4 ms·

Twitter isn't focused on being a microblogging platform anymore, and X has a branding problem worse than that papa John's guy, John Schnatter. I like mastodon,

Twitter isn't focused on being a microblogging platform anymore, and X has a branding problem worse than that papa John's guy, John Schnatter. I like mastodon, but it has been described as going to a quiet restaurant only to be handed a meat cleaver and an oven. Bluesky's interface is clunky, slow by comparison. It is run by Jack Dorsey who, bless his good intentions, doesn't inspire faith in his management of a good product. Meta is hands off, this is Instagram and Mosseri's discretion, with Meta as a hiring pool. The hate for meta is palpable, but threads is only going to grow imo.

benzible 3y ago
Agree with a lot of this but Dorsey doesn't run Bluesky. The project was initiated at Twitter while he was CEO and he's on the board of the company, but he's not the day to day operator.
- slimsag 3y ago
  Which I would also suggest is the most questionable/concerning part of Bluesky: Twitter didn't invest in it in exchange for nothing. What amount of control might X/Elon have over Bluesky as a company? Jack backing something other than Bluesky post-Twitter is not a good sign.
TheAceOfHearts 3y ago
My understanding is that Jack Dorsey has little to no direct involvement with Blue Sky anymore. He doesn't even have an account on the service. As far as I know, Jack has redirected his efforts to Nostr. I do think one useful heuristic for evaluating social media apps is whether company leadership and employees are actually participating on the platform. When I open Twitter and Threads, I see Elon and Mark both posting regularly.
bogomipz 3y ago
>"Twitter isn't focused on being a microblogging platform anymore, and X has a branding problem worse than that papa John's guy, John Schnatter." It is amusing that accessing "X formerly known as Twitter" by typing "x.com" in a browser still resolves to twitter.com. Is there a reason that a CEO who is unbothered by abrupt and radical changes can't or won't retire the twitter.com domain? Is there a practical reason for this? Certainly "tiwtter.com" being hardcoded everywhere would not rise to the level of an intractable problem.
- mgiannopoulos 3y ago
  Obviously there is a ton of technical debt involved and the devs convinced Musk not to deal with it yet. If they had hardcoded data center names , you can imagine what goes on with the domain.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Wouldn't amaze me if at least one of the major downtimes they've had has been an attempt to do this.
ikt 3y ago
> I like mastodon, but it has been described as going to a quiet restaurant only to be handed a meat cleaver and an oven. I like how a non-algo'd website is now basically being described as a massive pain
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Suppose it depends on what you're used to. I started using Twitter in 2007 (no algorithm) and moved to accessing it pretty much exclusively by third party app by around 2010, and I bailed out shortly before Naughty ol' Mr Car killed the API, so I've ~no direct exposure to The Algorithm(TM); Mastodon thus suited me fine. But if you're used to an algorithm, I suppose Threads may suit better.
  - ikt 3y ago
    I wonder if the internet is splitting in two, those you interact with and those you doomscroll?
mgiannopoulos 3y ago
What features are missing from Twitter to be a better microblogging platform?

benzible 3y ago

Agree with a lot of this but Dorsey doesn't run Bluesky. The project was initiated at Twitter while he was CEO and he's on the board of the company, but he's not the day to day operator.

slimsag 3y ago
Which I would also suggest is the most questionable/concerning part of Bluesky: Twitter didn't invest in it in exchange for nothing. What amount of control might X/Elon have over Bluesky as a company? Jack backing something other than Bluesky post-Twitter is not a good sign.

TheAceOfHearts 3y ago

My understanding is that Jack Dorsey has little to no direct involvement with Blue Sky anymore. He doesn't even have an account on the service. As far as I know, Jack has redirected his efforts to Nostr. I do think one useful heuristic for evaluating social media apps is whether company leadership and employees are actually participating on the platform. When I open Twitter and Threads, I see Elon and Mark both posting regularly.

bogomipz 3y ago

>"Twitter isn't focused on being a microblogging platform anymore, and X has a branding problem worse than that papa John's guy, John Schnatter." It is amusing that accessing "X formerly known as Twitter" by typing "x.com" in a browser still resolves to twitter.com. Is there a reason that a CEO who is unbothered by abrupt and radical changes can't or won't retire the twitter.com domain? Is there a practical reason for this? Certainly "tiwtter.com" being hardcoded everywhere would not rise to the level of an intractable problem.

mgiannopoulos 3y ago
Obviously there is a ton of technical debt involved and the devs convinced Musk not to deal with it yet. If they had hardcoded data center names , you can imagine what goes on with the domain.
rsynnott 3y ago
Wouldn't amaze me if at least one of the major downtimes they've had has been an attempt to do this.

ikt 3y ago

> I like mastodon, but it has been described as going to a quiet restaurant only to be handed a meat cleaver and an oven. I like how a non-algo'd website is now basically being described as a massive pain

rsynnott 3y ago
Suppose it depends on what you're used to. I started using Twitter in 2007 (no algorithm) and moved to accessing it pretty much exclusively by third party app by around 2010, and I bailed out shortly before Naughty ol' Mr Car killed the API, so I've ~no direct exposure to The Algorithm(TM); Mastodon thus suited me fine. But if you're used to an algorithm, I suppose Threads may suit better.
- ikt 3y ago
  I wonder if the internet is splitting in two, those you interact with and those you doomscroll?

mgiannopoulos 3y ago

What features are missing from Twitter to be a better microblogging platform?