The reason it takes so long is that the Twitter API only allows us to fetch 100 entries at a time. There are API calls to return all of the friend/follower IDs for a user at once, but they only return numeric IDs, not the screen name, which is far more useful for display. So we either need to find a way to fetch multiple batches of information in parallel, or we need to mirror the entire database of Twitter IDs and screen_names on our own server. Or maybe both. Even better would be a new API call to fetch all the screen names, but that’s not our call.

And, we realize that there is currently no feedback in the browser while Twitual is doing its thing. We’re going to be working on that, and hopefully when we’re done, we’ll have some spiffy whiz-bang progress bars to let you know what’s going on, and how close we are to being done with your request. Just don’t expect it to happen overnight — we’ll have to take our current, simple, no-nonsense code and transmogrify it into a bunch of complex, full-of-nonsense code. Those kinds of things take time!

In the meantime, we still think Twitual is a pretty nifty tool, and we hope you do, too. If you agree, keep spreading the word about us. Let us feel the love, we’re needy that way!