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a) twitter's reason to exist is as a communication system where the primary mode is individual > public, in short form. No other communication platform exists t

a) twitter's reason to exist is as a communication system where the primary mode is individual > public, in short form. No other communication platform exists that has those characteristics. The web is the next closest thing, but the upstart costs and knowledge required to present information on the web are greater, and the expertise needed to make your content discoverable (SEO) is higher. Blogging services get close as well, but I think the short form is important because it both decreases the barrier to entry (simplicity and low threshold), and democratizes the communication itself—my tweet looks the same and has the same limits and capabilities as CNN's tweet, or the POTUS's tweet. There's something to that. However, it takes far too long to really understand the value of the service—took me several years before I really "got" it and my curated feed was something I actually enjoyed reading and participating in. Third, I don't believe twitter understands the value I described above. They've made no meaningful progress in line with that value in their product that would indicate they understand it or are interested in increasing the value, or even preserving it. b) Twitter acquired Tweetdeck, to their credit, and it still works for exactly what you describe. They really should have innovated on lists more in the actual product, though, completely agree.

simonswords82 10y ago
> However, it takes far too long to really understand the value of the service—took me several years before I really "got" it and my curated feed was something I actually enjoyed reading and participating in. This for me, as I've mentioned before on HN, is the main reason that Twitter is a terrible service and losing so much money. The users (especially new users) have to invest far too much of their own time curating their feed in order to make the information Twitter provides enjoyable/useful, hell, perhaps even fun. Contrast this with Reddit, Facebook or any other social media platform. The heavy lifting is done for you. You create an account and a large amount of interesting, neatly categorised and useful information is curated for you according to your tastes. These websites are instantly sticky, and keep their users coming back for more. If Twitter can't get something as straightforward as a fucking onboarding user experience right, I dread to think what else lives under the hood that is a festering pile of dog shit. Add to this that a large amount of the Tweets being generated these days are automated and you've basically got a platform of bots talking to one another, with no value for us humans who aren't prepared to spend half a day curating their twitter feed. Very soon Jack and his shareholders are going to own 100% of nothing unless some drastic changes are made to the Twitter platform.

simonswords82 10y ago

> However, it takes far too long to really understand the value of the service—took me several years before I really "got" it and my curated feed was something I actually enjoyed reading and participating in. This for me, as I've mentioned before on HN, is the main reason that Twitter is a terrible service and losing so much money. The users (especially new users) have to invest far too much of their own time curating their feed in order to make the information Twitter provides enjoyable/useful, hell, perhaps even fun. Contrast this with Reddit, Facebook or any other social media platform. The heavy lifting is done for you. You create an account and a large amount of interesting, neatly categorised and useful information is curated for you according to your tastes. These websites are instantly sticky, and keep their users coming back for more. If Twitter can't get something as straightforward as a fucking onboarding user experience right, I dread to think what else lives under the hood that is a festering pile of dog shit. Add to this that a large amount of the Tweets being generated these days are automated and you've basically got a platform of bots talking to one another, with no value for us humans who aren't prepared to spend half a day curating their twitter feed. Very soon Jack and his shareholders are going to own 100% of nothing unless some drastic changes are made to the Twitter platform.