
Twitter's graph (2012) - jimsojim
http://dcurt.is/twitters-graph
======
mbesto
> _Twitter has an enormous advantage over Facebook in one key area: while
> people on Facebook tend to friend their friends, people on Twitter tend to
> follow their interests. The social graph that makes up Twitter is worth far
> more on a per-account basis because it is directly monetizable in a way that
> Facebook’s generally isn’t – you can show prophylactic advertisements to
> Twitter users based solely on the people they follow, and probably get a
> much higher rate of interest. Compared to other social display ads, Twitter
> ads, it is rumored, work extremely well._

So, clearly this is from 2012 and the thesis is 100% incorrect (in fact,
pretty much inverted). The interesting thing is that this is pretty much how
the general populous still thinks Facebook does it's ad targeting. The author
massively overlooked machine learning. I don't have first hand evidence, but I
can only guess that Facebook is crawling every piece of data possible
(pictures, messages, etc) and then draws conclusions of my interests there. In
addition to this, all FB user info is being hashed and compared against
consumer spending data (e.g. DLX and Acxiom).

The level at which FB and Google can target us is staggering. There is a
reason these companies make so much money.

~~~
mozumder
Twitter still has higher ad conversion rates.

Machine learning can only do so much. Human editing will always win over
machine algorithms, and Twitter users curate their follows. Also, machine
learning only improves conversion rates by 2x. Meanwhile, I've seen a 10x
conversion rate improvement when hand editing ads on a site. Machine learning
ads are why you have out-of-context ads that destroy a sites user experience.

~~~
mbesto
> _Twitter still has higher ad conversion rates._

Source? Genuinely curious, about to kick off a campaign on Twitter in an
esoteric area (triathlon) and can't imagine it will be a higher ROI than FB.

> _Also, machine learning only improves conversion rates by 2x. Meanwhile, I
> 've seen a 10x conversion rate improvement when hand editing ads on a site.
> _

I'm not sure you're following my line of reasoning here (or maybe I'm not
following yours). The machine learning becomes useful when I try to target
people's behaviors. For example, I say "Facebook I want to run an ad against
all people who actively run and get them to buy running shoes". Facebook is
going to optimize to serve up ads to people who (1) run (determined by
messages they send to people "hey great run, I did 5km last week" or
integrations with RunKeeper, Strava, etc, or maybe I have pictures of me
running a race) (2) click ads (easy enough) and (3) will purchase online
(determined by conversion pixels of previous campaigns). This is a gross
oversimplification of course.

~~~
argonaut
If we're on the subject of citing sources, what are your sources for saying
that:

> _the thesis is 100% incorrect_

and guessing that:

> _Facebook is crawling every piece of data possible (pictures, messages, etc)
> and then draws conclusions of my interests there. In addition to this, all
> FB user info is being hashed and compared against consumer spending data_

That's a pretty sweeping statement. You'd be surprised at how naive (and
distinctly not-amazing) the machine learning algorithms used _in-production_
at places like Facebook can be (in-production, as opposed to cool research
papers that aren't actually used in-production).

Going off of your simplified example, there are tons of contexts in which
someone might say "run" without meaning anything related to the athletic
activity. That's the definition of shitty targeting (false positive).

------
Kapura
I find it odd that somebody would spend half an article talking about how
users consume Twitter as entertainment then claim that it's the developers who
will determine the platform's fate. It seems to me that if the content is what
keeps the average user around, it's most important to keep the content
creators happy. Twitter hasn't had a stellar record with this so far
(especially w/r/t harassment), but they have succeeded in not alienating lots
of giant celebrities, which seems to me to be the only thing that could
conceivably kill today's Twitter within the next 5-10 years.

------
ivankirigin
> where the developers go, the users will follow.

This doesn't seem to be true. It's true of real platform plays, like a desktop
or mobile OS.

~~~
arnorhs
Yup, and not even with desktop / mobile OSes. Generally it's the other way
around. Where the users go, developers will follow.

There are cases where the relationship is important, like in the early stages
of a product - where in some scenarios you need both. And yes, if you need
developers, and developing for platform x is hard, and y is easy - all else
being equal y would win.

------
Permit
>When the disruptive competitor comes along – when, not if – who are the
developers going to side with?

There can't be more than 50,000 devs who used the Twitter API. I definitely
don't think they're going to be the deciding factor.

That being said,I would never use the Twitter API based on the horror stories
I've heard.

~~~
minimaxir
2012 was before Twitter went thermonuclear with their API limitations. (back
then, you could even access the Twitter API _without authentication_!)

------
minimaxir
> _[...] what value does Twitter have, other than a more restricted set of
> content? What about App.net? Twitter is in an even worse position than
> MySpace to fight off a disruptive competitor._

Did this article imply that App.net was about to kill Twitter since App.net
was open?

Heh.

~~~
jljljl
I think the point is: If Twitter had remained open, it would have been easy
for users to export their graph and take it to competitors with similar
features. Twitter closed their friend finder APIs to prevent this.

I don't know if App.net could have ever killed Twitter, but Twitter closing
made it harder for users to transition to App.net in the first place.

------
wellboy
Not sure if I understand correctly, but doesn't Facebook have the "interest
graph" completely built in through facebook pages? In other words, just as
Twitter knows a user's interest through the hundreds of people they followed,
Facebook knows a user's interest through the hundreds of Facebook pages they
liked/followed.

Isn't that completely the same or isn't Facebook even better in that respect,
because Facebook pages are much more often real interests, whereas Twitter
users that are followed are more often people instead of interests?

~~~
andy_ppp
When this was written in 2012 Facebook didn't have the concept of following at
all, only friending. It's easy to forget that they subsumed most of the good
things about Twitter.

~~~
argonaut
It's easy to forget, because it never happened. Following is not "a thing"
that's popular to do on Facebook. Likes and friending are really the dominant
interactions.

~~~
mattzito
I'll have to disagree - we do Facebook page monitoring and I often see random
brands with millions of fans per country. I often thought the same thing
because _I_ never friend anything, but I am clearly not the majority.

~~~
argonaut
That doesn't make it the nexus of activity on Facebook.

If friending disappeared, Facebook would cease to exist as a product. If
liking disappeared, a huge chunk of activity (40+%?) would disappear. If
following disappeared (you could still friend or like), I don't think many
people would notice.

~~~
mattzito
> That doesn't make it the nexus of activity on Facebook.

That wasn't my contention - your contention was:

> Following is not "a thing" that's popular to do on Facebook.

And yet, the hundreds of millions of people who have followed brands on
Facebook would indicate that it is popular. It can be popular without being
"the nexus".

~~~
argonaut
I said it wasn't "the thing." I meant it wasn't very important. You're also
talking about likes. People "like" brands. They don't follow them. Following
refers to people following other people, without friending them - this is
Twitter.

------
ducuboy
> I suspect the reason that Twitter is cutting off apps from using its “friend
> finder” feature is because...

How did this happen? I've been using Twitter API these past years but I'm not
aware of this "friend finder" feature. Getting friends/followers is still
there in the REST API.

