement. That's why people find it so grating.