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Probably audience reach, I'm guessing tweeting the information directly as opposed to a link to a blog results in more engagement. As for why Twitter specifica

Probably audience reach, I'm guessing tweeting the information directly as opposed to a link to a blog results in more engagement. As for why Twitter specifically it's because that's where their followers are, it will get the most views presumably vs. other platforms or mediums. FWIW I personally enjoy tweetstorms, I'm not sure why. I think the break in between each tweet is nice, it's like reading a series of messages rather than a blog post and I find myself more engaged. It also means the author has to be fairly concise

saurik 6y ago
This is largely why I do it. I have half a million twitter followers, and while I can write it on my blog and then tweet a link, it is nowhere near as effective as just publishing the content directly on Twitter. FWIW, I used to despise it when people did this (post massive threads of messages), but frankly I think they fixed the UI for this years ago, and just don't understand the complaints anymore: you click the link, and can scroll through messages as if it were an article. Between it auto-flowing the messages and the longer tweet length of 280 characters, I honestly don't see any advantage to those "thread readers" people keep linking to... they don't even have larger information density, which is ridiculous. (Hell... they frankly seem to make the text harder to read!) (And yeah: I carefully write my tons of text on Twitter such that every single message is a carefully enough crafted thought that they could just about stand alone, which I think is actually good for the content.)
- stevewodil 6y ago
  Wow, it is SO weird to see the name "saurik" replying to my comment. I remember in middle school jailbreaking my iPod touch to install all kinds of cool tweaks from Cydia, and I'm sure that exposure led me to continue messing around with electronics. Thank you for all you did for the community, I attribute a lot of my interest in computers and coding to the early jailbreak days.
- enw 6y ago
  Hey, sorry for being off-topic. Just wanted to say thanks for making Cydia! It feels very nostalgic to me.
- tjoff 6y ago
  you click the link, and can scroll through messages as if it were an article. No you can not. Often times the posts are not in order. You have to expand multiple times and if you are unlucky you get pulled into another direction and miss half the story. Unreadable isn't hyperbole. Maybe you have to have an account for it to be usable? Note: the posted twitter-thread is the first I've seen that actually works for me. Not sure why that is.
- sundarurfriend 6y ago
  > frankly I think they fixed the UI for this years ago, and just don't understand the complaints anymore "fixed the UI" is a big overstatement - they improved the UI from utterly horrible to barely usable (for this purpose). > you click the link, and can scroll through messages as if it were an article. Imagine if someone wrote an article by creating a phpBB forum thread and posting every couple of sentences as a post on the thread. That's what this is like, for the rest of us - since you have a half million followers, your brain is probably used to filtering out all the crap and parsing the posts quickly. But the vast majority of us don't use Twitter as much or at all, and this adds a mental tax for all of us. That's why the thread readers are so successful - you're not the target audience of them, but most of the rest of the Internet users are.
  - 300bps 6y ago
    I never use Twitter but I have an account and the app installed on my iPhone. This particular story displayed in an extremely easy to read format for me on my phone. Was very similar to reading a blog page.
- e12e 6y ago
  > I honestly don't see any advantage to those "thread readers" Do you typically read Twitter in an app or via the web? I find it annoying enough to read Twitter on the web - that I don't. Part of that is the fact that Twitter spends sizeable screenspace nagging me to log in - which presumably isn't a problem if you have an account.

saurik 6y ago

This is largely why I do it. I have half a million twitter followers, and while I can write it on my blog and then tweet a link, it is nowhere near as effective as just publishing the content directly on Twitter. FWIW, I used to despise it when people did this (post massive threads of messages), but frankly I think they fixed the UI for this years ago, and just don't understand the complaints anymore: you click the link, and can scroll through messages as if it were an article. Between it auto-flowing the messages and the longer tweet length of 280 characters, I honestly don't see any advantage to those "thread readers" people keep linking to... they don't even have larger information density, which is ridiculous. (Hell... they frankly seem to make the text harder to read!) (And yeah: I carefully write my tons of text on Twitter such that every single message is a carefully enough crafted thought that they could just about stand alone, which I think is actually good for the content.)

stevewodil 6y ago
Wow, it is SO weird to see the name "saurik" replying to my comment. I remember in middle school jailbreaking my iPod touch to install all kinds of cool tweaks from Cydia, and I'm sure that exposure led me to continue messing around with electronics. Thank you for all you did for the community, I attribute a lot of my interest in computers and coding to the early jailbreak days.
enw 6y ago
Hey, sorry for being off-topic. Just wanted to say thanks for making Cydia! It feels very nostalgic to me.
tjoff 6y ago
you click the link, and can scroll through messages as if it were an article. No you can not. Often times the posts are not in order. You have to expand multiple times and if you are unlucky you get pulled into another direction and miss half the story. Unreadable isn't hyperbole. Maybe you have to have an account for it to be usable? Note: the posted twitter-thread is the first I've seen that actually works for me. Not sure why that is.
sundarurfriend 6y ago
> frankly I think they fixed the UI for this years ago, and just don't understand the complaints anymore "fixed the UI" is a big overstatement - they improved the UI from utterly horrible to barely usable (for this purpose). > you click the link, and can scroll through messages as if it were an article. Imagine if someone wrote an article by creating a phpBB forum thread and posting every couple of sentences as a post on the thread. That's what this is like, for the rest of us - since you have a half million followers, your brain is probably used to filtering out all the crap and parsing the posts quickly. But the vast majority of us don't use Twitter as much or at all, and this adds a mental tax for all of us. That's why the thread readers are so successful - you're not the target audience of them, but most of the rest of the Internet users are.
- 300bps 6y ago
  I never use Twitter but I have an account and the app installed on my iPhone. This particular story displayed in an extremely easy to read format for me on my phone. Was very similar to reading a blog page.
e12e 6y ago
> I honestly don't see any advantage to those "thread readers" Do you typically read Twitter in an app or via the web? I find it annoying enough to read Twitter on the web - that I don't. Part of that is the fact that Twitter spends sizeable screenspace nagging me to log in - which presumably isn't a problem if you have an account.