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Twitter was doomed when Facebook acquired FriendFeed in 2009. After that point Facebook took the lead and Twitter still seems stuck in 2009. Techies love the pr

Twitter was doomed when Facebook acquired FriendFeed in 2009. After that point Facebook took the lead and Twitter still seems stuck in 2009. Techies love the product because it is stuck in the past like an old BBS, but the reality is that time has passed them by. For me the proof was when I used the self serve ad platforms on both services: The level of sophistication of Facebook's service seemed to be years ahead of Twitter and delivered better results. Also the harsh reality is that Twitter never really solved their troll and spam issues. Twitter is great if you don't want anybody to know who you are so you can troll all day, but bad for conversation. In fact it's so bad that users who get frustrated with the character limit post photos of text. Twitter sort of reminds me of products like Blogger which were amazing when they launched, but sort of faded away over time.

viraptor 11y ago
I think that depends a lot on the perspective / use case, so piece by piece: > Also the harsh reality is that Twitter never really solved their troll and spam issues. I keep seeing rayban/shoes/watches bot spam every week on Facebook, but never seen one on Twitter. Trolls are everywhere, they're just people. > Twitter is great if you don't want anybody to know who you are so you can troll all day, but bad for conversation. I've never had/seen a serious conversation on Facebook. But I've learned a lot from discussions (ok, trolly arguments) between tptacek and dakami. > In fact it's so bad that users who get frustrated with the character limit post photos of text. I don't think that's "frustrated". They just do it. They do exactly the same on Facebook when the format/context gives you extra information this way - for example part of a screenshot of an article, rather than copy-pasting it.
- michaelpinto 11y ago
  Well it depends on the company you keep in general, but I've noticed with higher quality company on both platforms that on Facebook the conversation can go deeper. On twitter you're just lucky to have a conversation. In terms of the image that has a paragraph of text I'm looking at it from a UX perspective, and it's broken. There are other things that are broken as well that encourage trolls. With any social platform there is a gamification factor, and Twitter quite often rewards anti-community behavior. And on a level I get that there is the DNA of what the product is: And yes if you clutter the service with features it will become bloatware. But that said the whole thing is a mess. Take lists as an example: It's really hard to find that feature, so something that can add to the service is never found. PS With spam on twitter I'm talking spambots which i see all the time and don't really see too often on facebook.

viraptor 11y ago

I think that depends a lot on the perspective / use case, so piece by piece: > Also the harsh reality is that Twitter never really solved their troll and spam issues. I keep seeing rayban/shoes/watches bot spam every week on Facebook, but never seen one on Twitter. Trolls are everywhere, they're just people. > Twitter is great if you don't want anybody to know who you are so you can troll all day, but bad for conversation. I've never had/seen a serious conversation on Facebook. But I've learned a lot from discussions (ok, trolly arguments) between tptacek and dakami. > In fact it's so bad that users who get frustrated with the character limit post photos of text. I don't think that's "frustrated". They just do it. They do exactly the same on Facebook when the format/context gives you extra information this way - for example part of a screenshot of an article, rather than copy-pasting it.

michaelpinto 11y ago
Well it depends on the company you keep in general, but I've noticed with higher quality company on both platforms that on Facebook the conversation can go deeper. On twitter you're just lucky to have a conversation. In terms of the image that has a paragraph of text I'm looking at it from a UX perspective, and it's broken. There are other things that are broken as well that encourage trolls. With any social platform there is a gamification factor, and Twitter quite often rewards anti-community behavior. And on a level I get that there is the DNA of what the product is: And yes if you clutter the service with features it will become bloatware. But that said the whole thing is a mess. Take lists as an example: It's really hard to find that feature, so something that can add to the service is never found. PS With spam on twitter I'm talking spambots which i see all the time and don't really see too often on facebook.