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The Decay of Twitter

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Decay of Twitter

#61

Post by sirkneeland »

dspillett wrote: post #50
pmlnr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adblockers don't work on paid articles or on tweets looking exactly like other tweets.

Oh there will be some way of identifying them, surely? If they are from people you have actively chosen to follow then the source isn't twitter anyway and you can just unfollow those users if you don't like what they post. If they are extra items in your display then there will likely be some marker to pick up on. Even if not then someone somewhere will start a service where people can report advertising tweets so su…

They are identifiable, I believe they say "promoted tweet" in close proximity to said promoted tweet

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#62

Post by avens19 »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #37
johnward wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter and facebook serve completely different purposes for me. Facebook is where I mostly interact with people I actually know in real life. I use twitter like you do, to follow interesting things. Then linkedin is people I have worked with. Each network serves a different purpose. I'd never pay for any of them though. I guess I should say I'd rather pay with my privacy.

Nothing wrong with using Twitter to meet people IRL. It seems weird to force those artificial boundaries on your social networks.

I've used Twitter to meet like minded people, however, I think the main distinction is that I don't use Twitter (in general) for interactions with people I met outside of the Twitterverse

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#63

Post by avens19 »

luisjgomez wrote: post #38

Twitter might be having troubles as a public company, but this article has very little to say about it that's insightful.

This article was trash. If the author thinks that Twitter's main function is finding out what your friends ate for dinner then he's an idiot and doesn't use Twitter. Twitter's problem is exactly this. The general Internet population thinks it's like Facebook but less useful and with a character limit. They have a branding problem

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#64

Post by the_watcher »

Jtsummers wrote: post #51
ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing wrong with using Twitter to meet people IRL. It seems weird to force those artificial boundaries on your social networks.

Perhaps I've just missed it, but my problem with twitter is this: Is there a way to send messages to just these 10 people, and not all 100 followers? That's what I need from a social network. I need a public (everyone can see) channel, and I need channels (that I control) that are visible to specific individuals and groups. My soccer team (in general, some overlap obviously) doesn't need to know about my ballroom dan…

I've never used it, but in interviews, Mark Cuban describes Cyberdust as a social network that allows that, claiming it's a reason he invested in it.

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#65

Post by themoonbus »

dennisnedry wrote: post #46
mikeg8 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the same spot I lost interest as well. Way too verbose.

That's the problem I have with many of these articles, the journalists try to make use of their philosophy degrees and make nothing into something.

Damn journalists, using their education to write an informed article!

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#66

Post by themoonbus »

avens19 wrote: post #63
luisjgomez wrote: post #38

Twitter might be having troubles as a public company, but this article has very little to say about it that's insightful.

This article was trash. If the author thinks that Twitter's main function is finding out what your friends ate for dinner then he's an idiot and doesn't use Twitter. Twitter's problem is exactly this. The general Internet population thinks it's like Facebook but less useful and with a character limit. They have a branding problem

"If the author thinks that Twitter's main function is finding out what your friends ate for dinner..."

...except for the fact that he says the opposite in the article.

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#68

Post by kafkaesque »

benten10 wrote: post #14

I really hope twitter somehow makes money. I would be willing to pay a subscription fee if that helps it sustain. Facebook, I'd rather see die in the hottest fires of all the hells. I don't exaggerate when I say this: twitter has made me smarter. If I'm interested in a new field, I just follow the experts in that field that are on twitter. The conversations and the discussions not only make me feel like an insider, b…

Why can't you follow the experts in that field via their site or their online communities? The depth of which they would go into their chosen subject would be much more enlightening, surely. It sounds like you just use Twitter to bookmark the links and "soundbites" experts say. How much depth can a conversation that only allows 140 characters per response relay? They are meant to be "soundbites", only telling part of a story.

You could have easily gotten into those other areas via Google or following their conversations on their online communities, no?

And yes, your viewpoint is tainted, because, as the article says, it hasn't added active US users in 2015.

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#69

Post by alex_hirner »

rsync wrote: post #60
DanBC wrote: post #5

Recently, within the past month, someone I follow either posted or retweeted a link to a survey about paracetamol use in accident and emergency departments in the Uk, and how it was about as effective as opiate meds for most people. Today there are stories on HN where that link would be relevant. I would have posted a link to the tweet, and a link to the study mentioned in the tweet. But Twitter's search is not good…

"I'm ad tolerant, but the ads Twitter show me are always useless. The ads have zero relevance to me, my profile, my twitter stream, the people I follow, etc etc. I have no idea where Twitter gets information about me, but it doesn't seem to come from Twitter." I am very interested in this ... We did a (roughly) 6 month long experiment here (rsync.net) in advertising on twitter - on paper it seemed like a very good id…

You pointed out a huge problem to find the right people with highly specific needs. That's why we are working on an identification tool that automatically returns people according to their intent (stated interest, complains "e.g. if I only could..."). The grand idea is to turn around the annoying sales funnel who many preach is just the right thing to do. However, such a funnel produces a lot of waste, first the seller's money, second the prospects time and nerves. http://sircular.rocks/zocialgraph.pdf

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#70

Post by frostmatthew »

DanBC wrote: post #5

Recently, within the past month, someone I follow either posted or retweeted a link to a survey about paracetamol use in accident and emergency departments in the Uk, and how it was about as effective as opiate meds for most people. Today there are stories on HN where that link would be relevant. I would have posted a link to the tweet, and a link to the study mentioned in the tweet. But Twitter's search is not good…

> Others do the opposite - the stuff they tweet is useful but the stuff they retweet is nonsense. I have limited options, and I usually just unfollow.

There's a [good IMO] solution for this already in place, turn retweets off for those people/accounts. You can turn off Retweets for a specific user if you don’t like what they share. Select Turn off Retweets from the gear icon drop-down menu on a user's profile to stop seeing Tweets they've retweeted.[1]

[1] https://support.twitter.com/articles/77606

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