3 ms·

> When Twitter was gathering steam back in 2009-10, it did so because tweeting was done via SMS and not over a proprietary interface. I don't believe this for

> When Twitter was gathering steam back in 2009-10, it did so because tweeting was done via SMS and not over a proprietary interface. I don't believe this for a second. In 2009-2010, there were already a huge number of smartphones and Twitter clients out there. In fact, that time was probably better for third-party Twitter clients than today. Smartphone growth exploded in 2009-2010, so the idea that "everyone was getting a featurephone" is complete bullshit. Has anybody here ever even used Twitter via SMS? Desktop and mobile apps made Twitter. SMS was a niche thing at the very beginning. I wouldn't even bother raising the issue if he weren't trying to premise his bigger point on it. So that gets to his bigger point, which I'm not so sure about. Yeah, I can reply to Jira tickets from my email. But it's a huge pain. The replies end up with a whole bunch of email crap jammed into them, and it makes it harder to follow conversations. I usually edit other people's email responses to remove that stuff. So yes, it can be done. And maybe it's just Jira, but in this case at least, it's a much degraded experience.

illicium 12y ago
Don't forget about Twitter's API and liberal usage policy that made the plethora of clients and mashups possible -- I think this accelerated their growth more than anything. Their API is not so "free" now -- you need to register your app, always authenticate, and there's no public firehose access any more.
- ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
  This is a far better point. Twitter happened along in that magical time of AJAX when everyone was willing to share their data because we all talked about how everything should be free and open. Then the social media companies realized that this was a gigantic mistake, and started to seal everything up. How could they be expected to make their billions when their services were so open that they were essentially becoming abstracted protocols for third party apps? The opportunity to sell advertising and personal data is far greater when what you have is closed. I understand why they did it; I just hate that they did. It always felt like a massive bait and switch and I'm betting that Facebook and Twitter aren't going to be the last ones that do this.
- freshyill 12y ago
  You're correct. Smartphone usage growth basically coincides with Twitter's growth, and early Twitter apps had far fewer constraints. Twitterrific was a jailbreak app before Apple even launched the App Store. Did Twitter even have an official iOS app before they bought Tweetie? That seemed like it happened around the time of the first big API lockdown.
CodeCube 12y ago
> Has anybody here ever even used Twitter via SMS? yep :) I mean, both of our experiences are just anecdotal evidence pointing to each side of the argument. But in my experience, it made it easier to get onto the service.
ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
Yes. Many people did. Twitter's success at 140 characters was largely based on being accessible without the high cost of a smart phone at a time when not everyone had an iPhone or T-Mobile Android. I don't have any hard statistics, but I used Twitter before I had a smartphone; and you asked a question where an anecdote would suffice.
- freshyill 12y ago
  Well my real point was that SMS isn't what drove Twitter's growth, which was a major point in the article. Twitter's growth coincides very closely with smartphone usage growth, in 2009-2010—well after SMS was the norm for connecting to it, if it ever was. SMS may have been useful early on, but apps certainly killed SMS usage.
3pt14159 12y ago
When twitter first started out most people I knew were just starting to get smartphones. This is why things like text-to-twitter and twillio started off. I would say by 2010, clients had taken over, but in 2008/2009 sms was really a thing.

illicium 12y ago

Don't forget about Twitter's API and liberal usage policy that made the plethora of clients and mashups possible -- I think this accelerated their growth more than anything. Their API is not so "free" now -- you need to register your app, always authenticate, and there's no public firehose access any more.

ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
This is a far better point. Twitter happened along in that magical time of AJAX when everyone was willing to share their data because we all talked about how everything should be free and open. Then the social media companies realized that this was a gigantic mistake, and started to seal everything up. How could they be expected to make their billions when their services were so open that they were essentially becoming abstracted protocols for third party apps? The opportunity to sell advertising and personal data is far greater when what you have is closed. I understand why they did it; I just hate that they did. It always felt like a massive bait and switch and I'm betting that Facebook and Twitter aren't going to be the last ones that do this.
freshyill 12y ago
You're correct. Smartphone usage growth basically coincides with Twitter's growth, and early Twitter apps had far fewer constraints. Twitterrific was a jailbreak app before Apple even launched the App Store. Did Twitter even have an official iOS app before they bought Tweetie? That seemed like it happened around the time of the first big API lockdown.

CodeCube 12y ago

> Has anybody here ever even used Twitter via SMS? yep :) I mean, both of our experiences are just anecdotal evidence pointing to each side of the argument. But in my experience, it made it easier to get onto the service.

ChikkaChiChi 12y ago

Yes. Many people did. Twitter's success at 140 characters was largely based on being accessible without the high cost of a smart phone at a time when not everyone had an iPhone or T-Mobile Android. I don't have any hard statistics, but I used Twitter before I had a smartphone; and you asked a question where an anecdote would suffice.

freshyill 12y ago
Well my real point was that SMS isn't what drove Twitter's growth, which was a major point in the article. Twitter's growth coincides very closely with smartphone usage growth, in 2009-2010—well after SMS was the norm for connecting to it, if it ever was. SMS may have been useful early on, but apps certainly killed SMS usage.

3pt14159 12y ago

When twitter first started out most people I knew were just starting to get smartphones. This is why things like text-to-twitter and twillio started off. I would say by 2010, clients had taken over, but in 2008/2009 sms was really a thing.