4 ms·

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

by 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.

by hooande 14y ago

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.