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Twitter’s Dick Costolo Delivers on Change, but the Right Mix Remains Elusive

5 points by carlchenet 12y ago

smoorman1024 12y ago
To anyone who has updated their twitter mobile client they recently got rid of discover and activity. Typically you would get to these screens by swiping left on the home screen. Activity was a straightforward summary of what your friends had favorited while discover was an algorithmic garble of mostly high followed accounts. I think removing the activity feed highlights the path that could seriously hurt twitter. Alienating their core users for the sake of either ads or new users. Anyone who uses and loves twitter knows how to use it and why its so powerful. I'd propose doing something more radical for the onboarding process. Perhaps, they could show an almost random feed of tweets and rapidly update where the tweets are coming from by using a bayesian learning process. The point is you need to build your twitter from the ground up and not the top down.
smoorman1024 12y ago
Oh I see my other comment got down-voted before it was even visible. Is this because I didn't sacrifice 2 Amiga 1000's to the Gods of HN. I am 2 minutes from being done with this site forever. Both the submission and the comments have devolved into something that no longer suits my intellect. Thanks for letting me have a chance to talk here.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  Have some patience. Comments often receive a small flurry of reflexive downvotes right after posting. If it's a good comment it will receive upvotes eventually. I upvoted your other comment because it was a fine opinion and didn't deserve to get pushed down. On the other hand, I downvoted the above comment because complaining about downvotes doesn't add anything of use to the discussion. Everyone gets downvoted sometimes; it's not a big deal, just a few fake Internet points.
  - smoorman1024 12y ago
    I wouldn't express my frustration like this if I didn't think the comment system on HN is completely broken. I have been on this site for many years. Just because I have never posted a runaway front page story doesn't mean I need to be censored and seek the approval of others.

5 points by carlchenet 12y ago

To anyone who has updated their twitter mobile client they recently got rid of discover and activity. Typically you would get to these screens by swiping left on the home screen. Activity was a straightforward summary of what your friends had favorited while discover was an algorithmic garble of mostly high followed accounts. I think removing the activity feed highlights the path that could seriously hurt twitter. Alienating their core users for the sake of either ads or new users. Anyone who uses and loves twitter knows how to use it and why its so powerful. I'd propose doing something more radical for the onboarding process. Perhaps, they could show an almost random feed of tweets and rapidly update where the tweets are coming from by using a bayesian learning process. The point is you need to build your twitter from the ground up and not the top down.

smoorman1024 12y ago

Oh I see my other comment got down-voted before it was even visible. Is this because I didn't sacrifice 2 Amiga 1000's to the Gods of HN. I am 2 minutes from being done with this site forever. Both the submission and the comments have devolved into something that no longer suits my intellect. Thanks for letting me have a chance to talk here.

snowwrestler 12y ago
Have some patience. Comments often receive a small flurry of reflexive downvotes right after posting. If it's a good comment it will receive upvotes eventually. I upvoted your other comment because it was a fine opinion and didn't deserve to get pushed down. On the other hand, I downvoted the above comment because complaining about downvotes doesn't add anything of use to the discussion. Everyone gets downvoted sometimes; it's not a big deal, just a few fake Internet points.
- smoorman1024 12y ago
  I wouldn't express my frustration like this if I didn't think the comment system on HN is completely broken. I have been on this site for many years. Just because I have never posted a runaway front page story doesn't mean I need to be censored and seek the approval of others.