

Is America Rooting for a Twitter Downfall?  Some Evidence. - robertjmoore
http://themetricsystem.rjmetrics.com/2010/02/08/is-america-rooting-for-a-twitter-downfall-some-evidence/
Media fallout from new data that highlighted Twitter's churn rate.
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paul9290
Facebook took it's core function and made it better; added threaded comments.
Thus to the many who never used Twitter now they don't see why they would.
Everyone they know is on Facebook and it's a more private network. My mom, her
friends and others in that demographic were not on MySpace but they have been
one of the fastest growing demos on Facebook (growth) if im not mistaken. This
same demo as a whole want and are used to privacy. Doubtful, they'll flock to
use Twitter ever.

Though Zuckerberg is pushing to be more like Twitter and he may have achieved
such by fooling millions. Yes it was all over the news, but millions still
don't understand nor cared to. Twitter on the other hand when understood is
that you are saying random things openly to whoever and anyone can read it.
That's not how people comprehend Facebook.

Zuckerberg's comments that people don't care about privacy was a bit
surprising. His demographic might feel this way - but doubtful!

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philwelch
I know Facebook lets you comment on statuses, but comments aren't threaded, or
they weren't last I checked.

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trezor
But the comment on a status sticks to the status, not as a random flat message
somewhere in a twitter-stream.

So as opposed to on twitter you _do_ get some context and you know what they
replied to. I say that is "threaded" enough to make it useful.

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char
It has always seemed to me that Twitter had been extremely hyped up, but only
by the very people Twitter is optimal for (e.g., journalists, bloggers, and
anyone else who would benefit from spreading information in a 'one-to-many'
way). Other (average and non-tech) people, whose 'followers' are limited to
Facebook friends, generally don't understand Twitter, and are often actually
quite annoyed that they have to keep hearing about it.

I think, therefore, it could be true that all these readers/commenters who
seem to be 'rooting' for Twitter's downfall, may more accurately be rooting
for it to stop being so overhyped, or for it to at least be presented as a
product they can understand.

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nir
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle>

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dirtbox
Thank you, I didn't even know there was an established term for this.

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tibbon
Some of the metrics about how many users are active and produce a certain % of
the content are somewhat irrelevant and are not a sign of downfall. In nearly
every social network I've studied with the Web Ecology Project
(<http://webecologyproject.org>) we've roughly seen that the top 10% of users
create 90% of the content. This is true for everything from HN to Facebook.

It was a super easy story in 2009 to praise Twitter. It got people reading the
articles and sold copies/advertisements. The news like stuff that is new. Now
its time for them to step up to the plate and continue on with having an
awesome, useful and sustainable service and company.

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bmm6o
Is wishing I could stop hearing about it the same as rooting for its downfall?
The only feelings of negativity I have towards it is related to the resurgence
in url shorteners, which is a view outside the mainstream.

