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Twitter owns unique and compelling content. Lots. Yes, there is lots of junk, but there is also lots of junk on the web. The challenge is surfacing and distribu

by panabee 11y ago

Twitter owns unique and compelling content. Lots. Yes, there is lots of junk, but there is also lots of junk on the web. The challenge is surfacing and distributing great content, and this is where Twitter should focus: maximizing reach and curating content. Instead of forcing users to come to Twitter, Twitter should go wherever users are. Bring Twitter’s amazing content to them, wherever users are, through partners and syndication. Get people hooked as consumers before worrying about conversions. The upside is much cheaper user acquisition by piggybacking on media habits rather than breaking them. The downside is less revenue and possibly less loyalty, at least in the near term. Media distributors like HuffPo and Yahoo boast massive audiences but need interesting content. Twitter can supply the content while Yahoo and others provide the users and sell ads. Both sides share revenue. Outsourcing user acquisition to Yahoo and distributors doesn’t endanger Twitter. Twitter and only Twitter can produce this content, and since the content is unique, there is no risk of Yahoo swapping out Twitter for another company. Put another way, syndication only strengthens Twitter as a product. Syndication expands the audience for tweets and deepens the incentive to publish via Twitter, which in turn generates more content and attracts more users, which in turn attracts more publishers. Syndication feeds a virtuous cycle. The second piece, curating content, requires doing more to help individuals find and consume interesting tweets, and helping partners find and present interesting tweets. There is lots more Twitter could do, both with man and machine, in this area. Maybe Twitter's greatest sin is not being Facebook, but it shouldn't be. There is enormous potential in helping people connect with others and enjoy content based on interests (Hi Reddit), not friendships. Many people, especially those on Wall Street and in the media, need a foil for Facebook, but hopefully the next CEO is not among them. Twitter is a special company with special potential.

firebones 11y ago
Facebook fell out of favor after its IPO, so some of this seems like the periodicity for Twitter is similar, just stretched out much longer and more attenuated due to the lower market cap and lower rung on the ladder. Your comment that Twitter owns unique and compelling content: I view unique and compelling content as a scarce resource. Growth rate in the boring tail perhaps means less if they're cornering the market on the compelling blurb real estate. Twitter as a REIT, where the real estate is focused attention on compelling content? Are The Donald's FB posts featured on the networks nightly? The nightmare scenario for Twitter is that they've stumbled into a Craigslist-style niche of providing incredible, essential value that can't be monetized in proportion to the value it actually provides.
- T2_t2 11y ago
  The problem is simpler: the cost of disintermediating their service, e.g. to go ahead and build your own feed, is just too high. And maintenance is just a pain. It is far better to view tweets other's tell you to, than use your own feed. What Twitter needs is better intermediation - they need better tools to tune in and tune out of streams. The need, for want of a better analogy, a way to change the channel from Election heavy tweets to NBA tweets, when your team is on and you stop watching the debates. TL;DR Twitter makes it too hard to bother, most of the great tweet content is made available at some point, and you rarely regret missing anything.
  - panabee 11y ago
    Precisely. One strategy for addressing this in the near term is to create more tools and products for partners/distributors like Yahoo and HuffPo to find and present interesting tweets for their audiences. Twitter can't curate everything in house in the near term. Algorithms aren't reliable enough, so they need a mix of algorithms and people. Some of those people can be in-house, but the faster, more scalable way to reach every nook and cranny of the world is to outsource a bunch of the curation through distributors who understand different audiences. Users have proven they won't curate on their own. As a bonus, Twitter can analyze these curation strategies to refine its own machine-learning algorithms.

by panabee 11y ago

firebones 11y ago

Facebook fell out of favor after its IPO, so some of this seems like the periodicity for Twitter is similar, just stretched out much longer and more attenuated due to the lower market cap and lower rung on the ladder. Your comment that Twitter owns unique and compelling content: I view unique and compelling content as a scarce resource. Growth rate in the boring tail perhaps means less if they're cornering the market on the compelling blurb real estate. Twitter as a REIT, where the real estate is focused attention on compelling content? Are The Donald's FB posts featured on the networks nightly? The nightmare scenario for Twitter is that they've stumbled into a Craigslist-style niche of providing incredible, essential value that can't be monetized in proportion to the value it actually provides.

T2_t2 11y ago
The problem is simpler: the cost of disintermediating their service, e.g. to go ahead and build your own feed, is just too high. And maintenance is just a pain. It is far better to view tweets other's tell you to, than use your own feed. What Twitter needs is better intermediation - they need better tools to tune in and tune out of streams. The need, for want of a better analogy, a way to change the channel from Election heavy tweets to NBA tweets, when your team is on and you stop watching the debates. TL;DR Twitter makes it too hard to bother, most of the great tweet content is made available at some point, and you rarely regret missing anything.
- panabee 11y ago
  Precisely. One strategy for addressing this in the near term is to create more tools and products for partners/distributors like Yahoo and HuffPo to find and present interesting tweets for their audiences. Twitter can't curate everything in house in the near term. Algorithms aren't reliable enough, so they need a mix of algorithms and people. Some of those people can be in-house, but the faster, more scalable way to reach every nook and cranny of the world is to outsource a bunch of the curation through distributors who understand different audiences. Users have proven they won't curate on their own. As a bonus, Twitter can analyze these curation strategies to refine its own machine-learning algorithms.