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Twitter was billed as a microblogging platform. Blog posts are 1-way communication. Want a discussion? Allow comments and make them visually separate and less

Twitter was billed as a microblogging platform. Blog posts are 1-way communication. Want a discussion? Allow comments and make them visually separate and less prominent just like blogs do.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
Huh? Then why does Twitter allow you to @reply someone? It is a feature. I mean, Jack Dorsey even doing this interview shows it's a feature, otherwise he should have said "Twitter was not made for this." And not all blog posts are one-way communication, just like you said, that is why we have comment systems attached to blog posts.
- kennydude 8y ago
  afaik originally this was just a convention that people started using until it became a feature
  - eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
    Right, I think it was, but if they let users just do it on their own Twitter could wipe their hands of it (e.g. "you're not using it correctly.") But because they made it an official feature, they have embraced that functionality. So it's a moot point now. I understand why they did it. They let the site kind of grow organically to see what it could become and embraced how people were using it. And I think they are likely super nervous from a financial perspective about any user loss if they start pulling features. But I think Twitter has a similar problem as Facebook -- it connects a lot of random people into a conversation system that should likely not be connected. On HN, I'm connecting with people that care about the tech community. On a Reddit sub-reddit, it's specific to some topic. Twitter just seems to encourage too many outliers to get involved in conversations they should probably sit back and simply listen on.
untog 8y ago
Maybe that was the original billing, but Twitter has enabled conversation for a very, very long time with @replies, quoting and so on. Silly to pretend otherwise.
ConceptJunkie 8y ago
Twitter is a million soap boxes in the town square. Perhaps what we really need is a million meeting rooms that people can enter or leave as they desire. I don't use Twitter, but I do use Facebook to keep up with family and friends, but the primary value I get out of it is from the groups I belong to, often private, where people can have (moderated, if needed) discussions about topics of common interest.
- TremendousJudge 8y ago
  Or reddit. The experience of participating in small subreddits is vastly different from frontpage lurking.

Twitter was billed as a microblogging platform. Blog posts are 1-way communication. Want a discussion? Allow comments and make them visually separate and less prominent just like blogs do.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago

Huh? Then why does Twitter allow you to @reply someone? It is a feature. I mean, Jack Dorsey even doing this interview shows it's a feature, otherwise he should have said "Twitter was not made for this." And not all blog posts are one-way communication, just like you said, that is why we have comment systems attached to blog posts.

kennydude 8y ago
afaik originally this was just a convention that people started using until it became a feature
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  Right, I think it was, but if they let users just do it on their own Twitter could wipe their hands of it (e.g. "you're not using it correctly.") But because they made it an official feature, they have embraced that functionality. So it's a moot point now. I understand why they did it. They let the site kind of grow organically to see what it could become and embraced how people were using it. And I think they are likely super nervous from a financial perspective about any user loss if they start pulling features. But I think Twitter has a similar problem as Facebook -- it connects a lot of random people into a conversation system that should likely not be connected. On HN, I'm connecting with people that care about the tech community. On a Reddit sub-reddit, it's specific to some topic. Twitter just seems to encourage too many outliers to get involved in conversations they should probably sit back and simply listen on.

untog 8y ago

Maybe that was the original billing, but Twitter has enabled conversation for a very, very long time with @replies, quoting and so on. Silly to pretend otherwise.

ConceptJunkie 8y ago

Twitter is a million soap boxes in the town square. Perhaps what we really need is a million meeting rooms that people can enter or leave as they desire. I don't use Twitter, but I do use Facebook to keep up with family and friends, but the primary value I get out of it is from the groups I belong to, often private, where people can have (moderated, if needed) discussions about topics of common interest.

TremendousJudge 8y ago
Or reddit. The experience of participating in small subreddits is vastly different from frontpage lurking.