Ask HN: Is there space for a fresh Twitter-like platform?
With Twitter stocks at record lows, and a constant display of ineptitude from executives, is there space for a similar platform?
What made Twitter great in it's infancy was the developer platform support, which has all but disappeared (interestingly, Instagram seems to be going the same way with it's sandboxed mode).
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's next? Snapchat is ideal for short-term communication, but there seems to be nothing between permanent storage in Facebook's datacenters and 24h expiration on Snapchat.
If a new competitor were to launch, from my perspective it would need to focus on:
1) Strong (and on-going) developer support 2) Close-circle sharing 3) Medium-term storage
Any thoughts?
1 comment
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 9.8 ms ] threadThere 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.