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“The lack of growth there comes from Twitter’s relative lack of innovation,” said Nate Elliott, an analyst at Forrester who studies social media. “The experienc

by tacoman 12y ago

“The lack of growth there comes from Twitter’s relative lack of innovation,” said Nate Elliott, an analyst at Forrester who studies social media. “The experience on Twitter today is the same experience people have always had on Twitter.” I don't need innovation, I just want it to work sensibly. I stopped using twitter on my phone because I found it distracting. I decided to try and use it on the web only, but there are two really big problems I see. 1. Each and every time I login, it doesn't remember where I left off, so I have to scroll down to about where I think I was and go from there. 2. Once in a while, I'll leave it open, then see the notification "xx new tweets." I then click on that and it takes me to the most recent tweet, not where I was in the timeline before I loaded all the new tweets. I can't figure out if these are really big oversights or I'm not using it as it was intended. As it is, it certainly isn't a consistent experience with the mobile client.

jameskilton 12y ago
Tweetbot[1] solves these problems nicely. Were it not for this app I wouldn't use Twitter near as often as I do today. [1] http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/
- baddox 12y ago
  Sadly, it has some major issues. There's no iPad version, which for me means that its feed location syncing is useless. The mentions feed doesn't include people following you or favoriting your tweets (even though they send push notifications for those events), which is major missing functionality. I've also encountered several UI bugs, but they're inconsistent and minor.
  - kenthorvath 12y ago
    There is an iPad version. http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ipad/ http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ipad/
    - baddox 12y ago
      Indeed. I should have clarified that Tweetbot 3 does not have an iPad version, although I believe they have indicated that they are working on it.
lkesteloot 12y ago
I don't think you're using it as intended. I also want to use it the way you do, but I think most people don't mind missing tweets. They're just dipping their toes in the stream. Facebook works the same way. I get FOMO.
- rrradical 12y ago
  I think it really depends on how many people you follow. Less than 50? You wouldn't want to miss anything. More than 500? There's no way you could read them all. As I followed more people I transitioned from FOMO into 'dip my toes' mentality, and I still enjoy it, and much prefer it to Facebook's over curation. I like that every time I check Twitter I see new things, which isn't the case on FB.
x0x0 12y ago
Their mobile website breaks about 30% of the time for me on my android 4.4.x phone. It just redirects to an error page from my bookmark. Turning on request desktop site works. And to echo parent's complaint, god forbid you accidentally click a link; you lose your place in the tweetstream and have to hit back then scroll again. I can't imagine anyone at twitter actually uses the mobile site; problem #1 is particularly frustrating.
tedunangst 12y ago
3. Every time I click an image, it shows up in an overlay. Ok, great. I press esc to hide it, and the page rescrolls all the way to the top. What jackass thought this up?
- spullara 12y ago
  Sounds like you have a browser that isn't a major one? Doesn't happen on Safari/Chrome/Firefox.
  - hippiehippo 12y ago
    That annoying scroll-to-top happens to me too and I use the latest Firefox version on Ubuntu. I first noticed it several months ago. Also, some time ago, when you clicked a message to view it's context, Twitter would expand the message list inline. Now it takes you to a new page and when you return you're back to top.
  - tedunangst 12y ago
    Firefox. I could also trivially avoid it if they used real links, such that I could middle click to open in a new tab, but since everything is just a div with an onclick handler, that's nigh impossible.
Spooky23 12y ago
You won't get much sense from them... Their main push for revenue seems to be engaging with the shrinking population of people who both watch TV shows live and care to post inane messages about them while watching!
bradleyjg 12y ago
For me the biggest annoyance is the utter lack of any sort of conversation tools. There's no nesting and the 140 char limit prevents quoting. So you just get a confusing flat view.

by tacoman 12y ago

jameskilton 12y ago

Tweetbot[1] solves these problems nicely. Were it not for this app I wouldn't use Twitter near as often as I do today. [1] http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/

baddox 12y ago
Sadly, it has some major issues. There's no iPad version, which for me means that its feed location syncing is useless. The mentions feed doesn't include people following you or favoriting your tweets (even though they send push notifications for those events), which is major missing functionality. I've also encountered several UI bugs, but they're inconsistent and minor.
- kenthorvath 12y ago
  There is an iPad version. http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ipad/ http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/ipad/
  - baddox 12y ago
    Indeed. I should have clarified that Tweetbot 3 does not have an iPad version, although I believe they have indicated that they are working on it.

lkesteloot 12y ago

I don't think you're using it as intended. I also want to use it the way you do, but I think most people don't mind missing tweets. They're just dipping their toes in the stream. Facebook works the same way. I get FOMO.

rrradical 12y ago
I think it really depends on how many people you follow. Less than 50? You wouldn't want to miss anything. More than 500? There's no way you could read them all. As I followed more people I transitioned from FOMO into 'dip my toes' mentality, and I still enjoy it, and much prefer it to Facebook's over curation. I like that every time I check Twitter I see new things, which isn't the case on FB.

x0x0 12y ago

Their mobile website breaks about 30% of the time for me on my android 4.4.x phone. It just redirects to an error page from my bookmark. Turning on request desktop site works. And to echo parent's complaint, god forbid you accidentally click a link; you lose your place in the tweetstream and have to hit back then scroll again. I can't imagine anyone at twitter actually uses the mobile site; problem #1 is particularly frustrating.

tedunangst 12y ago

3. Every time I click an image, it shows up in an overlay. Ok, great. I press esc to hide it, and the page rescrolls all the way to the top. What jackass thought this up?

spullara 12y ago
Sounds like you have a browser that isn't a major one? Doesn't happen on Safari/Chrome/Firefox.
- hippiehippo 12y ago
  That annoying scroll-to-top happens to me too and I use the latest Firefox version on Ubuntu. I first noticed it several months ago. Also, some time ago, when you clicked a message to view it's context, Twitter would expand the message list inline. Now it takes you to a new page and when you return you're back to top.
- tedunangst 12y ago
  Firefox. I could also trivially avoid it if they used real links, such that I could middle click to open in a new tab, but since everything is just a div with an onclick handler, that's nigh impossible.

Spooky23 12y ago

You won't get much sense from them... Their main push for revenue seems to be engaging with the shrinking population of people who both watch TV shows live and care to post inane messages about them while watching!

bradleyjg 12y ago

For me the biggest annoyance is the utter lack of any sort of conversation tools. There's no nesting and the 140 char limit prevents quoting. So you just get a confusing flat view.