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Twitter is a master class in how not to run a social media platform. They alienate their power users by shutting down APIs which break 3rd party apps. Their cen

Twitter is a master class in how not to run a social media platform. They alienate their power users by shutting down APIs which break 3rd party apps. Their censorship seems to have no rhyme or reason to it. They simply do not listen to their users. No one wants "In case you missed it", or to know what someone just liked, we just want to read tweets in order they came in.

pavel_lishin 8y ago
> No one wants "In case you missed it", or to know what someone just liked Power users don't want that; plenty of others do. Not everyone reads their entire timeline - for a lot of users, twitter is like TV, instead of Tivo - you just flip it on and watch whatever happens to be on.
- OedipusRex 8y ago
  But you can't turn it off. That's the issue.
  - encoderer 8y ago
    Also, it shows things I didn’t miss. They must have tracking on this. Inexcusably lame.
    - alex_hitchins 8y ago
      One thing that infuriates me is when I don't get shown a Tweet from an account I follow, only to be notified that someone else 'liked' the tweet. Just show me the Tweet! I follow the account because I want to be kept up to date with it. Not be kept up to date with it when someone else I follow likes it! I'm very lucky I can just leave Twitter for days/weeks on end. I know for some it's become a necessity.
      - encoderer 8y ago
        I'm certain I'm somehow in a b-test where all my twitter push notifications are powered by a random number generator.
        alex_hitchins 8y ago
        I have turned off notifications for most apps. It was just getting unbearable.
egfx 8y ago
The latest last straw was when they locked my account and demanded I photograph my drivers license to verify my age because I accidentally clicked the calendar drop down on my business account. Now my business is associated to my real birthday. Why do I want that?
michaelanckaert 8y ago
I'm just curious how a social media platform should be run. In my opinion none of them do a good job or deliver a likeable experience. If you look at the big ones they all have negative points: FB, Twitter, G+, and so on. Maybe Reddit is the one exception since I can still find what I want and AFAIK they still offer unrestricted API access.
- creaghpatr 8y ago
  The decentralization after reaching a certain scale is I believe the key to Reddit's success
  - oblio 8y ago
    How is Reddit centralized? The global admins are still there. By this criteria, Facebook Groups are decentralized.
- debacle 8y ago
  Step 1 would to try and actually monetize some share of your users without ads.
strictnein 8y ago
The worst is their new "XYZ and 7 other people you follow also follow ABC" and then they show you one of ABC's tweets.
- eahman00 8y ago
  That's especially bad. If XYZ and 7 other people I follow also follow ABC, I surely know of ABC's existence, and I don't follow him because I don't want to. The last thing I want is seeing his tweets in my timeline!!
berberous 8y ago
>> "No one wants "In case you missed it", or to know what someone just liked, we just want to read tweets in order they came in." Well, I enjoy "in case you missed it". I don't have enough time to check Instagram and Twitter every 5 minutes. Even with Twitter, checking it only once a day I would miss very interesting content if the Twitter app didn't surface highlights for me. Twitter is a firehose; I cannot possibly read every tweet from every person I follow. All that said, I don't see why these apps can't just keep algorithimic sorting as the default and let power users check a hard-to-find setting that turns it back into chronological.
simonsarris 8y ago
> No one wants "In case you missed it" I do. I imagine many people who aren't constantly glued to social media do. I don't want a chronological ordering. I definitely don't want to feel like I need to open twitter every 10 seconds. I just want to follow a lot of interesting people and see "some" tweets when I look at Twitter. Not the latest ones, but the most important or interesting ones. They must know that people like myself are fairly common, maybe the most common. (I agree they should give users a choice, etc, but I think its a huge mistake to say "no one wants" it)
- JungleGymSam 8y ago
  Chronological ordering of tweets and seeing only the interesting ones are not mutually exclusive. It's more coherent to see tweets in chronological order even if you're only shown what the algorithm believes to be important.

pavel_lishin 8y ago

> No one wants "In case you missed it", or to know what someone just liked Power users don't want that; plenty of others do. Not everyone reads their entire timeline - for a lot of users, twitter is like TV, instead of Tivo - you just flip it on and watch whatever happens to be on.

OedipusRex 8y ago
But you can't turn it off. That's the issue.
- encoderer 8y ago
  Also, it shows things I didn’t miss. They must have tracking on this. Inexcusably lame.
  - alex_hitchins 8y ago
    One thing that infuriates me is when I don't get shown a Tweet from an account I follow, only to be notified that someone else 'liked' the tweet. Just show me the Tweet! I follow the account because I want to be kept up to date with it. Not be kept up to date with it when someone else I follow likes it! I'm very lucky I can just leave Twitter for days/weeks on end. I know for some it's become a necessity.
    - encoderer 8y ago
      I'm certain I'm somehow in a b-test where all my twitter push notifications are powered by a random number generator.
      - alex_hitchins 8y ago
        I have turned off notifications for most apps. It was just getting unbearable.

egfx 8y ago

The latest last straw was when they locked my account and demanded I photograph my drivers license to verify my age because I accidentally clicked the calendar drop down on my business account. Now my business is associated to my real birthday. Why do I want that?

michaelanckaert 8y ago

I'm just curious how a social media platform should be run. In my opinion none of them do a good job or deliver a likeable experience. If you look at the big ones they all have negative points: FB, Twitter, G+, and so on. Maybe Reddit is the one exception since I can still find what I want and AFAIK they still offer unrestricted API access.

creaghpatr 8y ago
The decentralization after reaching a certain scale is I believe the key to Reddit's success
- oblio 8y ago
  How is Reddit centralized? The global admins are still there. By this criteria, Facebook Groups are decentralized.
debacle 8y ago
Step 1 would to try and actually monetize some share of your users without ads.

strictnein 8y ago

The worst is their new "XYZ and 7 other people you follow also follow ABC" and then they show you one of ABC's tweets.

eahman00 8y ago
That's especially bad. If XYZ and 7 other people I follow also follow ABC, I surely know of ABC's existence, and I don't follow him because I don't want to. The last thing I want is seeing his tweets in my timeline!!

berberous 8y ago

>> "No one wants "In case you missed it", or to know what someone just liked, we just want to read tweets in order they came in." Well, I enjoy "in case you missed it". I don't have enough time to check Instagram and Twitter every 5 minutes. Even with Twitter, checking it only once a day I would miss very interesting content if the Twitter app didn't surface highlights for me. Twitter is a firehose; I cannot possibly read every tweet from every person I follow. All that said, I don't see why these apps can't just keep algorithimic sorting as the default and let power users check a hard-to-find setting that turns it back into chronological.

simonsarris 8y ago

> No one wants "In case you missed it" I do. I imagine many people who aren't constantly glued to social media do. I don't want a chronological ordering. I definitely don't want to feel like I need to open twitter every 10 seconds. I just want to follow a lot of interesting people and see "some" tweets when I look at Twitter. Not the latest ones, but the most important or interesting ones. They must know that people like myself are fairly common, maybe the most common. (I agree they should give users a choice, etc, but I think its a huge mistake to say "no one wants" it)

JungleGymSam 8y ago
Chronological ordering of tweets and seeing only the interesting ones are not mutually exclusive. It's more coherent to see tweets in chronological order even if you're only shown what the algorithm believes to be important.