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To be fair, this is a really atypical mode of using Twitter. Normally it's used for shouting at your audience/someone you disagree with. It's rarely used for tr

To be fair, this is a really atypical mode of using Twitter. Normally it's used for shouting at your audience/someone you disagree with. It's rarely used for true conversations, so I can somewhat see why the CEO is unfamiliar with its performance in that role.

est31 8y ago
> It's rarely used for true conversations Not a twitter user myself, but I've seen a lot of people use their twitter handles like they'd use an E-Mail address. They say "this is a twitter handle send me a DM if you want to talk with me" instead of "this is my E-Mail address please send me an E-Mail if you want to talk". So they do derive conversational value from twitter.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  DMs are chats. It's a totally different medium than tweets. Separate UI and everything. I can understand how you would not know this, since you don't use the product (neither do I, any more), so this is just an FYI.
- egypturnash 8y ago
  It’s worth noting that DMs have a much more generous length limit than tweets. You can actually type an entire paragraph into a single DM versus the formerly 140, now 280 characters a public tweet is limited to.
mcv 8y ago
But then why even try to have this conversation on Twitter? You'd think that after a decade he would have some idea of what Twitter is good and bad at. I can imagine having this kind of failed interview when the company was 3 years old, but after more than a decade, it's a bit bizarre. Unless this was explicitly meant as a test, and not simply an online interview.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  > But then why even try to have this conversation on Twitter? Delusion/hope/marketing?
- Chazprime 8y ago
  I suspect that they’re trying to educate on how the platform could be better used.
  - toss1 8y ago
    If so, it was evidently with a lot of unsupported overconfidence. Clearly turned into a major demonstration of how it can not be used for a good conversation. I've found pretty much the same thing, just good for trading headlines & brief insights. Though, its constraints do cause me to improve the focus of some ideas to express them briefly and clearly, so that's a good exercise.
- inerte 8y ago
  It was a massive experiment. Now they have qualitative feedback to sift through and act on. I think he knew it was going to fail, just not the many ways how it would.
- rchaud 8y ago
  > But then why even try to have this conversation on Twitter? Many people are knowingly doing a kabuki theatre version of a conversation where they are specifically trying to get attention and grab more followers and retweets. You can see it in how responses are framed. There's a lot of attempted "mic drop" moments. Real people don't have conversations like that, because they're not playing to an audience. In real conversations, people also don't just walk away from each other at the first jab, but that happens on Twitter constantly. It's similar to how 95% of Reddit's content is posted by 1% of its user base. Most Twitter users aren't tweeting, they're voyeurs to online meltdowns (real or orchestrated), celebrity gossip and slapfights between political commentators/media/trolls. I have never understood how MySpace became unfashionable because it was "too gaudy/immature" while Twitter has been a wildfire of horrible UX, hate speech, bullying and user surveillance for over a decade now.

est31 8y ago

> It's rarely used for true conversations Not a twitter user myself, but I've seen a lot of people use their twitter handles like they'd use an E-Mail address. They say "this is a twitter handle send me a DM if you want to talk with me" instead of "this is my E-Mail address please send me an E-Mail if you want to talk". So they do derive conversational value from twitter.

asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
DMs are chats. It's a totally different medium than tweets. Separate UI and everything. I can understand how you would not know this, since you don't use the product (neither do I, any more), so this is just an FYI.
egypturnash 8y ago
It’s worth noting that DMs have a much more generous length limit than tweets. You can actually type an entire paragraph into a single DM versus the formerly 140, now 280 characters a public tweet is limited to.

mcv 8y ago

But then why even try to have this conversation on Twitter? You'd think that after a decade he would have some idea of what Twitter is good and bad at. I can imagine having this kind of failed interview when the company was 3 years old, but after more than a decade, it's a bit bizarre. Unless this was explicitly meant as a test, and not simply an online interview.

asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
> But then why even try to have this conversation on Twitter? Delusion/hope/marketing?
Chazprime 8y ago
I suspect that they’re trying to educate on how the platform could be better used.
- toss1 8y ago
  If so, it was evidently with a lot of unsupported overconfidence. Clearly turned into a major demonstration of how it can not be used for a good conversation. I've found pretty much the same thing, just good for trading headlines & brief insights. Though, its constraints do cause me to improve the focus of some ideas to express them briefly and clearly, so that's a good exercise.
inerte 8y ago
It was a massive experiment. Now they have qualitative feedback to sift through and act on. I think he knew it was going to fail, just not the many ways how it would.
rchaud 8y ago
> But then why even try to have this conversation on Twitter? Many people are knowingly doing a kabuki theatre version of a conversation where they are specifically trying to get attention and grab more followers and retweets. You can see it in how responses are framed. There's a lot of attempted "mic drop" moments. Real people don't have conversations like that, because they're not playing to an audience. In real conversations, people also don't just walk away from each other at the first jab, but that happens on Twitter constantly. It's similar to how 95% of Reddit's content is posted by 1% of its user base. Most Twitter users aren't tweeting, they're voyeurs to online meltdowns (real or orchestrated), celebrity gossip and slapfights between political commentators/media/trolls. I have never understood how MySpace became unfashionable because it was "too gaudy/immature" while Twitter has been a wildfire of horrible UX, hate speech, bullying and user surveillance for over a decade now.