6 ms·

Black Widow

216 points by bradgessler 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Terry_B 14y ago
I think Twitter understands that there is a much lower barrier to leaving their service for a competitor, compared to the other social services. What data do you have in Twitter that you wouldn't be prepared to leave behind?
- robryan 14y ago
  Only the graph, rebuilding your following/ followers would be a pain. Which makes sense that if they are going to be a pain about anything it is restricting access to rebuilding the graph on competing services.
hooande 14y ago
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. To Twitter, one Kardashian is worth thousands of developers. Apps don't matter to twitter. Developers don't matter to twitter. Celebrities matter to twitter. As DCurt points out so eloquently, twitter is largely a one way medium. Celebrities -> everyone else. If you need proof, look at anyone's twitter stream (including your own) and note the ratio of famous people to actual friends. The average person clearly doesn't care about apps or developers or even social networking. They just want to feel a little bit closer to someone who is better known than they are. The real twitter killing app is whatever attracts celebrities. Anything else might have a long road.
- harryh 14y ago
  I'm not convinced that this is true. Here look at this random kid I picked. Nearly everyone he's following looks like a peer: https://twitter.com/#!/fireattherocks/following https://twitter.com/#!/fireattherocks/following At the very least I'm not willing to believe your premise until someone can back it up with data.
  - n8agrin 14y ago
    I actually think both of you are right. It's not about exclusively communicating with your friends or exclusively following celebs, it's about both. What you care about combined with a personal audience to discuss it with. The kid you found as an example subscribes to Paul Ryan's and Newt Gingrich's feeds along with his friends' feeds. Twitter can target Republican, right-leaning ads towards him. Maybe he discusses politics with his friends online and off.
  - zaptheimpaler 14y ago
    "twitter is largely a one way medium. Celebrities -> everyone else" "I'm not convinced that this is true. Here look at this random kid I picked. Nearly everyone he's following looks like a peer:" This is the problem with inferring statistical properties from a sample size of 0 or 1. Here's some data on the subject: http://www.intmath.com/blog/twitter-follower-semi-log-graphs/5496 http://www.intmath.com/blog/twitter-follower-semi-log-graphs... The sharp drop from having 0 to ~1000 followers on the graph on number of followers indicates that twitter is somewhat of a one-way medium.
    - voyou 14y ago
      I don't think that data supports the claim that Twitter is a one-way medium. What it shows is that there are a significant number of Twitter relationships which are one-way, but that doesn't mean that any individual is solely using Twitter as a receiving medium. What you would need is data on the number of users with no followers who are still reading their timeline; in the linked post, Dalton says this is high, but doesn't provide a link and I can't find data on this.
- frankydp 14y ago
  I agree with this completely. I have yet to even meet someone that uses twitter. I have always seen twitter as a valleywood product. Seems to me like the people that use it, use it because they think they are suppose to.
  - chipotle_coyote 14y ago
    Well, let's see. Twitter has 500M registered accounts (according to Wikipedia) and a churn rate of about ~80% as of 2010[1], a (very) ballpark estimate of active users is 100M. While you personally may not have met anyone who uses it, I know a lot of people who do and they are certainly not all in "Valleywood." And I'm pretty sure no active user is using it "because they think they are supposed to"; there's no evidence that suggests people who aren't really that interested in Twitter keep coming back to use it out of a mysterious sense of obligation. [1]: http://liesdamnedliesstatistics.com/2010/01/80-twitter-accounts-inactive-but-core-users-more-committed.html http://liesdamnedliesstatistics.com/2010/01/80-twitter-accou...
    - adamc 14y ago
      What does it mean to be an "active" user? If I use it once a month, or even once a week while following a search, am I "active"? I have a twitter account. I just about never "tweet", but occasionally look for information there. Mostly I ignore it. I don't know how the churn is measured, but I know a lot of people who fit into that category -- they use it, but not heavily. If something else replaced it I would barely notice. Whereas, in my experience, many Facebook users seem much more heavily committed to Facebook, since it has updates of friends and family. (I don't use Facebook at all, so this is just an observation -- would love to see more data contrasting the two services.)
  - mcantelon 14y ago
    >I have yet to even meet someone that uses twitter. Odd. Twitter has been a great intelligence tool for me (I don't live in the valley, but I'm definitely tech-centric so not representative of the general population). I've heard of interesting projects and tools with it, I virtually "met" someone who I ended up collaborating on a successful project with, I got tipped off about an amazing travel package through an amateur agency with it, I got notified of a coding contest with it that won me registration to Google I/O, etc. etc. It changed my perspective and life, honestly. My Twitter use has, however, dropped off sinced my favourite web-based Twitter tool went offline. Twitter's official web client simply doesn't do what's needed and I don't like using non-web clients. I am now working on a personal Twitter client when I find time. Once that's done I'll return.
chrishenn 14y ago
"Twitter has an enormous advantage over Facebook in one key area: while people on Facebook tend to friend their friends, people on Twitter tend to follow their interests. The following graph from Twitter is worth far more on a per-account basis because it is directly monetizable in a way that Facebook’s generally isn’t – you can show prophylactic advertisements to Twitter users based solely on the people they follow, and probably get a much higher rate of interest. Compared to other social display ads, Twitter ads, it is rumored, work extremely well." Facebook users friend their friends AND follow celebrities/brands/products. Facebook also encourages you to share a lot of information about interests and locations. You might also share the same on Twitter, but its not neatly saved as part of your profile. I'm not sure Facebook will be able to make more money off advertising then Twitter, but if they don't, it wont be because of lack of information about your interests.
kyro 14y ago
Can someone name me an instance where a site as popular as Twitter eventually flopped because it didn't play nicely with third-party developers? I can't think of one, although I most certainly could be wrong. There seems to be this idea that angry developers -> no apps -> crappier service -> users leaving, and I just don't see it. Apple has long been screwing developers with their App Store and yet how many thousands are out there coding away at their iPhone games, playing by every rule, however arbitrary, that Apple implements? Developers aren't going to kill Twitter, but a better service more attractive to users will. I'm of the belief that at this point, Twitter's developed such a huge brand that the lack of app choices alone is nowhere near enough to decrease user engagement. Twitter is constantly on CNN, a myriad of other news channels, and almost every major celebrity tweet I've seen has been made from either the Twitter web interface or their Mac/iOS app. Users have a much, much larger threshold of "abuse" than many people here seem to believe. Facebook ads, Twitter ads, no third-party Twitter apps, etc, are all very minor annoyances, if you can even call them that, to the majority of users. So while Twitter's new move is certainly frustrating for the developers that helped give them a boost initially, they've certainly got the momentum, brand-recognition, and celebrity engagement to keep them going for a while.
- heretohelp 14y ago
  Quite to the contrary as what is being supposed, a deluge of mediocre developers has actually ruined more than one platform. Pre-Nintendo, the entire video game industry crashed because of awful developers. When Nintendo broke into the scene, they were notorious for their stringent quality guidelines and hated for some time as a result.
  - hkmurakami 14y ago
    What's ironic then, is that Nintendo has slowly lost its dominance over the video game console industry by its slow erosion of its developer base. PlayStation was hugely enabled by Square "rebelling" against Nintendo and siding with Sony, while XBox has broken through at least partly through its fervent support for its developers.
    - 14y ago
Shank 14y ago
Now would be a fantastic time for Google+ or App.net to sweep in and get developers on their respective sides. Past social networks have gone in phases, and I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't begin to push people away from the platform. No, it won't kill Twitter, but it will lead to the rising up of something else, akin to how Twitter started to gain traction when they debuted their API.
Jerpo 14y ago
So the reason twitter closing its API as as an attempt to maintain their 'walled garden'? Rather than building a sustainable competitive advantage they are freezing out developers and hoping for the best? Perhaps it is part of a larger scheme, that leads to monetization?
ceol 14y ago
>The problem with this solution is that Twitter was built >on the backs of the very developers it is now blocking. Was it really? I've never seen any specific stats, but what are the number of users solely relying on a third party app to use Twitter versus the number of users who just use the site? I bet there are a lot more who just go to mobile.twitter.com or use the official client instead of paying for a third party app.
- dannyr 14y ago
  Twitter didn't have an official mobile client for a while. It was the 3rd-party developers that brought Twitter to mobile. Twitter's web app stagnated until recently. Apps like Tweetdeck filled the gap.
- frankydp 14y ago
  Didn't the "official" client start out as a third party app. Tweetie.
  - zachwill 14y ago
    Yes, it did.
  - ceol 14y ago
    And I'm asking how much of an effect it really had. The fact third party apps exist doesn't mean the majority of users, or even a worthwhile number, use them.
gammarator 14y ago
Twitter's advantages are 1) asymmetric follow and 2) a head start. Neither provides an insurmountable barrier.
keppy 14y ago
Although I sometimes am left feeling shallow--after reading one of the shorter blog posts like this one from the front page of HN--I am usually thankful more words were not used on the same topic.
lsc 14y ago
twitter has apps? I mean, I'm kidding, mostly, but really, what are twitter apps for? slightly easier input from a phone? I thought that most of the value of twitter was that it was 'like a rss aggrigator but easier'
- nchlswu 14y ago
  Yes, the primary added value was user experience. However, devs also built apps for the corporate market that go beyond consumption use cases. Granted, Twitter has been working on their own business services and apps that fall under that category will probably remain unaffected (for now).
y4m4 14y ago
140 characters is equally smart and equally shameful for Internet from where i see it. Twitter will do what fits its revenue model relentlessly and ruthlessly, since its logical and rational. Point is since you can't fight it "Kill It" and build a new one.
prawks 14y ago
The thing most of these types of criticisms of Twitter forget is that users don't make apps, developers do.
jusben1369 14y ago
Devs are like artists moving into rundown neighborhoods. "No one was here when we moved in. Windows were broken, it was dangerous after dark. But the rents were cheap and the architecture awesome so we all moved in." "Soon good coffee shops and restaurants opened. Some buildings were fixed up. It was great!" "Then the hipsters/wannabes/yuppies started moving in. They drove up rents and the price of a latte. Now we can't afford to live around here anymore. This SUCKS" As someone below mentions Twitter is 6 years old. It's outgrown the early wave. Neighborhoods don't usually suddenly collapse back again. But new neighborhoods soon flourish in old rundown neighborhoods. Better to focus on the next neighborhood than lament the march of time.
varelse 14y ago
Instant YC startup: Twitter alternative with free 3rd party app support up to a given volume with dirt-cheap pricing for additional volume beyond that - long-tail your way to success just like an app store. Am I missing something obvious here?

216 points by bradgessler 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

I think Twitter understands that there is a much lower barrier to leaving their service for a competitor, compared to the other social services. What data do you have in Twitter that you wouldn't be prepared to leave behind?

robryan 14y ago
Only the graph, rebuilding your following/ followers would be a pain. Which makes sense that if they are going to be a pain about anything it is restricting access to rebuilding the graph on competing services.

hooande 14y ago

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. To Twitter, one Kardashian is worth thousands of developers. Apps don't matter to twitter. Developers don't matter to twitter. Celebrities matter to twitter. As DCurt points out so eloquently, twitter is largely a one way medium. Celebrities -> everyone else. If you need proof, look at anyone's twitter stream (including your own) and note the ratio of famous people to actual friends. The average person clearly doesn't care about apps or developers or even social networking. They just want to feel a little bit closer to someone who is better known than they are. The real twitter killing app is whatever attracts celebrities. Anything else might have a long road.

harryh 14y ago
I'm not convinced that this is true. Here look at this random kid I picked. Nearly everyone he's following looks like a peer: https://twitter.com/#!/fireattherocks/following https://twitter.com/#!/fireattherocks/following At the very least I'm not willing to believe your premise until someone can back it up with data.
- n8agrin 14y ago
  I actually think both of you are right. It's not about exclusively communicating with your friends or exclusively following celebs, it's about both. What you care about combined with a personal audience to discuss it with. The kid you found as an example subscribes to Paul Ryan's and Newt Gingrich's feeds along with his friends' feeds. Twitter can target Republican, right-leaning ads towards him. Maybe he discusses politics with his friends online and off.
- zaptheimpaler 14y ago
  "twitter is largely a one way medium. Celebrities -> everyone else" "I'm not convinced that this is true. Here look at this random kid I picked. Nearly everyone he's following looks like a peer:" This is the problem with inferring statistical properties from a sample size of 0 or 1. Here's some data on the subject: http://www.intmath.com/blog/twitter-follower-semi-log-graphs/5496 http://www.intmath.com/blog/twitter-follower-semi-log-graphs... The sharp drop from having 0 to ~1000 followers on the graph on number of followers indicates that twitter is somewhat of a one-way medium.
  - voyou 14y ago
    I don't think that data supports the claim that Twitter is a one-way medium. What it shows is that there are a significant number of Twitter relationships which are one-way, but that doesn't mean that any individual is solely using Twitter as a receiving medium. What you would need is data on the number of users with no followers who are still reading their timeline; in the linked post, Dalton says this is high, but doesn't provide a link and I can't find data on this.
frankydp 14y ago
I agree with this completely. I have yet to even meet someone that uses twitter. I have always seen twitter as a valleywood product. Seems to me like the people that use it, use it because they think they are suppose to.
- chipotle_coyote 14y ago
  Well, let's see. Twitter has 500M registered accounts (according to Wikipedia) and a churn rate of about ~80% as of 2010[1], a (very) ballpark estimate of active users is 100M. While you personally may not have met anyone who uses it, I know a lot of people who do and they are certainly not all in "Valleywood." And I'm pretty sure no active user is using it "because they think they are supposed to"; there's no evidence that suggests people who aren't really that interested in Twitter keep coming back to use it out of a mysterious sense of obligation. [1]: http://liesdamnedliesstatistics.com/2010/01/80-twitter-accounts-inactive-but-core-users-more-committed.html http://liesdamnedliesstatistics.com/2010/01/80-twitter-accou...
  - adamc 14y ago
    What does it mean to be an "active" user? If I use it once a month, or even once a week while following a search, am I "active"? I have a twitter account. I just about never "tweet", but occasionally look for information there. Mostly I ignore it. I don't know how the churn is measured, but I know a lot of people who fit into that category -- they use it, but not heavily. If something else replaced it I would barely notice. Whereas, in my experience, many Facebook users seem much more heavily committed to Facebook, since it has updates of friends and family. (I don't use Facebook at all, so this is just an observation -- would love to see more data contrasting the two services.)
- mcantelon 14y ago
  >I have yet to even meet someone that uses twitter. Odd. Twitter has been a great intelligence tool for me (I don't live in the valley, but I'm definitely tech-centric so not representative of the general population). I've heard of interesting projects and tools with it, I virtually "met" someone who I ended up collaborating on a successful project with, I got tipped off about an amazing travel package through an amateur agency with it, I got notified of a coding contest with it that won me registration to Google I/O, etc. etc. It changed my perspective and life, honestly. My Twitter use has, however, dropped off sinced my favourite web-based Twitter tool went offline. Twitter's official web client simply doesn't do what's needed and I don't like using non-web clients. I am now working on a personal Twitter client when I find time. Once that's done I'll return.

chrishenn 14y ago

"Twitter has an enormous advantage over Facebook in one key area: while people on Facebook tend to friend their friends, people on Twitter tend to follow their interests. The following graph from Twitter is worth far more on a per-account basis because it is directly monetizable in a way that Facebook’s generally isn’t – you can show prophylactic advertisements to Twitter users based solely on the people they follow, and probably get a much higher rate of interest. Compared to other social display ads, Twitter ads, it is rumored, work extremely well." Facebook users friend their friends AND follow celebrities/brands/products. Facebook also encourages you to share a lot of information about interests and locations. You might also share the same on Twitter, but its not neatly saved as part of your profile. I'm not sure Facebook will be able to make more money off advertising then Twitter, but if they don't, it wont be because of lack of information about your interests.

kyro 14y ago

Can someone name me an instance where a site as popular as Twitter eventually flopped because it didn't play nicely with third-party developers? I can't think of one, although I most certainly could be wrong. There seems to be this idea that angry developers -> no apps -> crappier service -> users leaving, and I just don't see it. Apple has long been screwing developers with their App Store and yet how many thousands are out there coding away at their iPhone games, playing by every rule, however arbitrary, that Apple implements? Developers aren't going to kill Twitter, but a better service more attractive to users will. I'm of the belief that at this point, Twitter's developed such a huge brand that the lack of app choices alone is nowhere near enough to decrease user engagement. Twitter is constantly on CNN, a myriad of other news channels, and almost every major celebrity tweet I've seen has been made from either the Twitter web interface or their Mac/iOS app. Users have a much, much larger threshold of "abuse" than many people here seem to believe. Facebook ads, Twitter ads, no third-party Twitter apps, etc, are all very minor annoyances, if you can even call them that, to the majority of users. So while Twitter's new move is certainly frustrating for the developers that helped give them a boost initially, they've certainly got the momentum, brand-recognition, and celebrity engagement to keep them going for a while.

heretohelp 14y ago
Quite to the contrary as what is being supposed, a deluge of mediocre developers has actually ruined more than one platform. Pre-Nintendo, the entire video game industry crashed because of awful developers. When Nintendo broke into the scene, they were notorious for their stringent quality guidelines and hated for some time as a result.
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  What's ironic then, is that Nintendo has slowly lost its dominance over the video game console industry by its slow erosion of its developer base. PlayStation was hugely enabled by Square "rebelling" against Nintendo and siding with Sony, while XBox has broken through at least partly through its fervent support for its developers.
  - 14y ago

Shank 14y ago

Now would be a fantastic time for Google+ or App.net to sweep in and get developers on their respective sides. Past social networks have gone in phases, and I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't begin to push people away from the platform. No, it won't kill Twitter, but it will lead to the rising up of something else, akin to how Twitter started to gain traction when they debuted their API.

Jerpo 14y ago

So the reason twitter closing its API as as an attempt to maintain their 'walled garden'? Rather than building a sustainable competitive advantage they are freezing out developers and hoping for the best? Perhaps it is part of a larger scheme, that leads to monetization?

ceol 14y ago

>The problem with this solution is that Twitter was built >on the backs of the very developers it is now blocking. Was it really? I've never seen any specific stats, but what are the number of users solely relying on a third party app to use Twitter versus the number of users who just use the site? I bet there are a lot more who just go to mobile.twitter.com or use the official client instead of paying for a third party app.

dannyr 14y ago
Twitter didn't have an official mobile client for a while. It was the 3rd-party developers that brought Twitter to mobile. Twitter's web app stagnated until recently. Apps like Tweetdeck filled the gap.
frankydp 14y ago
Didn't the "official" client start out as a third party app. Tweetie.
- zachwill 14y ago
  Yes, it did.
- ceol 14y ago
  And I'm asking how much of an effect it really had. The fact third party apps exist doesn't mean the majority of users, or even a worthwhile number, use them.

gammarator 14y ago

Twitter's advantages are 1) asymmetric follow and 2) a head start. Neither provides an insurmountable barrier.

keppy 14y ago

Although I sometimes am left feeling shallow--after reading one of the shorter blog posts like this one from the front page of HN--I am usually thankful more words were not used on the same topic.

lsc 14y ago

twitter has apps? I mean, I'm kidding, mostly, but really, what are twitter apps for? slightly easier input from a phone? I thought that most of the value of twitter was that it was 'like a rss aggrigator but easier'

nchlswu 14y ago
Yes, the primary added value was user experience. However, devs also built apps for the corporate market that go beyond consumption use cases. Granted, Twitter has been working on their own business services and apps that fall under that category will probably remain unaffected (for now).

y4m4 14y ago

140 characters is equally smart and equally shameful for Internet from where i see it. Twitter will do what fits its revenue model relentlessly and ruthlessly, since its logical and rational. Point is since you can't fight it "Kill It" and build a new one.

prawks 14y ago

The thing most of these types of criticisms of Twitter forget is that users don't make apps, developers do.

jusben1369 14y ago

Devs are like artists moving into rundown neighborhoods. "No one was here when we moved in. Windows were broken, it was dangerous after dark. But the rents were cheap and the architecture awesome so we all moved in." "Soon good coffee shops and restaurants opened. Some buildings were fixed up. It was great!" "Then the hipsters/wannabes/yuppies started moving in. They drove up rents and the price of a latte. Now we can't afford to live around here anymore. This SUCKS" As someone below mentions Twitter is 6 years old. It's outgrown the early wave. Neighborhoods don't usually suddenly collapse back again. But new neighborhoods soon flourish in old rundown neighborhoods. Better to focus on the next neighborhood than lament the march of time.

varelse 14y ago

Instant YC startup: Twitter alternative with free 3rd party app support up to a given volume with dirt-cheap pricing for additional volume beyond that - long-tail your way to success just like an app store. Am I missing something obvious here?