4 ms·

Nothing bad about the Twitter Inventor, but there was (A LOT) of luck involved in the success of Twitter. His next project might be interesting, but it is 99.99

Nothing bad about the Twitter Inventor, but there was (A LOT) of luck involved in the success of Twitter. His next project might be interesting, but it is 99.999% certainly not a new blockbuster like Twitter.

menloparkbum 17y ago
but there was (A LOT) of luck involved in the success of Twitter. Actually there wasn't a lot of luck. Twitter is something that users actually wanted: a broadcast "status" update that wasn't just on their instant message client. Twitter is successful because they remained positive and persevered while other people capable of making a similar system didn't do anything about it. Grumpy programmers just posted confused blog posts and forum comments about it. "Twitter? Huh? I don't get it." Nobody really tried to compete with them head on, and they still don't have any real competition. People say facebook is their main competition, and they are right, but Facebook has so much baggage of being something else that isn't Twitter that it seems unlikely people will ever consciously choose between one or the other. More likely people will use both services. It's a bit of luck that anyone cares about posting their status online but it's not really luck that they are using Twitter to do so... What else would they use?
- c3o 17y ago
  You wouldn't say Pownce tried competing with them head-on?
  - axod 17y ago
    Not afaik. Pownce had features.
- paulgb 17y ago
  It's easy to pick reasons in after the fact to explain why something happened the way it did. Just being able to find plausible reasons doesn't mean they are right, or that the event wasn't in fact a matter of luck.
- psranga 17y ago
  IIRC, Twitter was started as a way to send personal bits of info to people you knew. Why else do they have the tagline "What are you doing?". That idea didn't work. Hence I would definitely agree that a lot of luck resulted in Twitter being repurposed as an broadcaster of impersonal information to people who you don't know. (which is pretty much the opposite of the original intent).
ericb 17y ago
I don't know about those odds... It took an insight most people didn't have to come up with Twitter--to me the concept of twitter was not obvious at all until after I'd used it. There are no guarantees, but one startling insight could indicate he has more. Plus, I like this idea...
grinich 17y ago
How many times does it take before you don't call it luck anymore?
- vaksel 17y ago
  2 in my book
volida 17y ago
i dont see luck being the determining factor for twitter success but yes you also need a bit of fucking luck in start ups although you would call it more like risk taking and Timing. Other than that just get over it.
GeneralMaximus 17y ago
I disagree with that. Before Twitter came along, I would regularly change my IM status to a nice quote, a link to a nice news story or a link to a cool website. Many people do this. Twitter makes it easy to broadcast something like this to hundreds of people, makes it all searchable and encourages conversation. It serves as an outlet for random thoughts and observations that are too insignificant to fit into a blog post. A "stream of consciousness", if you will. Collectively, Twitter is the entire Internet's stream of consciousness. I find Twitter is a great way for staying in touch, too. Why? Because it simple. Very, very simple.
axod 17y ago
>> "but there was (A LOT) of luck involved in the success of Twitter." I'm not sure we can even call it a success yet. It's certainly getting popular, but in terms of ROI? Well, we'll have to wait and see if it generates any revenue. Making something people want is great, but it's only half the battle. You have to be able to translate that into something they want that you can make money from. Twitter hasn't shown they have any clue how to do that yet.

menloparkbum 17y ago

but there was (A LOT) of luck involved in the success of Twitter. Actually there wasn't a lot of luck. Twitter is something that users actually wanted: a broadcast "status" update that wasn't just on their instant message client. Twitter is successful because they remained positive and persevered while other people capable of making a similar system didn't do anything about it. Grumpy programmers just posted confused blog posts and forum comments about it. "Twitter? Huh? I don't get it." Nobody really tried to compete with them head on, and they still don't have any real competition. People say facebook is their main competition, and they are right, but Facebook has so much baggage of being something else that isn't Twitter that it seems unlikely people will ever consciously choose between one or the other. More likely people will use both services. It's a bit of luck that anyone cares about posting their status online but it's not really luck that they are using Twitter to do so... What else would they use?

c3o 17y ago
You wouldn't say Pownce tried competing with them head-on?
- axod 17y ago
  Not afaik. Pownce had features.
paulgb 17y ago
It's easy to pick reasons in after the fact to explain why something happened the way it did. Just being able to find plausible reasons doesn't mean they are right, or that the event wasn't in fact a matter of luck.
psranga 17y ago
IIRC, Twitter was started as a way to send personal bits of info to people you knew. Why else do they have the tagline "What are you doing?". That idea didn't work. Hence I would definitely agree that a lot of luck resulted in Twitter being repurposed as an broadcaster of impersonal information to people who you don't know. (which is pretty much the opposite of the original intent).

ericb 17y ago

I don't know about those odds... It took an insight most people didn't have to come up with Twitter--to me the concept of twitter was not obvious at all until after I'd used it. There are no guarantees, but one startling insight could indicate he has more. Plus, I like this idea...

grinich 17y ago

How many times does it take before you don't call it luck anymore?

vaksel 17y ago
2 in my book

volida 17y ago

i dont see luck being the determining factor for twitter success but yes you also need a bit of fucking luck in start ups although you would call it more like risk taking and Timing. Other than that just get over it.

GeneralMaximus 17y ago

I disagree with that. Before Twitter came along, I would regularly change my IM status to a nice quote, a link to a nice news story or a link to a cool website. Many people do this. Twitter makes it easy to broadcast something like this to hundreds of people, makes it all searchable and encourages conversation. It serves as an outlet for random thoughts and observations that are too insignificant to fit into a blog post. A "stream of consciousness", if you will. Collectively, Twitter is the entire Internet's stream of consciousness. I find Twitter is a great way for staying in touch, too. Why? Because it simple. Very, very simple.

axod 17y ago

>> "but there was (A LOT) of luck involved in the success of Twitter." I'm not sure we can even call it a success yet. It's certainly getting popular, but in terms of ROI? Well, we'll have to wait and see if it generates any revenue. Making something people want is great, but it's only half the battle. You have to be able to translate that into something they want that you can make money from. Twitter hasn't shown they have any clue how to do that yet.