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Twitter is Pivoting
- nemesisj 14y agoI hate to be that (negative) guy, but I'm starting to get really tired of Dalton constantly pissing all over twitter. Particularly because he's competing against them. I'm an App.net backer, and I think it's cool what he's doing, but FFS, let someone else carry the water, if it even needs carrying at all. This all just feels really petty and whiney, particularly when you're already at work solving the problem.
- dbecker 14y agoI don't follow the social media space very carefully, so I had no idea who he was. I read the article, and thought it was insightful. Perhaps it was old news from a same source if you follow the space carefully, but I suspect most readers are in my position. And it's hard to fault a posting that is genuinely insightful for most readers.
- chalst 14y agoI guess that a majority of HN regulars read Dalton's posts closely, and found this to be news. Peter Chernin's appointment was certainly news for me, and it added flesh to his account of what Twitter's pivot is looking like.
- gojomo 14y agoThis adds news (Chernin's involvement) and knowledgeable analysis in context. And, for an insurgent platform/viewpoint to succeed, it needs tireless promotion. (Graphomania, even.) Skip his blog posts if you don't like them, others find them valuable.
- codewright 14y ago>And, for an insurgent platform/viewpoint to succeed, it needs tireless promotion. Then I need to ramp up my userscript for client-side filtering Hacker News.
- aaronbrethorst 14y agohttps://github.com/aaronbrethorst/NoBitcoin https://github.com/aaronbrethorst/NoBitcoin
- codewright 14y agoMuch appreciated but the "ramping up" refers to the need to add more content when stuff gets removed per page in this case.
- pseut 14y agoI can not upvote this enough.
- nemesisj 14y agoLook, his post may be insightful and interesting, but the point is that if any other startup on here spent post after post publicly criticising their direct competitor, it would hopefully be viewed as a negative thing. Why is App.net any different? There are plenty of ways to promote your scrappy and noble insurgency without sticking it in the eye of your competitor. Again, I think what app.net is doing is interesting and great, just not these types of blog posts.
- Braasch 14y ago>Look, his post may be insightful and interesting >I think what app.net is doing is interesting and great, just not these types of blog posts. Nice contradiction. And perspective from someone who knows what he's talking about as a result of building a competitor is invaluable insight and quite interesting to me. I don't get why you think Dalton is doing this solely for promotional purposes, but hey, you're entitled to your opinion. Oh, and in response to your previous post: plenty of people are "carrying the water" and are calling Twitter out on their bullshit.
- EvanKelly 14y agoDuckDuckGo publicly blogs about what they feel are the shortcomings of Google. I've seen similar feedback in the comments of the DDG articles.
- patrickaljord 14y agoYep, that was me http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4744621 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4744621 I think marketing your product by criticizing your competitor is fine, but constantly blogging about how bad/evil your competitor is can be tiring and people just don't care anymore "oh, it's X criticizing Y again to promote his product, how novel!".
- davidkatz 14y agoWhy should a company criticising competition be viewed as a negative thing? Content quality trumps everything else. When something smart is being said, why does it matter who said it?
- pdenya 14y agoI'm halfway to where you are but at least he's not coming out and saying "THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD SWITCH TO APP.NET EVERYBODY" he's just commenting on twitters changes. I clicked this article knowing he was going to be bashing Twitter again but just for spending his time working on app.net he must have some perspective.
- anonymouz 14y agoI had no idea who he is, and that he is competing with Twitter. I would have welcomed a disclaimer about his conflict of interests somewhere in the post.
- fusiongyro 14y agoThat's not what a conflict of interests is. There's only one interest there. Things are going to get very tiresome if everybody is going to be expected to preface every published opinion with their entire background so you can decide whether their argument has merit without reading it.
- jopt 14y agoThanks for bringing this up. The present trend of prefixing everything with "full disclosure" seems to me to misunderstand the whole issue, and dilutes the legitimate cases where disclosure is needed.
- karl_nerd 14y agoWouldn't need so much. The sidebar could say 'founder of app.net' instead of the machismo bullshit that's there now.
- lsc 14y agoI think it's generally considered bad form do dump on your competitors, even when you do disclose your financial interests in the matter. I mean, it's certainly not illegal, and one could argue that it isn't even unethical. But it's definitely in bad form. Rude. Vulgar.
- dm8 14y agoEven I agree with you when you say that author comes across as negative towards Twitter. Also, I hate the way he hates brand advertisers and advertising. C'mon, we all need advertising. We all need effective channels to market our products and companies. The problem being digital advertising is completely broken. But that doesn't make whole brand advertising bad!
- orangethirty 14y agoIts called marketing. App.net is still small. It needs to be constantly looking for ways to be in the spotlight. I do understand your point, and can sense that you are just tired of how it seems to get too much attention. Maybe its time that App.net got the attention of hackers by writing technical posts or maybe releasing some code? It is always refreshing when companies forget about pure marketing for a moment and focus on creating interesting things.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- sbochins 14y agoAgreed, these posts (have been far too many lately) are annoying for three reasons. 1) There are better apps to build with Twitter's api than boring twitter clients. 2) There are plenty other clients to build for other web services if that's your thing. 3) As repeated by many people before, if you use someone's API they have control of how you use it. No point in whining, it's not like there is anything hidden or hard to understand here.
- pyre 14y ago> if you use someone's API they have control of how > you use it "You have no right to complain about my behavior, because I'm perfectly within my rights to be an asshole." Somehow I don't think this fits with the way the world works.
- mmcnickle 14y agoNo, a direct translation would be "There's no point in whinging about my behavior, because I'm perfectly within my rights to be an asshole" Which is entirely different to what you stated.
- mtrimpe 14y agoOr back to: "There's no point in trying to sway public opinion against me, because I'm perfectly within my rights to be an asshole"
- Leynos 14y agoWith regards 1), as an end user of a given communication protocol, I would like there to be a plurality of clients available for that protocol. C.f. email, usenet, irc, ftp, etc.
- sans-serif 14y agoHow does how it feel to you have anything to do with the merits of the post? He naturally blogs about what he's obsessed with, and his opinions aren't any less valid because of who he is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
- makmanalp 14y agoHe didn't say the opinions were invalid. He says it sounds whiny, and it does. He says it's insidiously self-promoting, and it is.
- wnight 14y agoThat's all stuff best left unsaid. And does it need to be pointed out that all this complaining about someone's tone is a bit whiny? Because it is.
- teawithcarl 14y agoThat's ridiculous. Dalton is the natural expert to point out just how far Twitter has sunk. Twitter's a metaphor for broken Silicon Valley "ethics". Dalton is building disruptive infrastructure. Since when is debunking a bad idea .. negative?
- jamesmoss 14y agoAlthough I'm fairly indifferent about app.net I could read Dalton Caldwell's blog posts all day. He's a clever guy that puts across his points well.
- danso 14y agoOf all the rhetorical points that Dalton makes, this one was the most damning for me: >>> His announcement was formatted as a direct reply to the official Twitter account. This means the announcement would only be seen by his followers that also follow the official Twitter account. I don’t get the feeling he did this on purpose. An experienced Twitter user would know to add a “.” at the beginning of his message so that his followers would see it. >> It seems a bit pedantic. But when top-down leaders don't get even the basic details of their operations right, then there are a lot of other big-picture things that they seem to get wrong as well. In the case of MySpace's crushing defeat by Facebook, the difference really was in the details, not in the overall ambitions of the two companies.
- spot 14y agohttp://www.quora.com/Twitter-1/Why-do-some-tweets-have-a-period-in-front http://www.quora.com/Twitter-1/Why-do-some-tweets-have-a-per... i knew twitter was broken but this takes the cake. i have been using twitter for years and had no idea.
- TillE 14y agoHey, Quora got slightly less obnoxious about blocking their content. Finally. Just a week or two ago, I followed a link to Quora and they were still doing the scummy old Experts Exchange trick of blurring out most of the answers.
- jlgreco 14y agoI tried them two days ago and they were doing the same. Seems like a very recent change.
- flexxaeon 14y agohaven't used quora enough to discern but it seems to be selective. sometime i get the roadblock, other times not
- nostrademons 14y agoI just tried them now and got the blurred answers. Maybe you have a Quora account you're signed into?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- fchollet 14y agoSo building a Bootstrap-based Twitter clone is doing things "the hard way"? That's an interesting point of view.
- sethbannon 14y agoThis is how I use Twitter now -- to consume news and discuss said news with my social circles. I certainly wouldn't be upset if Twitter took this as the core use case of the product.
- cpeterso 14y agoTwitter is like RSS for people who don't know what RSS is. And I mean that in a good way. :)
- swohns 14y agoTotally agree, I think Twitter understands this too, their their recent work in NLP to analyze trends, and grouping tweets to create adhoc discussion board like centralizations of discussions.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoOk, third comment here, guess the previous two comments (memesisj and jamesmoss) pretty much define 'polarizing' :-) Dalton raises some interesting questions. What exactly is twitter ? And perhaps more importantly what does Twitter think it can become? The churn in API restrictions, usage and messages certainly can be confusing.
- swohns 14y agoI don't see these options as mutually exclusive. How is consumption of information canceling out sharing information? Especially with the ability to email tweets now. This seems to run contrary to what Dalton is writing about. My favorite twitter comment is that you don't have to tweet to use twitter. You can contribute to the news, and you can consume it, Twitter isn't pushing for people to use just pursue one.
- sparkie 14y agoTwitter is pushing people into using their service in particular ways (eg, by restricting clients), and by the sounds of what is to come - the advertising will gradually get more aggressive. Dalton understands what makes social media work - and you can see it in how he advertises App.net. If you ask "what is App.net" and look for Dalton's answer somewhere - he never explicitly states. He is deliberately vague about what it is - because it isn't anything until its users have defined what it is. That's how twitter became successful in the first place - the service was defined by its users to become what it is now. Not just twitter, but every major social network grew the same way, and the ones that failed are those that didn't understand this. So Twitter, Inc. need to be careful not to piss off it's content creators with aggressive advertising or constraining how they interact with it. What Twitter, Inc want their service to be is ultimately not their decision - it's up to the users.
- swohns 14y agoWell put, it's a 100% user driven service, and has been historically friendly to developers. While the later point may be shifting, they can never lose site of their content creators value, and have to actively listen and work with them in order to make their publishing as easy as possible. I think that makes sense of their recent purchase of Vine, a beautifully crafted service on the twitter platform.
- wmf 14y agoI get the impression that social media douchebags already pivoted Twitter in that direction a few years ago, and now Twitter is just confirming it. The sad part IMO is that it seems like they could fix their developer relations problems and their business model by charging to send relevant tweets to existing followers, not unrelated ads. Of course, I don’t even use Twitter so you probably shouldn’t ask me.
- javajosh 14y agoTrue, but the root problem is in education. Our schools are passing out "social media douchebag" degrees left and right - we can expect nothing less. This is only partially tongue-in-cheek. The balance of information systems operate on trust, just as economies do, and eroding trust at the institutional level is a bad sign.
- wmf 14y agoAs much as I like to make fun of the douchebags, I have to admit that there is some merit to the idea of Twitter as an opt-in marketing channel or a character-limited version of Google Reader — at least those use case are useful to some people. The original Twitter, although authentically social, ranged from boring (I don't care what you had for lunch) to frustrating (you can't have any meaningful discussion in 140-character chunks).
- besttechie 14y agoYou would be correct actually. If anything Twitter pivoted over a year ago. I wrote my thoughts on this subject here in my post titled, Twitter Isn't Pivoting, It's Already A Media Company http://www.besttechie.com/2012/11/16/twitter-isnt-pivoting/ http://www.besttechie.com/2012/11/16/twitter-isnt-pivoting/
- nsns 14y agoPerhaps a true commercial social network is a contradiction in terms; the friction from the user=product formula necessarily becoming unbearable with time. Perhaps an open source non profit solution wil have suited it much better.
- Codhisattva 14y agoSounds like Chernin wants to make a news wire.
- diedsj 14y agoI think its outrages that a member of the board of directors of twitter has absolutely no idea what he's doing on twitter. I have no knowledge of Dalton's other business then this blogpost, and therefore it doesn't strike me as annoying, just a well written critical analyses of what twitter is doing wrong. I really hate the protectionistic (i.e. stupid) way twitter is doing business and I hope if enough people vocalize it, twitter might do something about it.
- diedsj 14y agoI think its outrages that a member of the board of directors of twitter has absolutely no idea what he's doing on twitter. I have no knowledge of Dalton's other business then this blogpost, and therefore it doesn't strike me as annoying, just a well written critical analyses of what twitter is doing wrong. I really hate the protectionistic (i.e. stupid) way twitter is doing business and I hope if enough people vocalize it, twitter might do something about it.
- iomike 14y agoHard to say you're a "long time user" if you've only been on since 2010. Been on 6 years, that line made me laugh.
- state 14y agoTo me, what's implied by this piece — since it's written by Dalton — is that Twitter is leaving behind an opportunity that he plans to take advantage of. What remains to be seen is whether the thing they're leaving behind can be fully realized. Do people really need a short-form messaging platform for communication?
- bentlegen 14y agoOr perhaps Twitter has already figured out that there is no opportunity, and Dalton is mistaken in believing it exists.
- lotso 14y ago"What is post-pivot Twitter supposed to look like? The best way to consume “news and information”. Important content is mostly created by media companies, whether they are blogs, television, radio or movies. The main reason that “normal users” would write messages is as a backchannel to discuss media events such as the Olympics, Election Coverage, or a new television show. “Normal user” tweets are something akin to Facebook comments. Even though this backchannel exists, it’s not expected that brands and celebrities are supposed to pay much attention to everything that is said. Chernin himself hasn’t replied to the numerous replies he received." That's funny because that's how I used Twitter from the beginning (5 years ago).
- zaidf 14y agoAn experienced Twitter user would know to add a “.” at the beginning of his message so that his followers would see it. Signed up for twitter on the day it launched(I think) and did not know that. Twitter is a painful product to use. It isn't made for humans. Twitter doesn't have to show a username in tweets; they can easily translate it to the name. Twitter doesn't have to require each reply to appear like an out of context note. They can easily group them as complete conversations(like facebook allowing comments). Twitter doesn't have to make lists so hard to use. They can easily make it very similar to facebook(except on twitter there is much more need to use this since they do not filter out tweets). Twitter doesn't have to insist on this 140 char limit that looks funnier every coming day and result in butchered communication. Twitter doesn't have to subtract 100 characters if I post a URL that is 100 characters; it could automagically shorten it or not count against the 140 at all. Instead, I am forced to manually use bit.ly to shorten it. Twitter doesn't have to show me a stream filled with url strings; it could easily show the title of the page or something similar to facebook. Dear Twitter, PLEASE stop this stubbornness in your product philosophy. It is hurting your users and it is hurting Twitter Corporation.
- anu_gupta 14y agoWell, if you're Zaid on Twitter, and that's your original account, you signed up about a year after Twitter launched.
- zaidf 14y agoPretty sure I signed up on the day it launched because I remember reading the TC story:) Where do you see the sign up date? I either didn't tweet for a year or deleted my tweets at some point or held another account(unlikely since I don't think I'd get my 4 letter name a year after). edit: I have at least one other account: http://twitter.com/oonth http://twitter.com/oonth
- anu_gupta 14y ago@zaid - member since August 2007. That's more than a year after Twitter actually launched, and your user number is in the 8 millions (ie more than 8 million accounts were created before that one). You signed up for your other account in March 2007.
- dm8 14y agoI have to disagree with author on some of the points. And looks like he doesn't like the fact that FB and Twitter are part media, part software companies. "a media company writing software that is optimized for mostly passive users interested in a media and entertainment filter." What's wrong in being media company? We all agree that software is eating the world, so why is it bad if Twitter is "disrupting" real-time media consumption? I loved Twitter's Olympics coverage. Even though I was thousands of miles away from London, I could feel the excitement. Same for Hurricane Sandy. It was so useful to get latest news update in such a terrible time (for everyone involved). I was caught in another disaster few years back and the biggest problem was not getting important news updates from credible agencies/people. Twitter solved that problem for Hurricane Sandy coverage. Twitter/FB are becoming like "breaking news" for every news. Be it earthquakes, celebrity gossip, world cups, olympics or new product launches!
- lordlarm 14y agoI actually have used and are using twitter. It is a horrendous user experience - but I know how to fix it. My main problem is my diverse interest in different subjects and twitters current inability to let me organize and follow what I like. I'm following approx. 200 people divided 30% technology, 30% cycling and 30% friends/locals. For me, it would be impossible to imagine following more than 250 or 300 people with todays interface - because they are all thrown into each other and reading the raw feed is a clutter and mess of subjects. You would think, considering their main goal is to get people following their interest, that they would get this part of the interface right. But the contrary - it is what is worst with twitter. The solution (and problem) I'm hinting to is of course lists and as Facebook, G+ and virtually every other social network already have found out: people like to organize interests, people and subjects into different "buckets". Facebook had a lame interface for this many years, but does a better job now. My point is, as an experienced twitter user, I know where the pains are and my first day in office I would make sure that the accessibility of lists were greatly improved. The second day I would use to fix a decent conversation view and comprehensible reply scheme. EDIT: To point out the inaccessibility of lists today, here is the general way to read up on a subject: tool-icon > lists > choose list. That's 2 clicks too many. You could also use the shortcut "gl" and spare 2 clicks, but still, it is 1 request too much and way too complex for the regular user.
- madh 14y agoI have a similar issue. I go to Twitter for many things -- work info, to laugh, friends -- and it doesn't work to have everything jammed into one stream. I would like to see something split the list of accounts I follow into subject-based lists or something so that I can consume with context. At some point, I think following becomes less important. Ideally Twitter could just show me tweets that I should enjoy. I'm not looking to get every update anyway -- I just want to dip into a stream of info that I'd find both timely and relevant.
- city41 14y agoHave you tried tweetdeck? It does just this. Set up columns for hash tags that interest you, and you can see what the entire twitterverse is saying about those topics in real time.
- fudged71 14y agoTIL what the '.' in front of '@' is for. Interesting.
- jmduke 14y agoFor those unaware: Dalton Caldwell is the creator of app.net, a direct competitor of Twitter (with a subscription fee model instead of an advertising/data model). I think it's important to read the post with that context in mind.
- hayksaakian 14y agoI like that twitter forces you to be concise.
- marshray 14y agoI have a theory that it was Twitter forcing people to be consise that was one of the major factors of the Arab Spring revolutions. Think about it: Politicians who have been trained in the art of speaking in soundbites have been ruling much of the world since the advent of electronic media. Those who can't phrase their arguments in bite-sized pieces for busy people to digest come across as being ineffective intellectuals. Titter gives ordinary people the ability to communicate in soundbites. Sometimes less is more. This is society-changing powerful stuff.
- cwp 14y agoInteresting, but it's reading an awful lot into a single tweet.
- mullingitover 14y agoI'm a longtime twitter user. He should've checked out my account for an example of best practices - http://twitter.com/mullingitover http://twitter.com/mullingitover
- pbreit 14y agoThe one point that really did not resonate with me is that companies will take over. Currently, companies are by far the worst tweeters and are totally dominated by individuals whether thy be celebrities, experts, citizen journalists, etc. Even the good tweeters who sort of tweet under a company umbrella define themselves more than their companies. Twitter seems to me that it will remain the anti-company network since it provides so much advantage to the collection of individuals.
- jusben1369 14y agoSo just reading the post I got a little confused (and then i found out he's the creator of App.net and wondered if his passion isn't clouding his best judgement) Firstly the quote: "Given that most of their traffic comes from us, if we build adequate if not superior competitors, I think we ought to be able to match them if not exceed them." - I just wasn't quite sure what this quote meant - I certainly didn't assume it mean't we're going to block them though. Maybe they did block them but shouldn't the correct quote end with "I think we ought to be able to block them"? He's been using it for a long time to consume news and information. Ok, makes sense. Yet this is apparently objectionable or at the very least damming. I think it's damming because he says he's a consumer not a producer of tweets. Is this news to anyone? "Admit failure and give up on trying to get normal people to tweet" The balance in twitter's tweet creation and consumption happened organically. Kudos to Twitter for allowing it to happen vs forcing unnatural acts? "You should tweet more!" I don't look too closely but it seems like it's been an open secret for 2 + years that 80% of all tweets come from 5 - 10% of users or whatever. I guess I wouldn't call it a pivot if Twitter is focusing heavily on the 10% that do 90% of the tweeting vs trying to get the other 90% to tweet more.
- winstonian 14y agoImagine a Hacker News without Dalton Caldwell or 37 Signals.... Mmmmmmmm
- stephenhandley 14y agothey're just gonna concentrate on content/media sharing via url, and that isn't necessarily big-company driven. people sharing links and talking about them etc.
- michaelkscott 14y agoIf you want more insights about the things discussed here, there's an interview that Mark Suster did with Joel Spolsky last year where they talk about the "API wars": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZWBtfSBlp8#t=2240s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZWBtfSBlp8#t=2240s They cover everything from the early days of Excel's API to the downfall of myspace and the rise of YouTube and Photobucket, and how twitter took off. It's worth your time.
- saumil07 14y ago1. I like, support and (pay for) App.net 2. One tweet, by one famous media guy (admittedly a board member, yes, but really only known for being a great media executive) does not a strategy make. 3. The title "is pivoting" is extremely assertive and not really backed up by, well, a preponderance of facts or data.
- jsilence 14y agoSo are we finally moving to our own status.net instances?
- ghostblog 14y ago"Admit failure and give up on trying to get normal people to tweet." What are you saying? Fourteen year olds and ethnic minorities use this website. How normal can you get? "An experienced Twitter user would know to add a “.” at the beginning of his message" Thanks for the protip, Dalton.
- jonathanjaeger 14y agoDalton was just on This Week in Startups. Great to hear more in-depth insights on iMeem, social, ad sales, and app.net http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6ZsIlfzSBU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6ZsIlfzSBU While I don't necessarily agree with his wording in every blog post, this is an awesome interview.