

Twitter's UX: Separate the hits from the geekhacks  - andrewtbham
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2618-twitters-ux-separate-the-hits-from-the-geekhacks

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adamhowell
I don't usually quote pg, but I think in this case it's relevant:

"Old Twitter is what you'd get if an engineer brought New Twitter to Steve
Jobs, and Steve beat on him relentlessly to simplify it."

(<http://twitter.com/#!/paulg/status/25998745559>)

To me adding a file upload button, a To:/CC: field, a link field, etc. etc.
would be even worse.

The beauty of an API is that power users can download and/or signup for apps
that add on to the original service in the exact, fussy way they want. And
non-power users can just type into a textarea.

~~~
kyro
I noticed upon clicking that link that Twitter has broken my back button
functionality. I get redirected to the Twitter home page, and subsequent
clicking of the back button takes me back to pg's status.

~~~
patrickaljord
That's a firefox bug.

~~~
kyro
I'm using Safari.

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al_james
Saying "Streams are built out of subscriptions ('following'), not
'friendship'" is something twitter got right over facebook is _totally_
missing the point. Facebook is about real (meat-space) friends, not random
geeky egomaniacs like on twitter. Apples to oranges.

~~~
derefr
But a subscription is a simpler building block, that allows for a wider
variety of relationships. With Facebook, every relation must be symmetric;
with Twitter, relations are symmetric by choice; you can have friends (you add
them, and they add you), but also fans, without having to extend the feature
set or invent new terms. Facebook, on the other hand, had to create Fan pages,
because they didn't have a preexisting verb that users could overload to do
the same thing.

~~~
al_james
If facebook had used the verb 'follow' or 'subscribe' to friends, it would be
nowhere the size it is now. People would not get it.

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armandososa
This is the comment I left in that post:

\--

Why? We geeks gave twitter it's success. We stayed faithful to them even when
better alternatives (pownce, jaiku, plurk?) appeared. We endured the fail
whales. We forgave the lack of features and we built apps and invent smart
hacks to compensate for it.

Now you are suggesting that Twitter should kick us out so the Justin Bieber's
fan doesn't get annoyed?. Screw them! They'll fly to the next cool thing in a
year or two anyway.

We'll stay if they treat us with respect.

~~~
points
I think it depends on definition of 'geek'.

I doubt many hackers use twitter. It's for self promotion mainly, or consuming
that promotion (Being a fan). Something I don't think most hackers are
interested in.

~~~
SabrinaDent
_It's for self promotion mainly, or consuming that promotion (Being a fan).
Something I don't think most hackers are interested in._

That demonstrates a very shallow and cursory understanding of Twitter. It's
also problematic for people in the hacking space; if you eschew channels like
Twitter _until you need to market your product_ , you will have no native
intelligence in the ecosystem, you will gain no benefit or far less benefit
than you might have, and you will not do as well by your product as you might
have.

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alanh
According to Doug Bowman’s reply to me, integrated URL shortening is (of
course) a known pain point that they hope to resolve after taking care of bugs
and nailing the implementation.

<http://twitter.com/#!/stop/status/27695305433>

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tompetty
I'd guess a problem with having images or URLs not counting towards a
character count is the myriad of different interfaces/apps twitter is used in.
A lot are text only and it might become a real headache in terms of imparting
the information concisely / in a rhythmic and uniform fashion

~~~
alanh
Right, let’s not forget SMS. Twitter launched TXT-heavy and is still used
mostly that way in certain emerging markets.

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dfj225
I agree with the main point here. I'd like Twitter more (and find it more
usable) if all the context/meta information (links, hashtags, references to
other users--@replies, etc) were separated from the content itself. 140
characters is not a lot and they are frequently wasted on giving context
instead of original thought/message content.

