
I Haven't Quit Twitter - Twitter Quit Me - edent
http://shkspr.mobi/blog/index.php/2012/09/i-didnt-quit-twitter-twitter-quit-me/
======
blhack
You pretty much lost all credibility when you quoted this:

>Harvard – one of the most prestigious universities – awarded an MBA to George
W Bush. A man many of us wouldn’t trust to sit the right way round on a
toilet.

As a reason not to trust Harvard. The world gets it. Those republicans
_surrreee_ are dummies.

/puke

The rest of your article is a bit naive. Computational linguistics is not
considered a solved problem yet. Yes, twitter might have 26,000 or some odd
tweets from you, but that doesn't mean that they "know" anything about you.
It's dumb text.

In fact, now that you've tweeted at the sun newspaper, how is twitter to know
that you aren't interested in that newspaper? You're interacting with it, of
course you would want to see ads from it, right?

This [meaning targeted advertising] works for facebook (although arguably well
since the meme is that facebook ads don't perform) because of the "like"
system. I target ads at people who have "liked" things, not at people who have
talked about them.

~~~
edent
Hullo,

Author here. I don't think Republicans are dumb - but I'm not convinced I'd
want to invest in a company run by Bush
[http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/05/13/presid...](http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/05/13/president.2000/jackson.bush/)

On to your main point. Sentiment analysis is still imprecise - but seeing as
the majority of my (news) links go to The Guardian or Independent, and none go
to tabloids - it's not a stretch to say I'm unlikey to visit a News
International title.

I've never (knowingly) Tweeted or otherwise interacted with The Sun.

That's one example out of many. At one point, I was sent targetted tweets
about attending a conference in the USA - I live in the UK.

If they were blindly targeted, it wouldn't feel so offensive.

~~~
stfu
Can I clarify this once again:

You feel offensive, because Twitters' data analysis isn't sophisticated enough
to understand your personal interests well enough?

I want to give you my heart felt apologies. I am one of these people
responsible, who try their very best to sabotage these profiling systems and
putting effort into creating distortion and unrelated data. I hope you can
wait a little longer for that day, your when all the ads shown to you are
echo-chambering your believe set and reaffirming any (political) biases you
have.

~~~
edent
It's an interesting double-edged sword. On the one hand, I don't want to see
adverts for dog food (not owning a dog), on the other hand, I don't
(necessarily) want a company to know that I have a cat.

If a company is going to do advertising - they should do it well.

I'm not sure if you're British, but rejecting The Sun doesn't mean I reject
their political viewpoint - it means I reject their sexist, homophobic, lying,
and (allegedly) criminal actions.

~~~
answerly
>If a company is going to do advertising - they should do it well.

You seem convinced that this ad being targeted to you was some massive failure
of Twitter's ad product. I am not sure that is the case.

Premium Twitter advertisers (of which the Sun is surely one) have a variety of
targeting options that could explain why you saw this ad.

The Sun may have simply targeted all accounts in the UK. Or, they may have
targeted accounts that follow other UK publication accounts (it looks like you
follow a few Guardian accounts for example).

It is clear that you didn't want to be targeted by The Sun, but that doesn't
mean that The Sun didn't want to target you.

------
xpose2000
I'm not sure exactly what people are expecting out of Twitter at this point?

Developers were the ONLY victims here. They have a right to be angry. Twitter
used them to build their platform and then bought out the bigger companies and
said: "We'll take it from here folks". But what did the developers think was
going to happen? Twitter's college days are long gone. Twitter needs to make
money and take back control of their platform to provide a unified user
experience.

The truth is that 99% of the Twitter user base uses it as if nothing has
changed. That's because it hasn't. Most people can deal with the occasional ad
in their face. No one seems to mind that Google searches contain more ads
today than ever before. Yet there are complaints that Twitter shows the
occasional ad in your stream. So what.

Twitter is still developing and working on useful features (Twitter Cards).
Their website is still in the process removing hashbangs, which is making it
faster.

So I ask again, what are people expecting out of Twitter at this point?

~~~
JoelSutherland
Wait, if screwing over developers doesn't affect 99% of users, what is the
point of doing it in the first place. To capture 1% more revenue?

I suspect in reality they expect their change to ultimately affect more than
1% of the user base.

At this point I don't think people expect anything from Twitter. They may not
have fully burnt the developer bridge but they are close.

The way forward they chose, building another walled garden, was not the only
way forward. It is the least creative and screws over the people that made
them successful in the first place.

~~~
redorb
The ratio of affected users and the profit received from reclaiming the whole
platform aren't 1:1. That is to say I'm willing to bet twitter has gained more
potential for revenue than 1% more revenue; while affecting 1% of their users.

------
MetalMASK
wait. the Author's name is Terence Eden, and who is the author of the quote
appeared in the text?

"Harvard – one of the most prestigious universities – awarded an MBA to George
W Bush. A man many of us wouldn’t trust to sit the right way round on a
toilet.

– Terence Eden"

Wow, I haven't never seen someone who is so narcissistic about his own quote
before. Don't quote yourself. If you would like to, you may repeat yourself;
but don't quote.

Quoting is for referencing somebody else that support the point you are
making, possibly from a more credible source than yourself.

------
doktrin
>> _Twitter needs to make money. For some ridiculous decision, they’ve decided
that selling eyeballs to advertisers is the way forward._

>> _Twitter decided that they needed to make money. There’s no shame in that.
What is shameful is how boring they have been._

At first glance, this attitude strikes me as being naive - however I
acknowledge I do not have all the facts.

I do not use Twitter, nor have a I followed their evolution particularly
closely. However, I remember reading about them pursuing several different
monetization strategies. Can someone comment on why they were abandoned? Were
they insufficient or unsustainable?

~~~
xpose2000
They do have other ways to make money. Brands can be shown as "recommended
followers" to users for a price. Brands can also upgrade their accounts to
show a banner of somesort (<https://twitter.com/nylabone>) and support "sticky
tweets". Access to their API in large quantities is a source of revenue (I
think). Promoted tweets in a user's stream is another source of revenue.

There may be others, but these are the only ones I'm aware of.

------
benatkin
The headline is misleading because the author hasn't really quit twitter.

~~~
ChiperSoft
The title says "I Haven't Quit Twitter", what's misleading about that?

------
Mike_Williams
Agreed...

