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I can see how none of these would be the silver bullet, but I can't see how scale is the problem. If you're too big, then, what? Are you saying their burden for

by unabst 11y ago

I can see how none of these would be the silver bullet, but I can't see how scale is the problem. If you're too big, then, what? Are you saying their burden for profit is too big? The burden they have a reputation for ignoring? And yes, many businesses employing various models have failed, but none of them were twitter. No one is twitter. Part of it might be the silver bullet syndrome with a hint of exceptionalism. You save it all for that one perfect "exceptional" solution because anything else would be beneath you. Except, how do you know one even exists, or has to exist? Why not just make incremental progress, and run with what takes off? They seem to have chosen ads as their silver bullet, but it failed to exceed expectations. Now what? The lack of experimentation in the area of services seems almost dysfunctional compared to their willingness to experiment with the interface, their fonts, their top page... all of which are far from exceptional. What you want from a company like Twitter is at minimum the appearance of effort, of vision, and of competence. Wow, I'm not sure any of those apply right now... No wonder the CEO fired all those people.

coldtea 11y ago
>I can see how none of these would be the silver bullet, but I can't see how scale is the problem. In two senses: 1) Regardless of scale, those solutions don't bring much money in. Twitter's bigger scale means they can bring more money than for a smaller company, but Twitter's scale also means it's operating expenses and churn are much higher for them to make a difference. 2) Twitter's value is in its user base, which is staying given that Twitter doesn't alienate them, which some of those solutions do. In this case it's not really the number of users that's the issue, but the kind of users that you attrack.
- unabst 11y ago
  1) But don't they also have an advantage with economies of scale? Maybe anything below x million isn't worth it, but cost-wise they should definitely have an advantage. And why not try them at least. 2) Right. Except ads definitely alienate users and detract from the experience. So the solution they've chosen isn't necessarily a decision conscious of this. None of the items in my list really detract from existing user experience. They're all extras. If Kanye decides to charge $100 because he can, that's on Kanye alienating his users, not twitter. Building capabilities and increasing capacity seems like a clear path of progress to me, except twitter has yet to step foot in that direction it seems. Tons of money is being made on twitter, except by twitter. Very strange. Of course, having tons of cash in the bank is the perfect excuse to not do anything. Waiting for an epiphany maybe... Everyone is waiting.

by unabst 11y ago

coldtea 11y ago

>I can see how none of these would be the silver bullet, but I can't see how scale is the problem. In two senses: 1) Regardless of scale, those solutions don't bring much money in. Twitter's bigger scale means they can bring more money than for a smaller company, but Twitter's scale also means it's operating expenses and churn are much higher for them to make a difference. 2) Twitter's value is in its user base, which is staying given that Twitter doesn't alienate them, which some of those solutions do. In this case it's not really the number of users that's the issue, but the kind of users that you attrack.

unabst 11y ago
1) But don't they also have an advantage with economies of scale? Maybe anything below x million isn't worth it, but cost-wise they should definitely have an advantage. And why not try them at least. 2) Right. Except ads definitely alienate users and detract from the experience. So the solution they've chosen isn't necessarily a decision conscious of this. None of the items in my list really detract from existing user experience. They're all extras. If Kanye decides to charge $100 because he can, that's on Kanye alienating his users, not twitter. Building capabilities and increasing capacity seems like a clear path of progress to me, except twitter has yet to step foot in that direction it seems. Tons of money is being made on twitter, except by twitter. Very strange. Of course, having tons of cash in the bank is the perfect excuse to not do anything. Waiting for an epiphany maybe... Everyone is waiting.