Pretty black and white. And then the next sentence after clicking through is...
> Twitter might rebound in the wake of Jack Dorsey’s reappointment as C.E.O., but the service is still in trouble.
And the article ends with...
> That doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. There are hundreds of millions of dedicated users (I count myself among them) who still see tremendous utility in the service. ... The company just needs to find the right way to show the power of those connections to a bigger audience, and the value of that audience to advertisers and partners. Not a simple task, but for Twitter an unavoidable one.
Pretty egregiously click-bait. I propose changing the title to something that better captures the article—like "The Current Problems at Twitter".
Other than that, not really much here other than speculation, and the already-known worry about lack of growth. Curious to see how Twitter does, I think there's still chance as long as they quick focusing on revenue above all else, and focus on the experience first. Unfortunately that's not easy to do as a public company.
Twitter is such an unlikely success. It's a product that few understand, and even when you do, it's hard to explain it. The functionality is dead-simple. But, at scale, its effect is magical.
I think closing down the service to developers was its pivotal mistake. The possibilities were endless, and could have solidified Twitter as the "utility" Topolosky speaks of...but they got greedy.
That's where stronger leadership would have helped, I think. If a CEO insisted on a longer-term vision, he or she could have fended off investors. Examples: Amazon, Facebook.
Yes, much like handing out megaphones at a music festival. I see very little value in the incoherent rambling that is twitter, but of course I'm not a market researcher or intelligence analyst.
But really. Personally, I actually do find it to be magical. It's taken 5+ years of trying, retrying, adjusting, and readjusting to get it right, but my Twitter feed is superb.
Like facebook, there is no using it correctly or not. Once you are in you are socially obligated to follow everyone you know with a feed. Call me old, but I still use bookmarks. Every morning I check my news from my favorite outlets and blogs using old html. The things worth my time don't fit with twitter's approach to information.
Yeah I was being cheeky. I was a die-hard Google Reader fan until I started using Twitter, but that approach lacked social commentary. It was something I had to experience to understand. What do the people I respect recommend? What are they thinking?
That might be valuable to you, as it is to me, or it might not be. Beyond that, Twitter really is just a list of links.
I guess that's where twitter and me differ. The people I care to listen to do not broadcast their thoughts on public platforms, at least not the though worth listening to. They talk via closed communities.
> Like facebook, there is no using it correctly or not. Once you are in you are socially obligated to follow everyone you know with a feed.
If the way you use it keeps it from being useful, then I would suggest that you are in fact using it incorrectly.
I mean, you don't have to drive all your friends around everywhere just because you own a car. And you don't have follow all your friends just because you're on Twitter. You don't even have to tell your friends you're on Twitter.
Twitter should have taken a page from Apple's playbook: let third-party developers innovate and then integrate their functionality by copying them (Sherlock, etc) or, less so for Apple, acquiring them.
Yeah. No matter how many Ninjas and Rockstars you hire, you'll never get close to the collective creativity of the crowd. It's a critical mistake for a service that's billed as a "platform."
Yeah that's something I don't understand about companies in the social space (in general). I'd pay for Twitter. But they won't take my money.
As I mentioned in another comment, however, I think there's more money and a better sell to developers. Open up the API & charge for high-volume access to it.
I really don't understand what they're doing. Cash, users, attention, etc. are all there but they're not doing anything with any of it.
One of the more poorly written pieces I've read in the New Yorker. The author is all over the place: predicting doom, saying he doesn't see the point of Twitter, proclaiming himself a dedicated user.
Also, this line of ego-drivel:
> This is especially notable to all of us in the world of media, the people who fill these services with highly valuable and hotly traded “content,” such as the piece you’re currently reading.
One we should put to rest: the "Facebook can just build this" argument. Facebook built Paper to take over news. It failed. Facebook built Slingshot to copy SnapChat. It failed.
Technology companies are not just successful because of their technology. _Especially_ in social media.
Are there any data released on use of chat heads (in Android, the only OS where they can exist)? Personally I love chatheads, they're why I've driven so much of my messaging into FB Messenger. But I would certainly be curious as to how many users disable them.
I'm in that horrible demographic (white uppermiddle class New Yorker who lives in a cool neighborhood) that's probably the most valuable in the US, and literally _all_ of my friends use Facebook Messenger as their primary means of communication. Name another service that:
1. Doesn't require me to ask you for your screenname
2. Syncs seamlessly between all of my devices
3. Works well with video/pictures/video phone calls
4. Isn't swamped with spam
There isn't one. Don't let selection bias blur your view.
You realize Messenger has 800mm monthly active users right? They're sitting there waiting to be monetized. Messenger is HUGE and they're turning it into a platform, which is very very smart of them.
Groups is huge too, it's sitting there also waiting to be monetized and in their latest earnings call, they emphasized that they are investing more heavily into Groups to bring it to it's full potential. It's been put on the back burner for a while, but it will become huge.
To be fair, any hack at Facebook could have written this article, and it seems that the "hotly traded content" which used to be what the media created is widely turning to pap; lowering the bar to create it and therefore making it cheaper to make means that anyone can "build" a news site.
At what point can a companies growth slow down without it being a concern? For example, google says as of March 2015 Facebook had 1.44 billion monthly active users. With an estimated 3 billion people in the world having internet access that's 50%. Can you really expect to see significant growth at that point?
One other thing I've never quite understood is the concern with users vs. revenue. I get that for a start up, you want to grow and grow fast. For an established company like Twitter, as long as your user base isn't actively shrinking, wouldn't it make more sense to concern yourself with making money off those users instead of trying to gain more? What would be a better sign, 1% user growth but 15% revenue growth, or 1% revenue and 15% user?
>> At what point can a companies growth slow down without it being a concern?
That depends on how reliant the company is on perpetual growth. Many tech companies are not profitable. If growth slows for them, and the rate of slowdown points to a bad place, they may never make a profit and so backers will flee. But others with established businesses don't need growth. They can go on steadily with a mildly increasing market value or pay slow dividends to shareholders. Unless they are over-valued and have leveraged whatever stock they have retained. Such companies may be doomed even if profitable. So there is no definitive answer.
At some point in my social circle, Twitter transitioned from "a live feed of what your friends are doing", to a tool people used to read the news and keep tabs on celebrities.
In my experience, SnapChat's My Story feature has completley supplanted the "live social feed of your friends" aspect.
IMO, SnapChat's effect on Twitter's is comparable to EverQuest's effect on text-based MMO's. One platform mercilessly dominated the other because of visual stimulation, and all the fun micro-features that go with that.
You've never really made it big until somebody says you're over.
Twitter isn't going anywhere, the very fact that they have survived terrible corporate management, high level turnover, and failed advertising initiatives proves the significant value of their content.
I agree. I am fairly confident that Twitter will survive as long as they don't do drastic redesigns like Myspace did. The Twitter stock price, on the other hand, will possibly plummet a lot more.
The media will simply parrot whatever the stock price has done. The stock price was simply too high for what it was worth or maybe worth for several yrs. the media interprets this as indicating a dead company.
Twitter has 300 million users and growing, 60% rev price growth to over 2B, new features like moments, periscope, and a treasure of real time news and data. Twitter is really an fantastic success and every quarter grows revenue by an amazing amount.
If the stock was going up (as I suspect it will from here), the media will parrot the great turnaround... When nothing will have changed fundamentally.
> When bombs went off during the Boston Marathon, in April of 2013, users sat glued to the feed, suddenly privy to something visceral and real, something happening. ... It was raw, but it was streamlined.
But what real value is in that raw stream beyond voyeurism ?
After nearly 50 years on this earth I've come to feel that the nowness of things is not that important. "Quick turn on the news" became "meh, I shall wait a few days and see how it pans out before spending time digesting it".
Interesting that they claim, "the growing wave of harassment and abuse users of the service were dealing with—a quagmire epitomized by the roving flocks of hateful, misogynistic, and well-organized “Gamergate” communities who flooded people’s feeds with hate speech and threats." (archive of article: https://archive.is/IpLBu#selection-529.21-533.70)
Looking at the live feed (https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=gamer...), I don't see anything that matches this description. Is this old media scaremongering against new media like video games and Twitter? Or just terrible reporting?
The beginning of the end started with cutting developers off. Twitter could've been the tent pole of a whole ecosystem letting its user community evolve the social experience organically. Instead it opted for an arrogant top-down approach that has essentially killed its relevance.
45 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 95.2 ms ] threadPretty black and white. And then the next sentence after clicking through is...
> Twitter might rebound in the wake of Jack Dorsey’s reappointment as C.E.O., but the service is still in trouble.
And the article ends with...
> That doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. There are hundreds of millions of dedicated users (I count myself among them) who still see tremendous utility in the service. ... The company just needs to find the right way to show the power of those connections to a bigger audience, and the value of that audience to advertisers and partners. Not a simple task, but for Twitter an unavoidable one.
Pretty egregiously click-bait. I propose changing the title to something that better captures the article—like "The Current Problems at Twitter".
Other than that, not really much here other than speculation, and the already-known worry about lack of growth. Curious to see how Twitter does, I think there's still chance as long as they quick focusing on revenue above all else, and focus on the experience first. Unfortunately that's not easy to do as a public company.
Should we rather ask, is the article worth reading regardless of its title?
I think closing down the service to developers was its pivotal mistake. The possibilities were endless, and could have solidified Twitter as the "utility" Topolosky speaks of...but they got greedy.
Yes, much like handing out megaphones at a music festival. I see very little value in the incoherent rambling that is twitter, but of course I'm not a market researcher or intelligence analyst.
But really. Personally, I actually do find it to be magical. It's taken 5+ years of trying, retrying, adjusting, and readjusting to get it right, but my Twitter feed is superb.
That might be valuable to you, as it is to me, or it might not be. Beyond that, Twitter really is just a list of links.
If the way you use it keeps it from being useful, then I would suggest that you are in fact using it incorrectly.
I mean, you don't have to drive all your friends around everywhere just because you own a car. And you don't have follow all your friends just because you're on Twitter. You don't even have to tell your friends you're on Twitter.
Not a chance. Only true on Facebook but that is easily taken care of by ruthlessly unfollowing/hiding all but your highest value connections.
It just looks like a storm of hatred and noise, with some good comedy and utility in breaking news situations.
As I mentioned in another comment, however, I think there's more money and a better sell to developers. Open up the API & charge for high-volume access to it.
I really don't understand what they're doing. Cash, users, attention, etc. are all there but they're not doing anything with any of it.
Also, this line of ego-drivel:
> This is especially notable to all of us in the world of media, the people who fill these services with highly valuable and hotly traded “content,” such as the piece you’re currently reading.
One we should put to rest: the "Facebook can just build this" argument. Facebook built Paper to take over news. It failed. Facebook built Slingshot to copy SnapChat. It failed.
Technology companies are not just successful because of their technology. _Especially_ in social media.
1. Doesn't require me to ask you for your screenname
2. Syncs seamlessly between all of my devices
3. Works well with video/pictures/video phone calls
4. Isn't swamped with spam
There isn't one. Don't let selection bias blur your view.
Groups is huge too, it's sitting there also waiting to be monetized and in their latest earnings call, they emphasized that they are investing more heavily into Groups to bring it to it's full potential. It's been put on the back burner for a while, but it will become huge.
Or tl, dr: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2015/02/Scree...
At what point can a companies growth slow down without it being a concern? For example, google says as of March 2015 Facebook had 1.44 billion monthly active users. With an estimated 3 billion people in the world having internet access that's 50%. Can you really expect to see significant growth at that point?
One other thing I've never quite understood is the concern with users vs. revenue. I get that for a start up, you want to grow and grow fast. For an established company like Twitter, as long as your user base isn't actively shrinking, wouldn't it make more sense to concern yourself with making money off those users instead of trying to gain more? What would be a better sign, 1% user growth but 15% revenue growth, or 1% revenue and 15% user?
That depends on how reliant the company is on perpetual growth. Many tech companies are not profitable. If growth slows for them, and the rate of slowdown points to a bad place, they may never make a profit and so backers will flee. But others with established businesses don't need growth. They can go on steadily with a mildly increasing market value or pay slow dividends to shareholders. Unless they are over-valued and have leveraged whatever stock they have retained. Such companies may be doomed even if profitable. So there is no definitive answer.
In my experience, SnapChat's My Story feature has completley supplanted the "live social feed of your friends" aspect.
IMO, SnapChat's effect on Twitter's is comparable to EverQuest's effect on text-based MMO's. One platform mercilessly dominated the other because of visual stimulation, and all the fun micro-features that go with that.
Twitter isn't going anywhere, the very fact that they have survived terrible corporate management, high level turnover, and failed advertising initiatives proves the significant value of their content.
Also revenue has continued to grow year over year on par to be over $2B in 2015.
Sure, user growth has slowed but so, the important people are there for me anyway. ;-)
Also, don't forget periscope which is growing like crazy and has yet to be monetized.
There is no platform like Twitter. With a lot of cash in the bank and a slow burn Twitter will be around for a very long time.
Twitter has 300 million users and growing, 60% rev price growth to over 2B, new features like moments, periscope, and a treasure of real time news and data. Twitter is really an fantastic success and every quarter grows revenue by an amazing amount.
If the stock was going up (as I suspect it will from here), the media will parrot the great turnaround... When nothing will have changed fundamentally.
But what real value is in that raw stream beyond voyeurism ?
After nearly 50 years on this earth I've come to feel that the nowness of things is not that important. "Quick turn on the news" became "meh, I shall wait a few days and see how it pans out before spending time digesting it".
I know that's a personal thing.
For one thing, it helped feed the Reddit witch hunt that tracked down and popularized images of... the wrong people.
Looking at the live feed (https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=gamer...), I don't see anything that matches this description. Is this old media scaremongering against new media like video games and Twitter? Or just terrible reporting?