

Twitter needs to get their shit together - konichiwasan
http://bruun.co/2012/08/17/twitter-needs-to-get-their-shit-together

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ryanwanger
I don't understand why people think it's fair to criticize a move like this
without offering a plausible alternative that will sustain the business. Sure,
letting other people build on it got them to where they are today, but where
exactly is that? With massive infrastructure and engineering costs, but little
income.

Twitter doesn't owe anybody anything. We owe them. If they don't find a way to
monetize, then everyone loses.

~~~
Smudge
Perhaps this is inevitable. A necessary step for Twitter to stay alive. But
then maybe instead we should be asking ourselves what's next? What's after
Twitter? Twitter (et al.) have proven how valuable this kind of service is,
but also that it can't be sustained as a business, at least not without some
pretty ugly changes.

App.net is a start, but I think it gets it wrong. The value in Twitter is that
anyone can use it, anywhere, for the cost of getting online. If we boil it
down to just being a highly-scaled service layer with a standard API, maybe
the it's the developers themselves that should be paying for API access. Let
the 3rd party app ecosystem thrive, but make them pay for what they use. Right
now Twitter's doing the opposite and might end up dying slowly over many years
as a result.

~~~
diego
The problem with Twitter is that they took way, way too much investment money.
Now that we know what Twitter looks like, you could build it from scratch for
much less. If Twitter dies because it's impossible to sustain the valuation
their investors were hoping for, perhaps someone would build a less ambitious
alternative.

Even though the magnitude is bigger, it could be similar to the Digg-Reddit
saga. Digg was hyped as the next big thing, took too much money, made
extremely risky moves and collapsed. and then collapsed. In the meantime,
Reddit slowly built a less ambitious product that eventually replaced it.

~~~
damncabbage
Morg: I can't reply to you directly, but it looks like you've been hellbanned.
Might want to chuck a quick email pg's way and see if you can't get it sorted
out.

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dj2stein9
Twitter replaced IRC.

Facebook replaced Email.

In both cases they were easier to use solutions to social communications on
the Internet. But these profit-seeking corporations are now standing in the
way of futher progress. The gatekeepers need to go. A new decentalized
protocol to replace both of them desperately needs to developed.

~~~
tmh88j
>But these profit-seeking corporations are now standing in the way of futher
progress. The gatekeepers need to go.

Neither IRC nor Email are companies that own the rights to their communication
method.

~~~
dj2stein9
Yes I know, I was referring to Facebook and Twitter.

These companies improved upon open protocols, but their business models and
motivations are now standing in the way.

~~~
tmh88j
Right, and my point is that if they don't want people to mess with their
product then its entirely their right to prevent it. While it may not be
smart, it's a different situation than email/IRC.

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andrewhillman
Although I disagree with how twitter is handling things, I believe this is
twitter getting their shit together as they get ready to roll out ads via
their API. Third party apps will display sponsored tweets very soon.

