5 ms·

Twitter is experiencing what I believe is a much larger issue with today's platforms. You cannot attract a mass of users, give them a nice UX, build a communit

by yuvadam 16y ago

Twitter is experiencing what I believe is a much larger issue with today's platforms. You cannot attract a mass of users, give them a nice UX, build a community - and then one day throw ads all over to place, call it a monetization strategy and keep a straight face. Twitter is going to have a very hard time monetizing their platform, if the #Dickbar is the best they came up with at this point. If I were them, I would be afraid.

neilc 16y ago
You cannot attract a mass of users, give them a nice UX, build a community - and then one day throw ads all over to place, call it a monetization strategy and keep a straight face. Really? Google did essentially that to great success, as has Facebook (perhaps with less clear-cut success, but clearly not to the sort of outrage Twitter received over the QuickBar).
- jerf 16y ago
  This is going to sound like a nit, but it's actually a critical point: Google did not throw ads all over the place, at least with regards to their search results. They carefully introduced them on the sidebar, clearly labeled, and have made further motions since, all also carefully considered and clearly labeled. They are also tied to the user search and therefore actively connected to what the user is currently trying to do, making them even have some value to the consumer as well as the advertiser. This is not the last-ditch pray & spray approach that your quote is implicitly referring to. Twitter can still get some context out of the user but they will forever have the problem that most of their ad impressions will not be connected to the user actively searching for something. Google's an advertising monster for a reason, and it's not as simple as "They had a big bully pulpit in the form of their search engine".
- ry0ohki 16y ago
  Exactly, I think the main difference is using the old "how to cook a frog" analogy. You can't just throw a frog in boiling water, but if you turn up the heat slowly he'll be happy. Twitter went from no ads to AN INTRUSIVE AD YOU CANT ESCAPE AND RUINED YOUR NORMAL EXPERIENCE. Google on the other hand went with very low touch text ads, then added ads to your email etc... such that there are a lot more ads on Google now then there were, but it was done so gradually and with so much A/B testing that we care less.
  - pitdesi 16y ago
    I agree with you, but have a bone to pick with the boiled frog analogy... Frogs are actually quite smart and will jump out. http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp
- nickbp 16y ago
  When Google first introduced their text ads, it was in an era when other ads were commonly popups, huge banners, and flash with sound. Their text ads were quite nice compared to the competition. They've loosened up a bit since then, though..
- phlux 16y ago
  There is a major difference in the service model between google search and twitter tweets. In search, you are actively seeking something out - you enter a phrase, it returns a result. This meshes beautifully with ads - because in the ideal, an ad matches what you're looking for, except it may want you to buy the end result. Tweets, totally different. With tweets - you are effectively either pushing information to a specific group (your followers) or you are accepting pushed information from those you follow. This is much more intimate of a conversation as the tweets you're accepting by following come from real people, or entities/groups that you associate/identify with or are otherwise interested in their info; such as a news stream. To interject ads into this communication is much more akin to you standing at the bus stop with your friend and you're talking about where to go for lunch and being approached by some random stranger saying "Hey I think you guys would really like Coke!" You already KNOW what coke is, so this random person is not adding any value to the conversation that you're having with your friend. Between google and twitter, we are looking at the age old problem with content relevance in push/pull context.
  - MatthewPhillips 16y ago
    True, true, but you're not seeking something out when you watch television and there are commercials. or listen to the radio. Or listen to pandora, or many others. People are ok with advertising in general. I think this has more to do with the implementation, not that people are opposed to ads on twitter in general.
    - phlux 16y ago
      TV and Radio - even Pandora is intrinsically passive. So while we are "OK" with it in those mediums or activities - those are passive activities in which you basically view/listen to whatever content they choose to put on the stream. Search is 100% active, where twitter is a hybrid - but the problem with ads in twitter is contextual relevance + value. They will either clutter a conversation which you follow, or lack context and relevance thus just driving you mad. Instead, I have suggested that Twitter needs to stop trying to monetize its current incarnation - but needs to build upon the platform and pivot a bit. I sugggest that due to the fantastic job they have done in gaining both wide adoption but also mass appeal with celebrities and influencers, they need to expand the platform to provide more content from those users and then monetize with revenue sharing. Basically, you would have tweets coming from Lady Gaga in the current form the do today - yet if she wanted to tweet about her new album, a link she could send would drive all the traffic to an exclusively announced twitter page with details of the album and the ability to buy it there. Additional ads could be placed on that expanded content page by twitter. Album sales go to lady gaga - the ad money goes to twitter. -- They need to build out a blogging platform that allows for deeper, richer content. Tweets are great for high-level, hyper responsive communications and awareness driving, but the fact is that no matter what you think of tweets and their succinctness they are too small to convey 99.9999% of information people want to convey. Tweets ALREADY serve to make groups aware of something, then drive them to more/better resources for information about that event. IMO - Twitter needs to acquire. Tumblr, posterous, whomever. Mate the products and provide ad-rev channels based on the two. @Jack could oversee ensuring that the two properties welded together maintain a level of simplicity and elegance - but greater functionality is needed. If twitter revolutionized the micrblog, expanded to miniblogs and allowed very simple, concise miniblogs and maintained a level of control over the presentation (ala facebook) They could be exceptional. Of course, there is the outstanding issue with stability, but that will be fixed I am sure...
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
izendejas 16y ago
The problem isn't that they threw ads all over the place. It's how they did it. Ads and new features should be released to a few users--at least start with your own employees--and iterate until you get it right, if at all. It doesn't seem like they did this. Their second biggest mistake was admitting that it was a mistake. You don't do that--well, unless it involved something serious, like a user's privacy (think Buzz and Beacon).
- rhizome 16y ago
  Eating your own dogfood is such 2001-dotcom-bubble thinking. I have no problem with people/companies calling something a mistake where another would put PR fluff. At least it implies that your users/customers have legitimate standards other than "take it and like it."
  - joe_the_user 16y ago
    Maybe this is a quibble but "Eating your own dogfood" refers to using your own products. I think Twitter probably does that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food It seems you meaning not admitting mistakes/showing weakness. I agree companies should admit mistakes in the present era.
    - rhizome 16y ago
      Absolutely. I was responding more to the "test on your own peoples" aspect of my parent, though on reflection I can see groupthink at a company allowing something like this to get past internal testing. "Dick says it's the next big thing." It's just too onerous not to notice. Like the dog that didn't bark, it's apparently the question that didn't get asked. It certainly couldn't have been 'the change that wasn't seen.' I think we'd all like to think that people at Twitter are the cutting edge of whatever, Web Scale, but the people who work there are in a bubble of what they're told just as much as people at other companies. When you're in the middle of an industry it's hard to be objective, increasing the odds that something like this would be thought of as a good idea. So whatever, now Twitter's got their own Microsoft Bob. At least it's dead AFAICT.
gyardley 16y ago
I couldn't disagree more - it sounds like the Dickbar was monetizing rather nicely. Otherwise Twitter wouldn't be writing things like this in their blog: We believe there are still significant benefits to increasing awareness of what’s happening outside the home timeline. Evidence of the incredibly high usage metrics for the QuickBar support this. 'Incredibly high usage metrics' - sounds pretty good for the purchasers of their sponsored trends, no? Now, Twitter could be lying about the Dickbar's usage, but I doubt it. Lying involves conspiracy. It sledgehammers the morale of honest employees. The truth's likely to leak. The leadership of Twitter's not that stupid - if they mention incredibly high usage metrics, it's because there were incredibly high usage metrics. So, if Dickbar was great for monetization, why remove it? I suspect it got yanked because it conflicted with a higher priority - control over the client. If the vast majority of users love the Dickbar, but a small sliver of people were turned off enough by it to start using an alternate client, that throws the Tweetdecks of the world a lifeline at a time when Twitter would rather they drown. After the Tweetdecks have transitioned to enterprise tools or simply given up, then Twitter can launch Son of Dickbar. Until then, growing client market share is way, way more important than prematurely boosting monetization. It's not like Twitter lacks access to capital.
- nupark2 16y ago
  Otherwise Twitter wouldn't be writing things like this in their blog ... This is called "saving face," and it's something that people do when they have to backtrack on a mistake.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

by yuvadam 16y ago

neilc 16y ago

You cannot attract a mass of users, give them a nice UX, build a community - and then one day throw ads all over to place, call it a monetization strategy and keep a straight face. Really? Google did essentially that to great success, as has Facebook (perhaps with less clear-cut success, but clearly not to the sort of outrage Twitter received over the QuickBar).

jerf 16y ago
This is going to sound like a nit, but it's actually a critical point: Google did not throw ads all over the place, at least with regards to their search results. They carefully introduced them on the sidebar, clearly labeled, and have made further motions since, all also carefully considered and clearly labeled. They are also tied to the user search and therefore actively connected to what the user is currently trying to do, making them even have some value to the consumer as well as the advertiser. This is not the last-ditch pray & spray approach that your quote is implicitly referring to. Twitter can still get some context out of the user but they will forever have the problem that most of their ad impressions will not be connected to the user actively searching for something. Google's an advertising monster for a reason, and it's not as simple as "They had a big bully pulpit in the form of their search engine".
ry0ohki 16y ago
Exactly, I think the main difference is using the old "how to cook a frog" analogy. You can't just throw a frog in boiling water, but if you turn up the heat slowly he'll be happy. Twitter went from no ads to AN INTRUSIVE AD YOU CANT ESCAPE AND RUINED YOUR NORMAL EXPERIENCE. Google on the other hand went with very low touch text ads, then added ads to your email etc... such that there are a lot more ads on Google now then there were, but it was done so gradually and with so much A/B testing that we care less.
- pitdesi 16y ago
  I agree with you, but have a bone to pick with the boiled frog analogy... Frogs are actually quite smart and will jump out. http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp
nickbp 16y ago
When Google first introduced their text ads, it was in an era when other ads were commonly popups, huge banners, and flash with sound. Their text ads were quite nice compared to the competition. They've loosened up a bit since then, though..
phlux 16y ago
There is a major difference in the service model between google search and twitter tweets. In search, you are actively seeking something out - you enter a phrase, it returns a result. This meshes beautifully with ads - because in the ideal, an ad matches what you're looking for, except it may want you to buy the end result. Tweets, totally different. With tweets - you are effectively either pushing information to a specific group (your followers) or you are accepting pushed information from those you follow. This is much more intimate of a conversation as the tweets you're accepting by following come from real people, or entities/groups that you associate/identify with or are otherwise interested in their info; such as a news stream. To interject ads into this communication is much more akin to you standing at the bus stop with your friend and you're talking about where to go for lunch and being approached by some random stranger saying "Hey I think you guys would really like Coke!" You already KNOW what coke is, so this random person is not adding any value to the conversation that you're having with your friend. Between google and twitter, we are looking at the age old problem with content relevance in push/pull context.
- MatthewPhillips 16y ago
  True, true, but you're not seeking something out when you watch television and there are commercials. or listen to the radio. Or listen to pandora, or many others. People are ok with advertising in general. I think this has more to do with the implementation, not that people are opposed to ads on twitter in general.
  - phlux 16y ago
    TV and Radio - even Pandora is intrinsically passive. So while we are "OK" with it in those mediums or activities - those are passive activities in which you basically view/listen to whatever content they choose to put on the stream. Search is 100% active, where twitter is a hybrid - but the problem with ads in twitter is contextual relevance + value. They will either clutter a conversation which you follow, or lack context and relevance thus just driving you mad. Instead, I have suggested that Twitter needs to stop trying to monetize its current incarnation - but needs to build upon the platform and pivot a bit. I sugggest that due to the fantastic job they have done in gaining both wide adoption but also mass appeal with celebrities and influencers, they need to expand the platform to provide more content from those users and then monetize with revenue sharing. Basically, you would have tweets coming from Lady Gaga in the current form the do today - yet if she wanted to tweet about her new album, a link she could send would drive all the traffic to an exclusively announced twitter page with details of the album and the ability to buy it there. Additional ads could be placed on that expanded content page by twitter. Album sales go to lady gaga - the ad money goes to twitter. -- They need to build out a blogging platform that allows for deeper, richer content. Tweets are great for high-level, hyper responsive communications and awareness driving, but the fact is that no matter what you think of tweets and their succinctness they are too small to convey 99.9999% of information people want to convey. Tweets ALREADY serve to make groups aware of something, then drive them to more/better resources for information about that event. IMO - Twitter needs to acquire. Tumblr, posterous, whomever. Mate the products and provide ad-rev channels based on the two. @Jack could oversee ensuring that the two properties welded together maintain a level of simplicity and elegance - but greater functionality is needed. If twitter revolutionized the micrblog, expanded to miniblogs and allowed very simple, concise miniblogs and maintained a level of control over the presentation (ala facebook) They could be exceptional. Of course, there is the outstanding issue with stability, but that will be fixed I am sure...

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

izendejas 16y ago

The problem isn't that they threw ads all over the place. It's how they did it. Ads and new features should be released to a few users--at least start with your own employees--and iterate until you get it right, if at all. It doesn't seem like they did this. Their second biggest mistake was admitting that it was a mistake. You don't do that--well, unless it involved something serious, like a user's privacy (think Buzz and Beacon).

rhizome 16y ago
Eating your own dogfood is such 2001-dotcom-bubble thinking. I have no problem with people/companies calling something a mistake where another would put PR fluff. At least it implies that your users/customers have legitimate standards other than "take it and like it."
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  Maybe this is a quibble but "Eating your own dogfood" refers to using your own products. I think Twitter probably does that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food It seems you meaning not admitting mistakes/showing weakness. I agree companies should admit mistakes in the present era.
  - rhizome 16y ago
    Absolutely. I was responding more to the "test on your own peoples" aspect of my parent, though on reflection I can see groupthink at a company allowing something like this to get past internal testing. "Dick says it's the next big thing." It's just too onerous not to notice. Like the dog that didn't bark, it's apparently the question that didn't get asked. It certainly couldn't have been 'the change that wasn't seen.' I think we'd all like to think that people at Twitter are the cutting edge of whatever, Web Scale, but the people who work there are in a bubble of what they're told just as much as people at other companies. When you're in the middle of an industry it's hard to be objective, increasing the odds that something like this would be thought of as a good idea. So whatever, now Twitter's got their own Microsoft Bob. At least it's dead AFAICT.

gyardley 16y ago

I couldn't disagree more - it sounds like the Dickbar was monetizing rather nicely. Otherwise Twitter wouldn't be writing things like this in their blog: We believe there are still significant benefits to increasing awareness of what’s happening outside the home timeline. Evidence of the incredibly high usage metrics for the QuickBar support this. 'Incredibly high usage metrics' - sounds pretty good for the purchasers of their sponsored trends, no? Now, Twitter could be lying about the Dickbar's usage, but I doubt it. Lying involves conspiracy. It sledgehammers the morale of honest employees. The truth's likely to leak. The leadership of Twitter's not that stupid - if they mention incredibly high usage metrics, it's because there were incredibly high usage metrics. So, if Dickbar was great for monetization, why remove it? I suspect it got yanked because it conflicted with a higher priority - control over the client. If the vast majority of users love the Dickbar, but a small sliver of people were turned off enough by it to start using an alternate client, that throws the Tweetdecks of the world a lifeline at a time when Twitter would rather they drown. After the Tweetdecks have transitioned to enterprise tools or simply given up, then Twitter can launch Son of Dickbar. Until then, growing client market share is way, way more important than prematurely boosting monetization. It's not like Twitter lacks access to capital.

nupark2 16y ago
Otherwise Twitter wouldn't be writing things like this in their blog ... This is called "saving face," and it's something that people do when they have to backtrack on a mistake.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]