4 ms·

"Lately I’ve been using more and more threads to connect tweets over time — this has been proven to be really great, as it immediately gives people context, the

by Sodman 6y ago

"Lately I’ve been using more and more threads to connect tweets over time — this has been proven to be really great, as it immediately gives people context, they can read more" I really dislike that this (aka a tweetstorm) is becoming more and more popular. If you have something to say that has to span 2 or 3 tweets, or if you have a follow-up to your original tweet that's fine... But if you're writing 5+ tweets in a thread for anything other than live commentary, I really wish you'd just tweet a link to a blog post instead. The tweetstorm UX is terrible for readers, and leaves authors open to a single tweet being quoted / embedded out of context.

cercatrova 6y ago
People don't read blogs but they read tweetstorms. Tweetstorms remain on the platform and can be linked separately. As soon as you have an external link, most people aren't gonna click on it.
mdoms 6y ago
That you're using the term "tweetstorm" indicates to me you haven't been using Twitter for some time (5+ years) so if that's the case you should know that the UI for threads has improved dramatically, both in the authoring and reading contexts.
- Sodman 6y ago
  I was unaware that the term had been retired, as I still see it used in mainstream media pretty frequently - I've read it as recently as this morning [0]. Perhaps I stumble upon these threads sometimes when they're still being authored, but my experience has been: -> See a tweet in my primary twitter feed -> Click "Show this thread" -> Now I'm in the middle of a thread, probably at the most liked tweet -> Scroll up to the top -> Read through each tweet scrolling down, with the author's profile picture, display name and twitter handle repeated every 100-280 characters. -> At the bottom, if there are new tweets I usually resort to clicking on the tweet itself to load new replies, even if they're a continuation of the thread by the same author. Not a great UX for me. Given that most of these threads end with a commenter invoking a bot like threadreader to "unroll" the thread and post it to another website, I'm certainly not alone in this. [0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/21/daily-202-it-is-probably-too-late-senate-republicans-distance-themselves-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/21/daily-202...
rektide 6y ago
To each their own I guess? I personally would way rather people share in a place where others can pop in & comment, start their own mini-threads amid the existing conversation. I'd rather have pieces of the thread be re-shareable (retweetable). I'd rather see the work evolve over time than come off as one giant artifact. I also like this pattern of threads running over time because it resurfaces ideas. This makes these threads a great implementation of Gwern's Spaced Repetition[1], whereas I may skim your blog post once but I will not see it again, in all probability. This complaint that "you should blog" is widely loudly echoed again and again, and frankly I don't understand it. I do think it is good to recollect, to recap, after the threads have been long tread, as I think it's good for findability long term and I think it helps us as authors & to generate prestige. But blog posts are tragically woefully un-interactive, are an ancient, unevolving medium alike carving things into stone. It's not effective, it's not interesting, & it lacks so many neat & powerful capabilities that we could do so much better on. I for one thing the blogs (have a niche but) are highly overrated. Rarely do the blog-post desiring people go into why they want blog posts, why they dislike twitter. In this case, the only specific thing mentioned is a tweet being quoted/embedded out of context, as a strike against threaded conversations, which, I for one, think is radically massively outstripped by how powerful & capable it is that we can quote/embed pieces of the convo. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24857437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24857437

by Sodman 6y ago

cercatrova 6y ago

People don't read blogs but they read tweetstorms. Tweetstorms remain on the platform and can be linked separately. As soon as you have an external link, most people aren't gonna click on it.

mdoms 6y ago

That you're using the term "tweetstorm" indicates to me you haven't been using Twitter for some time (5+ years) so if that's the case you should know that the UI for threads has improved dramatically, both in the authoring and reading contexts.

Sodman 6y ago
I was unaware that the term had been retired, as I still see it used in mainstream media pretty frequently - I've read it as recently as this morning [0]. Perhaps I stumble upon these threads sometimes when they're still being authored, but my experience has been: -> See a tweet in my primary twitter feed -> Click "Show this thread" -> Now I'm in the middle of a thread, probably at the most liked tweet -> Scroll up to the top -> Read through each tweet scrolling down, with the author's profile picture, display name and twitter handle repeated every 100-280 characters. -> At the bottom, if there are new tweets I usually resort to clicking on the tweet itself to load new replies, even if they're a continuation of the thread by the same author. Not a great UX for me. Given that most of these threads end with a commenter invoking a bot like threadreader to "unroll" the thread and post it to another website, I'm certainly not alone in this. [0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/21/daily-202-it-is-probably-too-late-senate-republicans-distance-themselves-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/21/daily-202...

rektide 6y ago

To each their own I guess? I personally would way rather people share in a place where others can pop in & comment, start their own mini-threads amid the existing conversation. I'd rather have pieces of the thread be re-shareable (retweetable). I'd rather see the work evolve over time than come off as one giant artifact. I also like this pattern of threads running over time because it resurfaces ideas. This makes these threads a great implementation of Gwern's Spaced Repetition[1], whereas I may skim your blog post once but I will not see it again, in all probability. This complaint that "you should blog" is widely loudly echoed again and again, and frankly I don't understand it. I do think it is good to recollect, to recap, after the threads have been long tread, as I think it's good for findability long term and I think it helps us as authors & to generate prestige. But blog posts are tragically woefully un-interactive, are an ancient, unevolving medium alike carving things into stone. It's not effective, it's not interesting, & it lacks so many neat & powerful capabilities that we could do so much better on. I for one thing the blogs (have a niche but) are highly overrated. Rarely do the blog-post desiring people go into why they want blog posts, why they dislike twitter. In this case, the only specific thing mentioned is a tweet being quoted/embedded out of context, as a strike against threaded conversations, which, I for one, think is radically massively outstripped by how powerful & capable it is that we can quote/embed pieces of the convo. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24857437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24857437