5 ms·
This is such a puff piece that one has to wonder if it's not simply a PR plant. I've been saying for the last year or more that Twitter is doomed. I stand by t
by cletus 15y ago
This is such a puff piece that one has to wonder if it's not simply a PR plant.
I've been saying for the last year or more that Twitter is doomed. I stand by that prediction. Twitter was originally envisioned as a place for real-time status updates. It became a place where, to a certain extent, news broke but now? It seems to be a graveyard where people follow celebrities.
Not that there isn't necessarily a business model in following celebrities but it seems like the difference between being Facebook and being Myspace.
Twitter is (IMHO) terrible at conversations. As others have mentioned, they're disjointed.
This post raves about Twtitter's real time abilities and potential but:
1. There is only real-time data to process while people use it and, honestly, I don't see the incentive to produce it. Twtitter just seems to be another box your brand management company checks on their social media checklist; and
2. There's still no hint of a business model anywhere.
Honestly, the idea that Twitter will be "bigger than Google", even for a narrow area like "real time", is laughable.
I see Twitter as another "bubble" company (like Quora). People in the Valley think it's big because "everyone" (in the Valley) uses it but this gives a very distorted view. Twitter is more mainstream than Quora but I wouldn't be surprised if Twitter's 7-day actives were much lower than the ~175 million accounts and stagnant, even waning.
- brackin 15y agoTwitter is very much mainstream. In the UK especially.
- andreasklinger 15y agoMainstream news is btw also a huge market ;)
- brackin 15y agoTwitter is very much mainstream. In the UK especially.
- andreasklinger 15y agoHi Thanks for your feedback. I completely agree that twitter got worse - especially at social conversations. This was the reason why i saw them - like you - as the forever second (if not last). But the move to categorize, contextualise and present real time content and provide it for third partners is a big businessmodel. E.g. thousands of press agencies pay their bills like that - and twitter has already a pull by media houses to go that way. If developers were ok to pay for firehouse i am pretty sure mediahouses will pay for firehouse news. And as said - i agree it sucks at several levels. But this wy to look at it gave me a new light to it. Andi ps: It's not a PR plant but my opinion, even if it's laughable.
- notahacker 15y agoSure, but if Twitter is getting worse to the point where the vast majority its content is bots spamming each other and retweets of memes and timeless pithy quotes, then (i) the number of actual people actually using the service will drop off faster than Myspace and (ii) Twitter analysis isn't going to be worth paying Twitter for, especially with media agencies already able to monitor the comments of public figures at no charge and get link share stats from shorturl services.
- nickik 15y agoWho cars what other people do? If you don't follow people that retweet stupid celebrites its awesome. I get lots of intressting and funny tweets (or very short conversations) about poltics and computer sience. Don't blame twitter if you follow the wrong people. Twitter is fine as it is for me, if the add other features they might be useful or the might not be useful as long as the main service dosn't change I don't really give a shit. That said I dont belive that Twitter will ever be bigger then Google.
- lambda 15y agoThe problem is, even most interesting people to follow retweet random crap about their personal life at times, and when they do tweet interesting content, I sometimes want to have a conversation about it, which I can't do there.
- edbloom 15y agoI don't think Twitter is doomed - but I think they've been struggling to figure out their place in the world. I think this is starting to change now and would agree with many of the sentiments in the article - if not the hype re: it being bigger than Google - I couldn't see that happening in the short term anyway. The other part of the problem people's views on Twitter/Facebook et al. is that your experiences on each network tend to be a reflection of how much effort you've put into getting the most out of each. For example, for me, Twitter has FAR more value on a daily basis than Facebook. From my perspective, Facebook is a glorified flickr account. But that's just me. Meanwhile Twitter is my go to news source along with Hacker News. Market valuations wouldn't reflect my personal perspectives on each network! Twitter needs to get MUCH better at helping users get the most out of their personal user experience on the network - otherwise it will never reach it's true potential.
- theBobMcCormick 15y agoGoogle+ has completely supplanted Twitter as a news source for me. With G+, you get actual paragraphs of information (often with pictures, etc). If there's a link, it's a real link, not one of those stupid damn shortened urls's (I REALLY hate those). With Twitter, a cryptic 100 character "message" and a url shortened link. Good riddance to Twitter. G+ has a lot of room for improvement, but Twitter's lack of usability is mind boggling.
- jamesgeck0 15y ago> 2. There's still no hint of a business model anywhere. There's been sponsored advertisements in my twitter stream for a few months now.