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Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

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Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#181

Post by interpol_p »

prawn wrote: post #171
interpol_p wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used Tweetbot? I find it to be an incredible desktop (and mobile) twitter client. Even syncs your scroll position between the two.

No, I haven't. Probably the sort of thing Twitter should have in their own stable though. They should have better app options for content creators IMO. Not every user in a news-dominated social network is going to be a passive reader.

I don't think a product Tweetbot can exist in Twitter's stable because it cuts all the cruft out of the modern Twitter experience, and is likely the opposite of the direction Twitter would like to go.

It has kind of happened already — Twitter bought Tweetie, which was a well-liked desktop client, and then let it languish.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#182

Post by simonswords82 »

joaq wrote: post #23

Am I the only one who never really liked the whole concept of Twitter?

You're not alone. I can't stand Twitter...IMO it's just noise and confusion in 140 characters or less.

It also delivers little value to businesses who advertise on it because people tweeting have a very short attention span. The Twitter ecosystem is closed since they closed their API. It blows my mind that Tweets don't appear in Google searches.

It's almost as though the management team are going out of their way to stifle growth and innovation. The areas where Twitter could have been powerful and unique have not been maximised at all.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#183

Post by puranjay »

Twitter is one of those you either "get" or you don't (same with Snapchat).

I could never get Twitter. I couldn't understand why I would want a rapid fire stream of messages that were a third witty banter, a third retweets of marketing messages, and a third "breaking" news.

I know you can filter your feed out, but for me, it's too much work.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#184

Post by swang »

JacobAldridge wrote: post #134
brainflake wrote: post #131

From a product standpoint, I feel like Twitter has barely changed in 5 years. There's been some polish and redesign, sure, but the main dynamics are almost exactly the same. Facebook has features like intelligently improving the quality of your feed, being able to hide posts from certain people, prioritizing posts (not just stacking them based on their age), calendar/birthday stuff, events, chats, etc. Twitter is jus…

I know that "intelligently improving my feed" was the final straw for me leaving Facebook, and if Twitter forced it on me it would probably end my Twitter fetish as well. AND I know that I'm likely not the ideal client for Facebook and their efforts probably enhance the experience for said clients. I'm not sure who Twitter's ideal client is...

Twitter has already made their feeds "intelligent"

1. Search defaults to what Twitter thinks are the "best" tweets for the search, not the most recent. 2. If there are tweets between 2 people you follow (where they are replying to each other), it will show up on your feed in ascending order. 3. They've now implemented, "while you were away" into your timeline which posts ~5 tweets they think you want to read, then when you scroll down you will see them again if they're recent.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#185

Post by vit05 »

I read all the comments, and have a totally different point of views. Yes, twitter needs to innovate more. You need to make a number of changes to the user interface and give more options. But I think that for now, the best and easiest thing they can do to bring back most users is to give more power to his Big Players. Help than make more money, be more promoted, have more publicity in twitter than any other social network. Stop thinking that promoted hashtags and other options that are only used for spam have a great return for the sponsor. Celebrities, players, journalists, politicians. People want to talk to them and twitter is the best media tool for this.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#186

Post by dingaling »

joaq wrote: post #23

Am I the only one who never really liked the whole concept of Twitter?

I've been on a long journey to break out of the (breaking | hourly | daily ) news cycle and on reflection Twitter represents everything that is wrong with that cycle.

There is a perceived need in Western society to hear about events right now even if those initial reports turn out to be inaccurate or plain false. Not only does it seem pointless to spend time discussing such reports but often they are a distraction from things that are important.

If the event is significant, there will be in-depth analysis at the weekend and I'll learn about it then.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#187

Post by alphadevx »

mikegioia wrote: post #29

To me the problem with Twitter lies solely with what Twitter's logged-out homepage looks like. I don't know what it's trying to be but asking me to sign up, browse categories (?), and read top celebrity posts is not it. Why is logged-out Twitter not a search engine? They have up-to-the-second thoughts from their users about everything and it's the first place I go when a site is down, or some news story is breaking.…

It's not that much different to this when logged out:

https://www.facebook.com/

In fact, they are remarkably similar (and bland). No public search for Facebook either, which does not seem to be hurting them.

To be honest in a Google/search-dominated Net, I firmly believe homepages are irrelevant. You can see that in how little effort these large companies are investing in them: they only represent a tiny percentage of their total traffic.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#188

Post by simonswords82 »

mkr-hn wrote: post #82
joaq wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I've tried it. I've really tried to like it, but it just didn't click with me. I know it's perfect for others, but it can never reach the growth of a platform like Facebook that is more universally liked. That's pretty much my point.

You sound like someone who dislikes Reddit because they think the defaults are all there is. Twitter could do a better job helping people discover their interest communities, but Twitter is more than the gossip-focused logged out home page. You need to look deeper if you think it has nothing for you.

> You need to look deeper if you think it has nothing for you.

Surely the onus is on Twitter to make the information easy to locate? This is one of their key failings, if you have to wade through too much noise to find something of interest, then the app isn't good enough.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#189

Post by rspeer »

mikekchar wrote: post #158
ohitsdom wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I get that they want sign-ups, but it's hard to sell the service with that page.

I don't even need a search. Just give me a "Trending on Twitter" view. Then as I read through it, make the "Follow" button more obvious. As soon as I click "Follow" then sign me up (or get me to log in). Even when you go to a tweet from an external link when not logged in, 20% of the vertical height is taken up by a big blue "Sign up for Twitter (or log in)" thing. Just give me the content and lure me into hitting th…

The moment a topic becomes trending, it gets overrun with spam and shitposts by attention-seekers who know exactly where to find attention. That's not the best first impression.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#190

Post by rspeer »

kriro wrote: post #176
vacri wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone posts a link, I find something on a website, etc. that go to Twitter? BAM! SIGN-UP NOW OR LEAVE! If they force you to sign up, they get more user data for the pool. I don't think that the slice of their market they're losing out on by this is very big. > Lowering the barrier to entry for that is critical. The barrier to entry for content creation on twitter is absurdly low. It's not the login process. It's…

I think one of the mistakes may be that they focus on a wrong metric. I alway read signups/users as a cited metric. It would be way wiser to focus on improving more active metrics (engagement stuff). The start page is a good example...sure right now it seems to optimize for account creation but I'd say it would be more of a win if users actually engaged with the twitter stream. If it's useful they'll sign up. [alas I…

I assume that metrics are why every site I go to has a glossy landing page with a huge "Sign Up" button, and then the "sign in" link is hidden in the corner. I'm sure that passes all the A/B tests but it gives me the impression that returning Web users just aren't that important.

A site I signed up for recently at least lets you log in by typing your existing username and password into the huge sign-up form. That was a breath of fresh air.

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