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From a product standpoint, I feel like Twitter has barely changed in 5 years. There's been some polish and redesign, sure, but the main dynamics are almost exac

From a product standpoint, I feel like Twitter has barely changed in 5 years. There's been some polish and redesign, sure, but the main dynamics are almost exactly the same. Facebook has features like intelligently improving the quality of your feed, being able to hide posts from certain people, prioritizing posts (not just stacking them based on their age), calendar/birthday stuff, events, chats, etc. Twitter is just a never ending stream of information, not prioritized and always overflowing with too much content (at least IMO). I think Facebook nailed it with realizing their engagement levels are directly related to the quality of the newsfeed, and because of this they put a great deal of effort into making it as relevant as possible to each user. They realize that if you friend (or follow) somebody, you're not necessarily interested in ALL of their content, but maybe only their most interesting or popular. They also realize that if you only log in 2 times per week, they should prioritize with the best recent content, not just the stuff that was posted 1 hour ago.

djloche 11y ago
Twitter is useful to me specifically because they do not filter the feeds. If they start removing or preventing me from receiving content I specifically request to receive, that will be the knell for twitter. I can put up with ads. Even being flooded with ads would be better than twitter deciding to hide content from me.
runevault 11y ago
I find it interesting you mention the improved feed, people I've talked to (obviously this is anecdotal but it is all I have to go on) HATE it, and especially the fact it always defaults to it instead of staying with most recent as they prefer.
- brainflake 11y ago
  Well, I think it probably depends on the demographic and/or how many friends you have. I would imagine the younger ones hate it but older professional types who don't log on as much appreciate it. And likewise the larger the size of your network the more you might appreciate it, but who knows...
JacobAldridge 11y ago
I know that "intelligently improving my feed" was the final straw for me leaving Facebook, and if Twitter forced it on me it would probably end my Twitter fetish as well. AND I know that I'm likely not the ideal client for Facebook and their efforts probably enhance the experience for said clients. I'm not sure who Twitter's ideal client is...
- AJ007 11y ago
  Twitter could probably use some sort of light scoring which users have the ability to over-ride. Tweets can not be re-arranged outside of chronological order like Facebook now does. There are different markets that need to be addressed. For the "pro" users, Twitters is basically a two way news ticker. You follow people you need to communicate with, who are always doing interesting things, or who you need to hear from directly when something occurs. If you want to see the latest on VR, or WebGL, or whatever topic, following the right people on Twitter is pretty much unparalleled. The second is the casual users. These are the 13-25 year olds who would have been using Twitter 5 years ago and have gone on to use Instagram and Snapchat. When you split the pro group from the casual, Twitter's holes start to appear. Casual users post crap and they post a lot of it. On Facebook is gets auto-buried. One Twitter it doesn't. On Instagram and Snapchat users get to publish images and pictures that in most cases they created themselves. Even if a photo is noise, the user can scroll past it in a quarter of a second. Whatever they do, they can't burn the pro user base. Those users are their moat. The casual users will be fought for continuously because casual social apps are more like fashion than tools.
- swang 11y ago
  Twitter has already made their feeds "intelligent" 1. Search defaults to what Twitter thinks are the "best" tweets for the search, not the most recent. 2. If there are tweets between 2 people you follow (where they are replying to each other), it will show up on your feed in ascending order. 3. They've now implemented, "while you were away" into your timeline which posts ~5 tweets they think you want to read, then when you scroll down you will see them again if they're recent.
- brainflake 11y ago
  I think it'd be pretty easy to offer both. A simple switch to turn on/off 'curation' or whatever.
tallerholler 11y ago
I feel like facebook rather than stay stagnant has actually declined. By trying to be everything for everyone, it is a diluted, unorganized, mish mash of things and it's hard for me to even grasp what the core value is anymore. Is it a social network? a photo app? a news aggregator? a gaming platform? one thing is for sure by spreading out to multiple audiences it opens them up to be competed with. At least twitter has stayed true to it's original intent.
- beedogs 11y ago
  Lately all FB seems like is an advertising platform, interspersed with the occasional post from a friend.
lazzlazzlazz 11y ago
"Intelligently improved feed" is why I left Facebook.
frik 11y ago
The Facebook newsfeed worked until late 2009, then they tried to be smart and show "interesting stories" instead of showing everything ordered by date. Nowadays it's completely a mess and useless. Twitter had always a hard to grasp UI. Especially for vistors without an account. It got a bit better about one year ago, but they transformed it to a worse experience a few months ago.
aleph4 11y ago
I agree. I use Nuzzel for this and its amazing to me this functionality is not built in to Twitter at all.

djloche 11y ago

Twitter is useful to me specifically because they do not filter the feeds. If they start removing or preventing me from receiving content I specifically request to receive, that will be the knell for twitter. I can put up with ads. Even being flooded with ads would be better than twitter deciding to hide content from me.

runevault 11y ago

I find it interesting you mention the improved feed, people I've talked to (obviously this is anecdotal but it is all I have to go on) HATE it, and especially the fact it always defaults to it instead of staying with most recent as they prefer.

brainflake 11y ago
Well, I think it probably depends on the demographic and/or how many friends you have. I would imagine the younger ones hate it but older professional types who don't log on as much appreciate it. And likewise the larger the size of your network the more you might appreciate it, but who knows...

JacobAldridge 11y ago

I know that "intelligently improving my feed" was the final straw for me leaving Facebook, and if Twitter forced it on me it would probably end my Twitter fetish as well. AND I know that I'm likely not the ideal client for Facebook and their efforts probably enhance the experience for said clients. I'm not sure who Twitter's ideal client is...

AJ007 11y ago
Twitter could probably use some sort of light scoring which users have the ability to over-ride. Tweets can not be re-arranged outside of chronological order like Facebook now does. There are different markets that need to be addressed. For the "pro" users, Twitters is basically a two way news ticker. You follow people you need to communicate with, who are always doing interesting things, or who you need to hear from directly when something occurs. If you want to see the latest on VR, or WebGL, or whatever topic, following the right people on Twitter is pretty much unparalleled. The second is the casual users. These are the 13-25 year olds who would have been using Twitter 5 years ago and have gone on to use Instagram and Snapchat. When you split the pro group from the casual, Twitter's holes start to appear. Casual users post crap and they post a lot of it. On Facebook is gets auto-buried. One Twitter it doesn't. On Instagram and Snapchat users get to publish images and pictures that in most cases they created themselves. Even if a photo is noise, the user can scroll past it in a quarter of a second. Whatever they do, they can't burn the pro user base. Those users are their moat. The casual users will be fought for continuously because casual social apps are more like fashion than tools.
swang 11y ago
Twitter has already made their feeds "intelligent" 1. Search defaults to what Twitter thinks are the "best" tweets for the search, not the most recent. 2. If there are tweets between 2 people you follow (where they are replying to each other), it will show up on your feed in ascending order. 3. They've now implemented, "while you were away" into your timeline which posts ~5 tweets they think you want to read, then when you scroll down you will see them again if they're recent.
brainflake 11y ago
I think it'd be pretty easy to offer both. A simple switch to turn on/off 'curation' or whatever.

tallerholler 11y ago

I feel like facebook rather than stay stagnant has actually declined. By trying to be everything for everyone, it is a diluted, unorganized, mish mash of things and it's hard for me to even grasp what the core value is anymore. Is it a social network? a photo app? a news aggregator? a gaming platform? one thing is for sure by spreading out to multiple audiences it opens them up to be competed with. At least twitter has stayed true to it's original intent.

beedogs 11y ago
Lately all FB seems like is an advertising platform, interspersed with the occasional post from a friend.

lazzlazzlazz 11y ago

"Intelligently improved feed" is why I left Facebook.

frik 11y ago

The Facebook newsfeed worked until late 2009, then they tried to be smart and show "interesting stories" instead of showing everything ordered by date. Nowadays it's completely a mess and useless. Twitter had always a hard to grasp UI. Especially for vistors without an account. It got a bit better about one year ago, but they transformed it to a worse experience a few months ago.

aleph4 11y ago

I agree. I use Nuzzel for this and its amazing to me this functionality is not built in to Twitter at all.