
Twitter is Pivoting - olivercameron
http://daltoncaldwell.com/twitter-is-pivoting
======
nemesisj
I hate to be that (negative) guy, but I'm starting to get really tired of
Dalton constantly pissing all over twitter. Particularly because he's
competing against them. I'm an App.net backer, and I think it's cool what he's
doing, but FFS, let someone else carry the water, if it even needs carrying at
all. This all just feels really petty and whiney, particularly when you're
already at work solving the problem.

~~~
gojomo
This adds news (Chernin's involvement) and knowledgeable analysis in context.

And, for an insurgent platform/viewpoint to succeed, it needs tireless
promotion. (Graphomania, even.)

Skip his blog posts if you don't like them, others find them valuable.

~~~
nemesisj
Look, his post may be insightful and interesting, but the point is that if any
other startup on here spent post after post publicly criticising their direct
competitor, it would hopefully be viewed as a negative thing. Why is App.net
any different? There are plenty of ways to promote your scrappy and noble
insurgency without sticking it in the eye of your competitor.

Again, I think what app.net is doing is interesting and great, just not these
types of blog posts.

~~~
gojomo
But the predations of the Facebook/Twitter business model are both the
founding impetus and sustaining animus of App.net. They're always on topic for
Caldwell, and _especially_ when new information advancing and refining the
critique comes up.

And the analogy of 'spending' posts isn't quite right. There is no budget
constraint on internet writing to advance your cause: in many cases more is
better as long as you're not repeating the exact same points. (And as I
mentioned: I see both new news and analysis in this post, even though it
advances a familiar theme/viewpoint.)

~~~
drumdance
Eh, maybe. Twitter got started after Facebook, but I don't remember seeing
Twitter talking _about_ Facebook.

~~~
malandrew
That's because Twitter didn't know what they were or were trying to become.
They probably didn't see themselves as a competitor to Facebook, but as a
complement.

~~~
pyre
Facebook didn't try to become Twitter-like until later on, when Twitter was
already becoming popular, IIRC. It was more of a "Twitter is social-network-
ish, maybe we should incorporate Twitter-like features into our product."

------
danso
Of all the rhetorical points that Dalton makes, this one was the most damning
for me:

>>> _His announcement was formatted as a direct reply to the official Twitter
account._

 _This means the announcement would only be seen by his followers that also
follow the official Twitter account. I don’t get the feeling he did this on
purpose. An experienced Twitter user would know to add a “.” at the beginning
of his message so that his followers would see it._ >>

It seems a bit pedantic. But when top-down leaders don't get even the basic
details of their operations right, then there are a lot of other big-picture
things that they seem to get wrong as well. In the case of MySpace's crushing
defeat by Facebook, the difference really was in the details, not in the
overall ambitions of the two companies.

~~~
spot
[http://www.quora.com/Twitter-1/Why-do-some-tweets-have-a-
per...](http://www.quora.com/Twitter-1/Why-do-some-tweets-have-a-period-in-
front)

i knew twitter was broken but this takes the cake. i have been using twitter
for years and had no idea.

~~~
TillE
Hey, Quora got slightly less obnoxious about blocking their content. Finally.
Just a week or two ago, I followed a link to Quora and they were still doing
the scummy old Experts Exchange trick of blurring out most of the answers.

~~~
jlgreco
I tried them two days ago and they were doing the same. Seems like a very
recent change.

------
zaidf
_An experienced Twitter user would know to add a “.” at the beginning of his
message so that his followers would see it._

Signed up for twitter on the day it launched(I think) and did not know that.
Twitter is a painful product to use. It isn't made for humans.

Twitter doesn't _have_ to show a username in tweets; they can easily translate
it to the name.

Twitter doesn't _have_ to require each reply to appear like an out of context
note. They can easily group them as _complete conversations_ (like facebook
allowing comments).

Twitter doesn't _have_ to make lists so hard to use. They can easily make it
very similar to facebook(except on twitter there is much more need to use this
since they do not filter out tweets).

Twitter doesn't _have_ to insist on this 140 char limit that looks funnier
every coming day and result in butchered communication.

Twitter doesn't _have_ to subtract 100 characters if I post a URL that is 100
characters; it could automagically shorten it or not count against the 140 at
all. Instead, I am forced to manually use bit.ly to shorten it.

Twitter doesn't _have_ to show me a stream filled with url strings; it could
easily show the title of the page or something similar to facebook.

Dear Twitter, PLEASE stop this stubbornness in your product philosophy. It is
hurting your users and it is hurting Twitter Corporation.

~~~
MattRix
Sorry, but it's painfully obvious from your post that you don't actually use
twitter, at least not regularly enough to "get it".

\- user names are a huge part of what makes Twitter interesting, imho it's not
meant to be the type of service with real names

\- replies do get grouped as complete conversations, and it's been that way
for a while now.

\- lists really aren't that hard to use, I don't know what your problem with
it is

\- and the 140 char thing is your craziest point... 140 chars is exactly what
makes twitter so great and so interesting, if the messages were longer it
would drastically affect how the service works and feels.

Basically what I'm getting at is that Twitter is already fantastic for
users... unfortunately it isn't making them enough money, which is why they're
changing so many thing about the service, but let's not pretend they're
changing things because the user experience is so bad... if the experience was
so bad, they wouldn't have the millions and millions of users that they have
now.

~~~
zaidf
_\- user names are a huge part of what makes Twitter interesting, imho it's
not meant to be the type of service with real names_

I am genuinely curious of the use cases where the username adds more value
than the name associated with the account. I'd also like to know what type of
service twitter is _supposed_ to be in your view.

 _\- replies do get grouped as complete conversations, and it's been that way
for a while now._

 _Technically_ they do, but visually they are a mess. The way humans naturally
converse is by adding their comments to a topic. This is why facebook lets you
comment on a wall post. If you read a wall post and the comments, they make
sense. On twitter, it begins with reading some random comment and _then_
having to reverse engineer the conversation it possibly may belong to.

 _\- lists really aren't that hard to use, I don't know what your problem with
it is_

On twitter.com, in order to see a list, I have to click on an icon on top,
click on "Lists" and then click on a list name. That is 3 clicks _and_ a page
reload compared to facebook's 1 click. Furthermore, so I click on a list,
browse and want to click on another list. I must hit the "back" key resulting
in a page reload, and then choose another list.

 _it would drastically affect how the service works and feels_

Sure it may feel drastically different...but that could be for the better, no?
140 char was a great thing to launch with just as facebook restricting to
college campuses was a great hook - but products evolve to accommodate wider
audiences. Twitter hasn't.

My personal reading is that twitter long passed the threshold where it would
be some underground place and increasingly tries to _present_ itself for the
mainstream--without changing the product to accommodate the mainstream. The
equivalent would be facebook opening up to the world but building features
mainly for the college market.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
_\- the username adds more value than the name associated with the account_

Well; username is actually the ID; what you use to follow someone, reply
someone, promote someone, etc.

 _\- 140 char was a great thing to launch with just as facebook restricting to
college campuses was a great hook_

No, the limitation is actually good in the long run, you _have_ to be concise,
very useful for most kinds of massive streams of information. In my view it
would be like Youtube hosting pics and users having to navigate through both
kinds of media.

In the other aspects I agree with you; Twitter haves many many problems and
hasn't really improved much in years. The back button is extremely broken.

------
ChuckMcM
Ok, third comment here, guess the previous two comments (memesisj and
jamesmoss) pretty much define 'polarizing' :-)

Dalton raises some interesting questions. What exactly _is_ twitter ? And
perhaps more importantly what does Twitter think it can become? The churn in
API restrictions, usage and messages certainly can be confusing.

~~~
swohns
I don't see these options as mutually exclusive. How is consumption of
information canceling out sharing information? Especially with the ability to
email tweets now. This seems to run contrary to what Dalton is writing about.

My favorite twitter comment is that you don't have to tweet to use twitter.
You can contribute to the news, and you can consume it, Twitter isn't pushing
for people to use just pursue one.

~~~
sparkie
Twitter is pushing people into using their service in particular ways (eg, by
restricting clients), and by the sounds of what is to come - the advertising
will gradually get more aggressive.

Dalton understands what makes social media work - and you can see it in how he
advertises App.net. If you ask "what is App.net" and look for Dalton's answer
somewhere - he never explicitly states. He is deliberately vague about what it
is - because it isn't anything until its users have defined what it is.

That's how twitter became successful in the first place - the service was
defined by its users to become what it is now. Not just twitter, but every
major social network grew the same way, and the ones that failed are those
that didn't understand this.

So Twitter, Inc. need to be careful not to piss off it's content creators with
aggressive advertising or constraining how they interact with it. What
Twitter, Inc want their service to be is ultimately not their decision - it's
up to the users.

~~~
swohns
Well put, it's a 100% user driven service, and has been historically friendly
to developers. While the later point may be shifting, they can never lose site
of their content creators value, and have to actively listen and work with
them in order to make their publishing as easy as possible. I think that makes
sense of their recent purchase of Vine, a beautifully crafted service on the
twitter platform.

------
sethbannon
This is how I use Twitter now -- to consume news and discuss said news with my
social circles. I certainly wouldn't be upset if Twitter took this as the core
use case of the product.

~~~
cpeterso
Twitter is like RSS for people who don't know what RSS is. And I mean that in
a good way. :)

~~~
swohns
Totally agree, I think Twitter understands this too, their their recent work
in NLP to analyze trends, and grouping tweets to create adhoc discussion board
like centralizations of discussions.

------
wmf
I get the impression that social media douchebags already pivoted Twitter in
that direction a few years ago, and now Twitter is just confirming it. The sad
part IMO is that it seems like they could fix their developer relations
problems and their business model by charging to send relevant tweets to
existing followers, not unrelated ads. Of course, I don’t even use Twitter so
you probably shouldn’t ask me.

~~~
javajosh
True, but the root problem is in education. Our schools are passing out
"social media douchebag" degrees left and right - we can expect nothing less.

This is only partially tongue-in-cheek. The balance of information systems
operate on trust, just as economies do, and eroding trust at the institutional
level is a bad sign.

~~~
wmf
As much as I like to make fun of the douchebags, I have to admit that there is
some merit to the idea of Twitter as an opt-in marketing channel or a
character-limited version of Google Reader — at least those use case are
useful to some people. The original Twitter, although authentically social,
ranged from boring (I don't care what you had for lunch) to frustrating (you
can't have any meaningful discussion in 140-character chunks).

------
jmduke
For those unaware: Dalton Caldwell is the creator of app.net, a direct
competitor of Twitter (with a subscription fee model instead of an
advertising/data model).

I think it's important to read the post with that context in mind.

------
lotso
"What is post-pivot Twitter supposed to look like?

The best way to consume “news and information”. Important content is mostly
created by media companies, whether they are blogs, television, radio or
movies.

The main reason that “normal users” would write messages is as a backchannel
to discuss media events such as the Olympics, Election Coverage, or a new
television show. “Normal user” tweets are something akin to Facebook comments.

Even though this backchannel exists, it’s not expected that brands and
celebrities are supposed to pay much attention to everything that is said.
Chernin himself hasn’t replied to the numerous replies he received."

That's funny because that's how I used Twitter from the beginning (5 years
ago).

------
dm8
I have to disagree with author on some of the points. And looks like he
doesn't like the fact that FB and Twitter are part media, part software
companies.

"a media company writing software that is optimized for mostly passive users
interested in a media and entertainment filter."

What's wrong in being media company? We all agree that software is eating the
world, so why is it bad if Twitter is "disrupting" real-time media
consumption? I loved Twitter's Olympics coverage. Even though I was thousands
of miles away from London, I could feel the excitement.

Same for Hurricane Sandy. It was so useful to get latest news update in such a
terrible time (for everyone involved). I was caught in another disaster few
years back and the biggest problem was not getting important news updates from
credible agencies/people. Twitter solved that problem for Hurricane Sandy
coverage.

Twitter/FB are becoming like "breaking news" for every news. Be it
earthquakes, celebrity gossip, world cups, olympics or new product launches!

------
lordlarm
I actually have used and are using twitter. It is a horrendous user experience
- but I know how to fix it.

My main problem is my diverse interest in different subjects and twitters
current inability to let me organize and follow what I like.

I'm following approx. 200 people divided 30% technology, 30% cycling and 30%
friends/locals. For me, it would be impossible to imagine following more than
250 or 300 people with todays interface - because they are all thrown into
each other and reading the raw feed is a clutter and mess of subjects.

You would think, considering their main goal is to get people following their
interest, that they would get this part of the interface right. But the
contrary - it is what is worst with twitter.

The solution (and problem) I'm hinting to is of course _lists_ and as
Facebook, G+ and virtually every other social network already have found out:
people like to organize interests, people and subjects into different
"buckets". Facebook had a lame interface for this many years, but does a
better job now.

My point is, as an experienced twitter user, I know where the pains are and my
first day in office I would make sure that the accessibility of lists were
greatly improved.

The second day I would use to fix a decent conversation view and
comprehensible reply scheme.

EDIT: To point out the inaccessibility of lists today, here is the general way
to read up on a subject: tool-icon > lists > choose list. That's 2 clicks too
many. You could also use the shortcut "gl" and spare 2 clicks, but still, it
is 1 request too much and way too complex for the regular user.

~~~
madh
I have a similar issue. I go to Twitter for many things -- work info, to
laugh, friends -- and it doesn't work to have everything jammed into one
stream.

I would like to see something split the list of accounts I follow into
subject-based lists or something so that I can consume with context.

At some point, I think following becomes less important. Ideally Twitter could
just show me tweets that I should enjoy. I'm not looking to get every update
anyway -- I just want to dip into a stream of info that I'd find both timely
and relevant.

~~~
city41
Have you tried tweetdeck? It does just this. Set up columns for hash tags that
interest you, and you can see what the entire twitterverse is saying about
those topics in real time.

------
nsns
Perhaps a true _commercial_ social network is a contradiction in terms; the
friction from the user=product formula necessarily becoming unbearable with
time. Perhaps an open source non profit solution wil have suited it much
better.

------
jamesmoss
Although I'm fairly indifferent about app.net I could read Dalton Caldwell's
blog posts all day. He's a clever guy that puts across his points well.

------
jusben1369
So just reading the post I got a little confused (and then i found out he's
the creator of App.net and wondered if his passion isn't clouding his best
judgement) Firstly the quote: "Given that most of their traffic comes from us,
if we build adequate if not superior competitors, I think we ought to be able
to match them if not exceed them." - I just wasn't quite sure what this quote
meant - I certainly didn't assume it mean't we're going to block them though.
Maybe they did block them but shouldn't the correct quote end with "I think we
ought to be able to block them"?

He's been using it for a long time to consume news and information. Ok, makes
sense. Yet this is apparently objectionable or at the very least damming. I
_think_ it's damming because he says he's a consumer not a producer of tweets.
Is this news to anyone?

"Admit failure and give up on trying to get normal people to tweet" The
balance in twitter's tweet creation and consumption happened organically.
Kudos to Twitter for allowing it to happen vs forcing unnatural acts? "You
should tweet more!" I don't look too closely but it seems like it's been an
open secret for 2 + years that 80% of all tweets come from 5 - 10% of users or
whatever.

I guess I wouldn't call it a pivot if Twitter is focusing heavily on the 10%
that do 90% of the tweeting vs trying to get the other 90% to tweet more.

------
jonathanjaeger
Dalton was just on This Week in Startups. Great to hear more in-depth insights
on iMeem, social, ad sales, and app.net
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6ZsIlfzSBU>

While I don't necessarily agree with his wording in every blog post, this is
an awesome interview.

------
saumil07
1\. I like, support and (pay for) App.net 2\. One tweet, by one famous media
guy (admittedly a board member, yes, but really only known for being a great
media executive) does not a strategy make. 3\. The title "is pivoting" is
extremely assertive and not really backed up by, well, a preponderance of
facts or data.

------
iomike
Hard to say you're a "long time user" if you've only been on since 2010. Been
on 6 years, that line made me laugh.

------
state
To me, what's implied by this piece — since it's written by Dalton — is that
Twitter is leaving behind an opportunity that he plans to take advantage of.
What remains to be seen is whether the thing they're leaving behind can be
fully realized.

Do people really need a short-form messaging platform for communication?

~~~
bentlegen
Or perhaps Twitter has already figured out that there is no opportunity, and
Dalton is mistaken in believing it exists.

~~~
alxp
I think the opportunity Twitter is leaving behind won't pay off for Twitter's
investors, but it is enough to be worth Dalton's time and effort to scoop up
in Twitter's wake.

------
pbreit
The one point that really did not resonate with me is that companies will take
over. Currently, companies are by far the worst tweeters and are totally
dominated by individuals whether thy be celebrities, experts, citizen
journalists, etc. Even the good tweeters who sort of tweet under a company
umbrella define themselves more than their companies. Twitter seems to me that
it will remain the anti-company network since it provides so much advantage to
the collection of individuals.

------
diedsj
I think its outrages that a member of the board of directors of twitter has
absolutely no idea what he's doing on twitter. I have no knowledge of Dalton's
other business then this blogpost, and therefore it doesn't strike me as
annoying, just a well written critical analyses of what twitter is doing
wrong. I really hate the protectionistic (i.e. stupid) way twitter is doing
business and I hope if enough people vocalize it, twitter _might_ do something
about it.

------
cwp
Interesting, but it's reading an awful lot into a single tweet.

------
michaelkscott
If you want more insights about the things discussed here, there's an
interview that Mark Suster did with Joel Spolsky last year where they talk
about the "API wars":

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZWBtfSBlp8#t=2240s>

They cover everything from the early days of Excel's API to the downfall of
myspace and the rise of YouTube and Photobucket, and how twitter took off.
It's worth your time.

------
ghostblog
"Admit failure and give up on trying to get normal people to tweet."

What are you saying? Fourteen year olds and ethnic minorities use this
website. How normal can you get?

"An experienced Twitter user would know to add a “.” at the beginning of his
message"

Thanks for the protip, Dalton.

------
jsilence
So are we finally moving to our own status.net instances?

------
fudged71
TIL what the '.' in front of '@' is for. Interesting.

------
Codhisattva
Sounds like Chernin wants to make a news wire.

~~~
Uhhrrr
So, Google Reader with poorer infrastructure?

~~~
cpeterso
99.13% of Internet users don't know what RSS is.

------
hayksaakian
I like that twitter forces you to be concise.

~~~
marshray
I have a theory that it was Twitter forcing people to be consise that was one
of the major factors of the Arab Spring revolutions.

Think about it: Politicians who have been trained in the art of speaking in
soundbites have been ruling much of the world since the advent of electronic
media.

Those who can't phrase their arguments in bite-sized pieces for busy people to
digest come across as being ineffective intellectuals.

Titter gives ordinary people the ability to communicate in soundbites.
Sometimes less is more. This is society-changing powerful stuff.

------
stephenhandley
they're just gonna concentrate on content/media sharing via url, and that
isn't necessarily big-company driven. people sharing links and talking about
them etc.

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mullingitover
I'm a longtime twitter user. He should've checked out my account for an
example of best practices - <http://twitter.com/mullingitover>

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winstonian
Imagine a Hacker News without Dalton Caldwell or 37 Signals.... Mmmmmmmm

