
Ask HN: Is there space for a fresh Twitter-like platform? - benedictlewis
With Twitter stocks at record lows, and a constant display of ineptitude from executives, is there space for a similar platform?<p>What made Twitter great in it&#x27;s infancy was the developer platform support, which has all but disappeared (interestingly, Instagram seems to be going the same way with it&#x27;s sandboxed mode).<p>As Snapchat has illustrated time and time again, there is a definite market for close-circle sharing, particularly among 18-25 year olds. Facebook is no longer cool, so what&#x27;s next? Snapchat is ideal for short-term communication, but there seems to be nothing between permanent storage in Facebook&#x27;s datacenters and 24h expiration on Snapchat.<p>If a new competitor were to launch, from my perspective it would need to focus on:<p>1) Strong (and on-going) developer support
2) Close-circle sharing
3) Medium-term storage<p>Any thoughts?
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Mk-0
There's always space.

There have been countless attempts by new platforms to take over Facebook,
Twitter, etc, but they always fail because 90% of users are so glued to what
they already know. They don't want to join a network that all their contacts
aren't already on. Additionally, a good portion of said users also don't mind
ads or privacy invasion, so those aspects of new platforms only ever seem to
appeal to users who know a thing or two about infosec.

For what it's worth, I'm no longer a Twitter user, but when I was I'd go
through my activity each month or so and delete the majority of my tweets,
retweets, and likes. Sure, they're still stored server-side, but it just
reminds me how much I wish a platform could exist with little to no retention,
like you said. Maybe a (transparent) purging of data regularly? Way too much
to ask for, but it's a novel thought.

