7 ms·

Refocus the company to be the Netflix of live TV, focusing on the delivery of live sports and news broadcasts while enabling fans/viewers to discuss in real tim

by dotBen 10y ago

Refocus the company to be the Netflix of live TV, focusing on the delivery of live sports and news broadcasts while enabling fans/viewers to discuss in real time. It's a greenfield space no one else is really jumping upon yet. Focus may have turned to on-demand TV, but people still want to watch sports live, and Twitter already has acquired some of those deals as the sport franchises get more comfortable with online distribution. Trump's tweets, the presidential debates broadcast on Twitter and the fact people turn to Twitter during breaking news make it a logical extension to move into news and possibly finance too. Twitter's modern-day utility seems very low outside of news/sports/politics and the average joe has moved their engagement to more visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat where it is much easier to create and consume more personal content and updates. Twitter would also be able to focus their monetization and advertising efforts around a much tighter content and audience niche. Plus consumers are used to paying for some of this premium content, making monetization of a freemium model even easier.

40acres 10y ago
I totally agree with this. I've seen other posts mentioning timeline changes, protocol changes, and opening up the API ecosystem, but I don't see any of these changes actually affecting Twitters bottom line. Twitter is a great place to discuss what's going on right now. Whether it be sports, a natural disaster, political debate, news, etc. Twitter needs to be the place to go when you want social commentary / news on what's happening RIGHT NOW.
radley 10y ago
Twitter is very useful for professional announcements in a very informal setting. I use Twitter to follow colleagues and artists, not friends nor celebrities. I think there's something TV-ish that's possible, but Netflix level? That seems difficult both in licensing and execution. However, I will agree what you propose now appears to be their end game. #hattip
- dotBen 10y ago
  They already have licensing deals with NFL and MLB, and built out the streaming infrastructure. I'd argue the licensing and execution is already proved out - it's time to focus on those, cut out the fat and double down on what's working.
majortennis 10y ago
I'm jumping on it I just don't have the kind of money, time or user base. Anybody want to get involved?
- grenoire 10y ago
  I'd like to get involved, but a lack of capital is going to make it very difficult.
magic_beans 10y ago
This is literally the only time I ever use twitter: to see, in real time, what people are saying about a certain event. (The Oscars, Presidential Debates, the Superbowl, the début of Stranger Things, etc). But the app brings in so much clutter, and the interface is poor for quickly incoming tweets...
davycro 10y ago
"Twitter's modern-day utility seems very low outside of news/sports/politics" Twitter has tremendous utility for the medical community. I am final year medical student and through twitter can follow worldwide leaders in emergency medicine (my field of interest). These doctors post clinical factoids, cases reports, unique ekgs, and other learning points live from the wards (all de-identified to protect patients of course). They also post opinions on the latest research publications. Twitter has become my best way to stay current in medicine. Other apps targeted for doctors have attempted this. Doximity and Figure1 are examples. But twitter has done the best job.
- closeparen 10y ago
  It sounds like Twitter is the new RSS reader.
  - jsemrau 10y ago
    ...sounds about right. At least this is how I use it.
- dotBen 10y ago
  That's great but it's fair to say that's niche - both in terms of the number of people I'm guessing who are producing that type of content and the amount of monetization that can occur from that community. As a public company, Twitter has to focus on the mainstream, big numbers. I would also suggest that Twitter refocusing to sports and news would give the specialist apps you mention (and others) a better chance at super-serving your community. Is Twitter's ephemeral nature, mixed in with non-medical updates, really the best way for you to spot trends and identify useful links? If you don't fire up the app every few hours do you risk missing a crucial link or update?
  - pvg 10y ago
    It is niche but works surprisingly well for any field with practitioners who are on twitter. So lots and lots of niches. And you're right that it's awful as a receiving interface. Nor do I have any idea how you turn this into money, or growth or what have you. But it is a thing.
tmalsburg2 10y ago
> Twitter's modern-day utility seems very low outside of news/sports/politics What's the evidence for this claim? In academia, Twitter is super important, much more than Facebook or any other social platform. Academics are addicted to Twitter and I think you could charge them, e.g., for tweets longer than 140 characters.
- kleiba 10y ago
  I'm academic. I'm not addicted to twitter, nor is anyone of my coworkers.
  - tmalsburg2 10y ago
    Well, you should consider the possibility that you and your coworkers are not representative of academics more generally. In my research field Twitter is quite matter of factly really big. Also note that this was just an example showing that there are more areas where Twitter is doing really well than those that OP listed.
    - yellow_postit 10y ago
      Shouldn't you consider the same, that your group is a set of outliers? Comparing anecdotes will get us nowhere.
      - tmalsburg2 10y ago
        I'm talking about tens of thousands of people not individual cases. Pretty much every university, non-university research institution, and funding agency have active Twitter accounts. In my experience, most departments, and labs also have twitter accounts, not to speak of individual researchers. Jobs are found on Twitter, careers are made, new collaborations start there. I'm talking about tens of thousands of people who are highly active on a daily basis, whereas /u/kleiba was referring to himself and some unspecified coworkers which I interpret to be his lab mates.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 10y ago
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rockarage 10y ago
Third Party Live TV content is significantly more expensive, competitive & complicated than the third party content Netflix pays for. To say it is a "greenfield space no one else is really jumping upon yet" is really naive, try to do little research on the market, live content is fragmented for a reason. Therefore we will need billions in cash to create a Netflix of Live TV, there are only a handful of companies(Apple, Microsoft) that can actually outbid the current players. Moreover the winning bidder is likely overpaying for the content making it less likely to see a direct financial return. To make it work it will require near perfect execution and cash Twitter does not have.
- dotBen 10y ago
  They've managed to already for it for NFL and MLB rights, and there's plenty of cheaper rights out there and up for grabs. Netflix didn't start producing original content to begin with, but Twitter could ramp their way up to obtaining a lot of the crown jewels of sport.
  - tootie 10y ago
    Their live streaming was all about content negotiation and marketing which I think they did a poor job of. The actual streaming was handled by MLB Advanced Media which is far and away the leader in this space. Twitter should just acquire them if they want to get into this space.
ungzd 10y ago
I imagine one day I open Twitter to read my friends tweets and get greeted with message: "Hello! Today, to make world more disrupted with innovation, we pivoted Twitter to become a sports TV channel! All your tweets are gone, instead open a bottle of beer and watch this great game! 20 well-fit males kick the leather sphere! Isn't it impressive?" That will be day when I throw out my router to the window, flush smartphone into toilet, install MS-DOS and Fidonet software.
- dotBen 10y ago
  Foursquare managed to do this by migrating the original functionality to Swarm and pivoting the flagship product to something more monetizable. Arguably it saved the company from going under while still enabling the original functionality for those who wanted to use it. FWIW I'm not a sportsball fan either, but you can't argue that those of us with MS-DOS and Fidonet are in the minority. Sport is a super-majority content area that is very brand and advertiser friendly.
  - marssaxman 10y ago
    Did they actually manage that transition, though? I haven't heard anyone talk about Foursquare in years. My entire social circle effectively ran itself via Dodgeball when that was active; many of us remembered it fondly enough to give Foursquare a try, after Dodgeball's founders came back out of Google purgatory. It quickly became obvious that they really just wanted to become a cheap Yelp knockoff, though, and we all left. I don't remember hearing anyone propose a group migration to Swarm at the time, and I certainly haven't heard anyone talk about it since. Checkin-based spontaneous social organization just... doesn't happen anymore, so far as I can see. Shame, because I really enjoyed it. If a new service came along which looked like it wasn't going to be evil, I might sign up and try to get my friends on board - but I wouldn't trust the foursquare people at this point.
    - dotBen 10y ago
      I just looked at my cell phone and there's a notification of 9 friends checking in on Swarm - most of them early fellow-dodgeball users. YMMV but most of my friends who were hardcore users switched over to Swarm upon the pivot. The migration was automatic btw - Foursquare told you in the app that checkins were no longer supported and offered easy install of Swarm with the same login credentials.
pratap103 10y ago
"Refocus the company to be the Netflix of live TV, focusing on the delivery of live sports and news broadcasts while enabling fans/viewers to discuss in real time." I didn't feel like their experiments in live broadcasting NFL games drew a large audience last year. I think twitter offers sports fans a solid mobile experience(checking real-time reactions from other athletes and sports fans) while watching the game on a big screen HDTV. The biggest sports and political events are also social in nature, most of the time you're watching in a group of people. How do you get a group of people to watch a sports/political event on twitter and discuss in real-time? I agree that Twitter's modern day utility lies here but the switching costs for the user have to be reduced.
- dotBen 10y ago
  "How do you get a group of people to watch a sports/political event on twitter and discuss in real-time?" Via friend lists. If all your friends are watching the game and tweeting at the same time then you are discussing the game with them "the switching costs for the user have to be reduced" The rise of smart TVs with apps will lead to ever easier delivery of streamed programming to traditional mediums such as TV, while also opening new viewing experiences on mobile, tablet and computer.
onewaystreet 10y ago
Live sports rights are expensive. ESPN has been feeling the pain of having to pay the high prices while losing subscribers. Twitter wouldn't do any better with their ad-based monetization.
- robryan 10y ago
  Live sports are likely soon to become cheaper when it is no longer viable to have millions of people who don't watch them paying for them anyway.
roryisok 10y ago
You're so right. Twitter is all about NOW, about Live events, about the moment. Another way to exploit this would be to create a "news" space, a collection of journalist and press accounts which could be harnessed to provide live news feeds on trending stories. Maybe they do this already, but if not, they should
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
I think Ben Thompson's take on live-TV-on-Twitter is spot on: "Twitter is still selling the exact same value the service offered back in 2006 — 'live commentary, live connections, live conversations' — and the only product ideas are to do what old media like television does, but worse: becoming the first screen for what is happening now means a screen that is smaller, more laggy, and, critically, in the way of seeing the actual tweets one might care about. It’s also an example of the worst sort of product thinking: simply doing what was done before, but digitally." [1] Trying to replicate live TV - a market whose margins are currently contracting - is likely to mean preparing for a bloodbath. [1] https://stratechery.com/2017/twitter-live-and-luck/ https://stratechery.com/2017/twitter-live-and-luck/
bobzimuta 10y ago
Could be an interesting case. reddit is already doing this for 'real time' conversations (via F5 refresh) in respective subreddits during games, speeches, conferences, etc.

by dotBen 10y ago

40acres 10y ago

I totally agree with this. I've seen other posts mentioning timeline changes, protocol changes, and opening up the API ecosystem, but I don't see any of these changes actually affecting Twitters bottom line. Twitter is a great place to discuss what's going on right now. Whether it be sports, a natural disaster, political debate, news, etc. Twitter needs to be the place to go when you want social commentary / news on what's happening RIGHT NOW.

radley 10y ago

Twitter is very useful for professional announcements in a very informal setting. I use Twitter to follow colleagues and artists, not friends nor celebrities. I think there's something TV-ish that's possible, but Netflix level? That seems difficult both in licensing and execution. However, I will agree what you propose now appears to be their end game. #hattip

dotBen 10y ago
They already have licensing deals with NFL and MLB, and built out the streaming infrastructure. I'd argue the licensing and execution is already proved out - it's time to focus on those, cut out the fat and double down on what's working.

majortennis 10y ago

I'm jumping on it I just don't have the kind of money, time or user base. Anybody want to get involved?

grenoire 10y ago
I'd like to get involved, but a lack of capital is going to make it very difficult.

magic_beans 10y ago

This is literally the only time I ever use twitter: to see, in real time, what people are saying about a certain event. (The Oscars, Presidential Debates, the Superbowl, the début of Stranger Things, etc). But the app brings in so much clutter, and the interface is poor for quickly incoming tweets...

davycro 10y ago

"Twitter's modern-day utility seems very low outside of news/sports/politics" Twitter has tremendous utility for the medical community. I am final year medical student and through twitter can follow worldwide leaders in emergency medicine (my field of interest). These doctors post clinical factoids, cases reports, unique ekgs, and other learning points live from the wards (all de-identified to protect patients of course). They also post opinions on the latest research publications. Twitter has become my best way to stay current in medicine. Other apps targeted for doctors have attempted this. Doximity and Figure1 are examples. But twitter has done the best job.

closeparen 10y ago
It sounds like Twitter is the new RSS reader.
- jsemrau 10y ago
  ...sounds about right. At least this is how I use it.
dotBen 10y ago
That's great but it's fair to say that's niche - both in terms of the number of people I'm guessing who are producing that type of content and the amount of monetization that can occur from that community. As a public company, Twitter has to focus on the mainstream, big numbers. I would also suggest that Twitter refocusing to sports and news would give the specialist apps you mention (and others) a better chance at super-serving your community. Is Twitter's ephemeral nature, mixed in with non-medical updates, really the best way for you to spot trends and identify useful links? If you don't fire up the app every few hours do you risk missing a crucial link or update?
- pvg 10y ago
  It is niche but works surprisingly well for any field with practitioners who are on twitter. So lots and lots of niches. And you're right that it's awful as a receiving interface. Nor do I have any idea how you turn this into money, or growth or what have you. But it is a thing.

tmalsburg2 10y ago

> Twitter's modern-day utility seems very low outside of news/sports/politics What's the evidence for this claim? In academia, Twitter is super important, much more than Facebook or any other social platform. Academics are addicted to Twitter and I think you could charge them, e.g., for tweets longer than 140 characters.

kleiba 10y ago
I'm academic. I'm not addicted to twitter, nor is anyone of my coworkers.
- tmalsburg2 10y ago
  Well, you should consider the possibility that you and your coworkers are not representative of academics more generally. In my research field Twitter is quite matter of factly really big. Also note that this was just an example showing that there are more areas where Twitter is doing really well than those that OP listed.
  - yellow_postit 10y ago
    Shouldn't you consider the same, that your group is a set of outliers? Comparing anecdotes will get us nowhere.
    - tmalsburg2 10y ago
      I'm talking about tens of thousands of people not individual cases. Pretty much every university, non-university research institution, and funding agency have active Twitter accounts. In my experience, most departments, and labs also have twitter accounts, not to speak of individual researchers. Jobs are found on Twitter, careers are made, new collaborations start there. I'm talking about tens of thousands of people who are highly active on a daily basis, whereas /u/kleiba was referring to himself and some unspecified coworkers which I interpret to be his lab mates.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

rockarage 10y ago

Third Party Live TV content is significantly more expensive, competitive & complicated than the third party content Netflix pays for. To say it is a "greenfield space no one else is really jumping upon yet" is really naive, try to do little research on the market, live content is fragmented for a reason. Therefore we will need billions in cash to create a Netflix of Live TV, there are only a handful of companies(Apple, Microsoft) that can actually outbid the current players. Moreover the winning bidder is likely overpaying for the content making it less likely to see a direct financial return. To make it work it will require near perfect execution and cash Twitter does not have.

dotBen 10y ago
They've managed to already for it for NFL and MLB rights, and there's plenty of cheaper rights out there and up for grabs. Netflix didn't start producing original content to begin with, but Twitter could ramp their way up to obtaining a lot of the crown jewels of sport.
- tootie 10y ago
  Their live streaming was all about content negotiation and marketing which I think they did a poor job of. The actual streaming was handled by MLB Advanced Media which is far and away the leader in this space. Twitter should just acquire them if they want to get into this space.

ungzd 10y ago

I imagine one day I open Twitter to read my friends tweets and get greeted with message: "Hello! Today, to make world more disrupted with innovation, we pivoted Twitter to become a sports TV channel! All your tweets are gone, instead open a bottle of beer and watch this great game! 20 well-fit males kick the leather sphere! Isn't it impressive?" That will be day when I throw out my router to the window, flush smartphone into toilet, install MS-DOS and Fidonet software.

dotBen 10y ago
Foursquare managed to do this by migrating the original functionality to Swarm and pivoting the flagship product to something more monetizable. Arguably it saved the company from going under while still enabling the original functionality for those who wanted to use it. FWIW I'm not a sportsball fan either, but you can't argue that those of us with MS-DOS and Fidonet are in the minority. Sport is a super-majority content area that is very brand and advertiser friendly.
- marssaxman 10y ago
  Did they actually manage that transition, though? I haven't heard anyone talk about Foursquare in years. My entire social circle effectively ran itself via Dodgeball when that was active; many of us remembered it fondly enough to give Foursquare a try, after Dodgeball's founders came back out of Google purgatory. It quickly became obvious that they really just wanted to become a cheap Yelp knockoff, though, and we all left. I don't remember hearing anyone propose a group migration to Swarm at the time, and I certainly haven't heard anyone talk about it since. Checkin-based spontaneous social organization just... doesn't happen anymore, so far as I can see. Shame, because I really enjoyed it. If a new service came along which looked like it wasn't going to be evil, I might sign up and try to get my friends on board - but I wouldn't trust the foursquare people at this point.
  - dotBen 10y ago
    I just looked at my cell phone and there's a notification of 9 friends checking in on Swarm - most of them early fellow-dodgeball users. YMMV but most of my friends who were hardcore users switched over to Swarm upon the pivot. The migration was automatic btw - Foursquare told you in the app that checkins were no longer supported and offered easy install of Swarm with the same login credentials.

pratap103 10y ago

"Refocus the company to be the Netflix of live TV, focusing on the delivery of live sports and news broadcasts while enabling fans/viewers to discuss in real time." I didn't feel like their experiments in live broadcasting NFL games drew a large audience last year. I think twitter offers sports fans a solid mobile experience(checking real-time reactions from other athletes and sports fans) while watching the game on a big screen HDTV. The biggest sports and political events are also social in nature, most of the time you're watching in a group of people. How do you get a group of people to watch a sports/political event on twitter and discuss in real-time? I agree that Twitter's modern day utility lies here but the switching costs for the user have to be reduced.

dotBen 10y ago
"How do you get a group of people to watch a sports/political event on twitter and discuss in real-time?" Via friend lists. If all your friends are watching the game and tweeting at the same time then you are discussing the game with them "the switching costs for the user have to be reduced" The rise of smart TVs with apps will lead to ever easier delivery of streamed programming to traditional mediums such as TV, while also opening new viewing experiences on mobile, tablet and computer.

onewaystreet 10y ago

Live sports rights are expensive. ESPN has been feeling the pain of having to pay the high prices while losing subscribers. Twitter wouldn't do any better with their ad-based monetization.

robryan 10y ago
Live sports are likely soon to become cheaper when it is no longer viable to have millions of people who don't watch them paying for them anyway.

roryisok 10y ago

You're so right. Twitter is all about NOW, about Live events, about the moment. Another way to exploit this would be to create a "news" space, a collection of journalist and press accounts which could be harnessed to provide live news feeds on trending stories. Maybe they do this already, but if not, they should

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

I think Ben Thompson's take on live-TV-on-Twitter is spot on: "Twitter is still selling the exact same value the service offered back in 2006 — 'live commentary, live connections, live conversations' — and the only product ideas are to do what old media like television does, but worse: becoming the first screen for what is happening now means a screen that is smaller, more laggy, and, critically, in the way of seeing the actual tweets one might care about. It’s also an example of the worst sort of product thinking: simply doing what was done before, but digitally." [1] Trying to replicate live TV - a market whose margins are currently contracting - is likely to mean preparing for a bloodbath. [1] https://stratechery.com/2017/twitter-live-and-luck/ https://stratechery.com/2017/twitter-live-and-luck/

bobzimuta 10y ago

Could be an interesting case. reddit is already doing this for 'real time' conversations (via F5 refresh) in respective subreddits during games, speeches, conferences, etc.