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New Twitter Is About 50 Percent Rolled Out. Where’s The Facebook-Style Backlash?

9 points by rblion 16y ago

Raphomet 16y ago
New Twitter feels like Old Twitter, except it's faster and puts more of the stuff I want to see in front of me. Facebook has many, many more features than Twitter does, and the features it has are not as easy for users to understand or use. When they reorganize the UI or change fundamental site behavior, users struggle to relearn how to use the site. It is a necessarily evil side effect of iterating on complex application features.
younata 16y ago
I think most of the reason why there is no facebook-style backlash is because the majority of users on twitter (those who actually post stuff) use separate clients to do so. I personally use twirssi [1] as my twitter client. YMMV. [1] http://twirssi.com/ http://twirssi.com/
_delirium 16y ago
it's not much of a backlash I suppose, but a small one: http://twitter.com/paulg/status/25998745559 http://twitter.com/paulg/status/25998745559
jsz0 16y ago
I would guess Twitter's users are on average more tech savvy than Facebook users so change isn't as terrifying to them. Another factor is this weird Internet indie/hipster mentality that anything big is worthy of scorn and in all cases an alternative must be anointed as the cool alternative which shall not be criticized. As long as Facebook is gigantic Twitter gets to be the cool alternative for now. When your Mom joins though -- forget it. It's going to be lame and if they dare modify a single pixel or font face then expect an Internet riot.
mcobrien 16y ago
It seems a good way to prevent backlash is to deploy over a period of weeks. Before I got newtwitter I mostly ignored what other people were saying about it. Now if I complain it's old news.
idoh 16y ago
Well, I feel like I am a backlash of one person. Twitter's selling points used to be simplicity and encouraging developers / encouraging a platform. With the change they are moving away from that simplicity and also taking something away from the developers (no more app attribution). So it seems like a step backwards to me on two fronts. I think that this is really a symptom of Twitter's growth in employees. If you have all of these front end developers / Product Managers they'll make products even if they are the wrong thing.
robinduckett 16y ago
What backlash? It's better than the old interface. Most of Facebook's design choices have left many users in the lurch.
Tichy 16y ago
I only just realized that the new stuff obscures most of my lovingly chosen background picture :-( Other than that, I didn't care much yet, because I use a client to access Twitter anyway.
charlesju 16y ago
The reason there isn't a backlash is because Twitter isn't used at the same level of intensity as Facebook. When there are only 2-3 features that are interesting on a web application, there isn't going to be a huge disconnect from version to version.

9 points by rblion 16y ago

New Twitter feels like Old Twitter, except it's faster and puts more of the stuff I want to see in front of me. Facebook has many, many more features than Twitter does, and the features it has are not as easy for users to understand or use. When they reorganize the UI or change fundamental site behavior, users struggle to relearn how to use the site. It is a necessarily evil side effect of iterating on complex application features.

younata 16y ago

I think most of the reason why there is no facebook-style backlash is because the majority of users on twitter (those who actually post stuff) use separate clients to do so. I personally use twirssi [1] as my twitter client. YMMV. [1] http://twirssi.com/ http://twirssi.com/

_delirium 16y ago

it's not much of a backlash I suppose, but a small one: http://twitter.com/paulg/status/25998745559 http://twitter.com/paulg/status/25998745559

jsz0 16y ago

I would guess Twitter's users are on average more tech savvy than Facebook users so change isn't as terrifying to them. Another factor is this weird Internet indie/hipster mentality that anything big is worthy of scorn and in all cases an alternative must be anointed as the cool alternative which shall not be criticized. As long as Facebook is gigantic Twitter gets to be the cool alternative for now. When your Mom joins though -- forget it. It's going to be lame and if they dare modify a single pixel or font face then expect an Internet riot.

mcobrien 16y ago

It seems a good way to prevent backlash is to deploy over a period of weeks. Before I got newtwitter I mostly ignored what other people were saying about it. Now if I complain it's old news.

idoh 16y ago

Well, I feel like I am a backlash of one person. Twitter's selling points used to be simplicity and encouraging developers / encouraging a platform. With the change they are moving away from that simplicity and also taking something away from the developers (no more app attribution). So it seems like a step backwards to me on two fronts. I think that this is really a symptom of Twitter's growth in employees. If you have all of these front end developers / Product Managers they'll make products even if they are the wrong thing.

robinduckett 16y ago

What backlash? It's better than the old interface. Most of Facebook's design choices have left many users in the lurch.

Tichy 16y ago

I only just realized that the new stuff obscures most of my lovingly chosen background picture :-( Other than that, I didn't care much yet, because I use a client to access Twitter anyway.

charlesju 16y ago

The reason there isn't a backlash is because Twitter isn't used at the same level of intensity as Facebook. When there are only 2-3 features that are interesting on a web application, there isn't going to be a huge disconnect from version to version.