I think it's a pretty pissy thing for al3x (http://twitter.com/al3x/status/1786897274) to publicly denounce a controversial feature change like that... at least wait until the backlash is over! He needs to support his company's decisions, instead of being so eager to divert blame from himself.
Although my comment could be completely void if Techcrunch is overplaying the entire situation, which is probably the case...
Once upon a time, I would have agreed with you about keeping gripes internal, at least until the dust settles.
But in the rising operating mode of constant deep interaction with a large vocal userbase, authentically sharing internal dissent might better manage customer expectations. It acknowledges and mollifies, a little, without making a commitment.
It amazes me how upset and involved people are in an obscure option of a microblogging service. People who are so upset really need to get some freakin' perspective.
But what amuses me most is when commentators on the subject say the new system is convoluted. Both systems were convoluted and weird. The new mechanism is just as weird as the old one was. Every website's features are just gentle wrappers around their underlying architecture. When you look at them carefully you can see the system underneath, and that system is complicated no matter what you do.
I don't understand why it was deemed confusing. If I follow somebody, I want to read ALL their updates, no matter if they are replying to somebody or not. What is confusing about just seeing everything somebody tweets? I find it very confusing to suddenly not see everything anymore.
Also I don't understand how it could have been a scaling issue, since it was just showing all tweets, no fancy filtering or anything. Removing certain tweets from the timeline seems a lot more complicated ("if tweet is reply and !user follows person_replied_to, remove post").
It makes me upset because it was one of the major ways to discover new people to follow on twitter. A lot of viral marketing schemes are also based on this (and I mean not in a bad way). So it is not just a small thing to change.
Obviously, I have no idea how the service was built and it's most likely much more complicated than what it looks like but I, too, was surprised to read that it was a scaling issue. I'd be curious to know why an @reply makes it different from a regular status update.
Also, (even though I don't really care that much honestly) as a new user, I would say that seeing everything was a way to discover other people and to potentially be discovered as well. I feel like it's important to discover people as the very beginning so that you get hooked on Twitter.
If anyone can think of an explanation on the scaling issue, I'd be happy to read it.
The best hypothesis on the scaling explanation is that at the point where your tweet is injected into the message bus, they have your full friend-of-followers network available. With that information, they can reduce the number of followers that they send a message to. Otherwise, they blast it to everyone, and then figure out on the receiving end if it's an @reply that that person wants to see.
What doesn't make sense about this is that if they were to store the @reply preference for your followers along with the friend-of-followers graph, they could maintain the original behavior, and avoid unneeded traffic on the message bus.
So, I was part of the people confused by the feature discussed here. I understand that what was causing the problem was when you wanted to see all the replies of the people you follow but also all the replies TO the people you follow. Makes sense now...
It's not really an obscure option. The stream of tweets I see is dramatically different today than it was on Monday. And, it's also dramatically different for people who had the option set the other way. They've managed to come up with a "compromise" that makes everyone unhappy with the changes. It's just stunning.
Oh, and the new system really is weirder. It now matters whether you type "@soandso" yourself, or click the reply button to insert it for you. That's crazy.
It is an obscure option. Less than 5% of twitter's users found and used it. Those affected are a tiny but obnoxiously vocal minority who seem to think that they're entitled to dictate the direction of a social network because they've deigned to use it.
It is unfortunate that this affects you. Expressing a bit of displeasure is one thing, but the #fixtwitter public outcry and the sheer histrionics of those involved are tedious to the extreme. There are other social media and microblogging options out on the web and they also come at the low low price of free. Please feel free to avail yourself of them.
Given that >60% of Twitter accounts are abandoned, 5% is a more significant fraction than it seems. And regardless, by that standard, virtually all options are "obscure". Most users will never go and look at the options that are available, they just take whatever is the default and assume that's the only choice they get.
This article is pure gossip rag stuff, but at the same time it gives a nice timeline of events for those of us too busy to follow every little feature-change brouhaha. I wouldn't want to see too many articles in this style, but this particular one is ok, imho.
Does something like Twitter really warrant this sort of response? I mean, if my power goes out, or my internet, or anything like that, I'd be reasonably upset with the utility company, but this is a free service. I don't use Twitter so I'm a poor judge of its value.
Although my comment could be completely void if Techcrunch is overplaying the entire situation, which is probably the case...