

Black Widow - bradgessler
http://dcurt.is/twitters-graph

======
kyro
Can someone name me an instance where a site as popular as Twitter eventually
flopped because it didn't play nicely with third-party developers? I can't
think of one, although I most certainly could be wrong.

There seems to be this idea that angry developers -> no apps -> crappier
service -> users leaving, and I just don't see it. Apple has long been
screwing developers with their App Store and yet how many thousands are out
there coding away at their iPhone games, playing by every rule, however
arbitrary, that Apple implements?

Developers aren't going to kill Twitter, but a better service more attractive
to users will. I'm of the belief that at this point, Twitter's developed such
a huge brand that the lack of app choices alone is nowhere near enough to
decrease user engagement. Twitter is constantly on CNN, a myriad of other news
channels, and almost every major celebrity tweet I've seen has been made from
either the Twitter web interface or their Mac/iOS app.

Users have a much, much larger threshold of "abuse" than many people here seem
to believe. Facebook ads, Twitter ads, no third-party Twitter apps, etc, are
all very minor annoyances, if you can even call them that, to the majority of
users. So while Twitter's new move is certainly frustrating for the developers
that helped give them a boost initially, they've certainly got the momentum,
brand-recognition, and celebrity engagement to keep them going for a while.

~~~
heretohelp
Quite to the contrary as what is being supposed, a deluge of mediocre
developers has actually ruined more than one platform.

Pre-Nintendo, the entire video game industry crashed because of awful
developers. When Nintendo broke into the scene, they were notorious for their
stringent quality guidelines and hated for some time as a result.

~~~
hkmurakami
What's ironic then, is that Nintendo has slowly lost its dominance over the
video game console industry by its slow erosion of its developer base.

PlayStation was hugely enabled by Square "rebelling" against Nintendo and
siding with Sony, while XBox has broken through at least partly through its
fervent support for its developers.

~~~
elmuchoprez
_What's ironic then, is that Nintendo has slowly lost its dominance over the
video game console industry..._

How are you measuring dominance? I don't really follow these types of things
closely, but hasn't Nintendo been in the video game business longer than any
of its current competitors and hasn't the Wii dramatically outsold it's
current crop of competitors? They've certainly had plenty of flops and bad
years, but who exactly is more dominant than Nintendo in the console arena?

~~~
Goronmon
The Wii is winning if the only metric is pure console sales. I know personally
that even though I own one. I've played a single game on it in the last 2
years and the last 6 months it's been delegated to a Netflix machine in the
bedroom. I wouldn't exactly label that "dominance" of the current generation.

Plus, all you have to do is go back a single console generation and you have
the Gamecube which was absolutely dominated in pretty much any category you
can think of by the Playstation 2. Even the Xbox, a console by a company no
one though should develop a console, managed to beat the Gamecube in sales.

Go back one generation further and again the Playstation dominated the
Nintendo 64.

I would argue that Nintendo hasn't been in a dominant position in a very long
time. The sales of the Wii were a big win for Nintendo, but they aren't really
delivering on the games front. The Wii was sold at a time when the casual
market was ready to explode. But now it's just turned into that thing no one
uses. Hell, I bought a $99 Wii for my girlfriend's parents mainly so they
would be able to watch Netflix. Sure, it was another Wii sale, but that's not
exactly what we usually talk about when we talk about dominance in the gaming
industry.

~~~
jerf
"The Wii is winning if the only metric is pure console sales."

You may not have bought a lot of Wii games, but they are competitive on the
tie ratio metric: [http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie-
Ratio/G...](http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie-
Ratio/Global/) Basically, on every objective metric, they are either
competitive or flat-out won this round.

It takes a lot of dancing to try to claim otherwise, but a lot of people seem
ready to do that dance. I'm not sure why. I don't like Apple particularly well
personally, but I don't try to run around proving they aren't an extremely
successful company.

Oh, and if we're going to talk console dominance, one should probably not
forget that Nintendo has simply owned the portable gaming world for 12 years
now, since the Gameboy came out. The only thing that has ever successfully
competed with the Gameboy or DS lines are the next Nintendo model.

~~~
hkmurakami
Agreed on the portable gaming world, but I don't think it's difficult to see
how Nintendo's position in the console gaming market is not nearly as strong
as strong as it was during its NES/SNES days.

------
hooande
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. To Twitter, one Kardashian is
worth thousands of developers. Apps don't matter to twitter. Developers don't
matter to twitter. Celebrities matter to twitter.

As DCurt points out so eloquently, twitter is largely a one way medium.
Celebrities -> everyone else. If you need proof, look at anyone's twitter
stream (including your own) and note the ratio of famous people to actual
friends. The average person clearly doesn't care about apps or developers or
even social networking. They just want to feel a little bit closer to someone
who is better known than they are.

The real twitter killing app is whatever attracts celebrities. Anything else
might have a long road.

~~~
frankydp
I agree with this completely.

I have yet to even meet someone that uses twitter. I have always seen twitter
as a valleywood product. Seems to me like the people that use it, use it
because they think they are suppose to.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
Well, let's see. Twitter has 500M registered accounts (according to Wikipedia)
and a churn rate of about ~80% as of 2010[1], a (very) ballpark estimate of
active users is 100M.

While you personally may not have met anyone who uses it, I know a lot of
people who do and they are certainly not all in "Valleywood." And I'm pretty
sure no active user is using it "because they think they are supposed to";
there's no evidence that suggests people who aren't really that interested in
Twitter keep coming back to use it out of a mysterious sense of obligation.

[1]: [http://liesdamnedliesstatistics.com/2010/01/80-twitter-
accou...](http://liesdamnedliesstatistics.com/2010/01/80-twitter-accounts-
inactive-but-core-users-more-committed.html)

~~~
adamc
What does it mean to be an "active" user? If I use it once a month, or even
once a week while following a search, am I "active"?

I have a twitter account. I just about never "tweet", but occasionally look
for information there. Mostly I ignore it. I don't know how the churn is
measured, but I know a lot of people who fit into that category -- they use
it, but not heavily. If something else replaced it I would barely notice.

Whereas, in my experience, many Facebook users seem much more heavily
committed to Facebook, since it has updates of friends and family. (I don't
use Facebook at all, so this is just an observation -- would love to see more
data contrasting the two services.)

------
chrishenn
"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 following graph from 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."

Facebook users friend their friends AND follow celebrities/brands/products.
Facebook also encourages you to share a lot of information about interests and
locations. You might also share the same on Twitter, but its not neatly saved
as part of your profile.

I'm not sure Facebook will be able to make more money off advertising then
Twitter, but if they don't, it wont be because of lack of information about
your interests.

------
jusben1369
Devs are like artists moving into rundown neighborhoods.

"No one was here when we moved in. Windows were broken, it was dangerous after
dark. But the rents were cheap and the architecture awesome so we all moved
in." "Soon good coffee shops and restaurants opened. Some buildings were fixed
up. It was great!" "Then the hipsters/wannabes/yuppies started moving in. They
drove up rents and the price of a latte. Now we can't afford to live around
here anymore. This SUCKS"

As someone below mentions Twitter is 6 years old. It's outgrown the early
wave. Neighborhoods don't usually suddenly collapse back again. But new
neighborhoods soon flourish in old rundown neighborhoods. Better to focus on
the next neighborhood than lament the march of time.

------
Terry_B
I think Twitter understands that there is a much lower barrier to leaving
their service for a competitor, compared to the other social services.

What data do you have in Twitter that you wouldn't be prepared to leave
behind?

~~~
robryan
Only the graph, rebuilding your following/ followers would be a pain. Which
makes sense that if they are going to be a pain about anything it is
restricting access to rebuilding the graph on competing services.

------
Shank
Now would be a fantastic time for Google+ or App.net to sweep in and get
developers on their respective sides. Past social networks have gone in
phases, and I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't begin to push people away
from the platform.

No, it won't _kill_ Twitter, but it will lead to the rising up of something
else, akin to how Twitter started to gain traction when they debuted their
API.

------
gammarator
Twitter's advantages are 1) asymmetric follow and 2) a head start. Neither
provides an insurmountable barrier.

------
lsc
twitter has apps?

I mean, I'm kidding, mostly, but really, what are twitter apps for? slightly
easier input from a phone? I thought that most of the value of twitter was
that it was 'like a rss aggrigator but easier'

~~~
nchlswu
Yes, the primary added value was user experience. However, devs also built
apps for the corporate market that go beyond consumption use cases.

Granted, Twitter has been working on their own business services and apps that
fall under that category will probably remain unaffected (for now).

------
Jerpo
So the reason twitter closing its API as as an attempt to maintain their
'walled garden'? Rather than building a sustainable competitive advantage they
are freezing out developers and hoping for the best?

Perhaps it is part of a larger scheme, that leads to monetization?

------
varelse
Instant YC startup: Twitter alternative with free 3rd party app support up to
a given volume with dirt-cheap pricing for additional volume beyond that -
long-tail your way to success just like an app store. Am I missing something
obvious here?

------
keppy
Although I sometimes am left feeling shallow--after reading one of the shorter
blog posts like this one from the front page of HN--I am usually thankful more
words were not used on the same topic.

------
ceol

        >The problem with this solution is that Twitter was built
        >on the backs of the very developers it is now blocking.
    

Was it really? I've never seen any specific stats, but what are the number of
users solely relying on a third party app to use Twitter versus the number of
users who just use the site? I bet there are a lot more who just go to
mobile.twitter.com or use the official client instead of paying for a third
party app.

~~~
frankydp
Didn't the "official" client start out as a third party app. Tweetie.

~~~
ceol
And I'm asking how much of an effect it really had. The fact third party apps
exist doesn't mean the majority of users, or even a worthwhile number, use
them.

------
prawks
The thing most of these types of criticisms of Twitter forget is that users
don't make apps, developers do.

------
y4m4
140 characters is equally smart and equally shameful for Internet from where i
see it. Twitter will do what fits its revenue model relentlessly and
ruthlessly, since its logical and rational. Point is since you can't fight it
"Kill It" and build a new one.

