Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left • Hacker News Board

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#41

Post by taternuts » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:34 AM UTC

PeCaN wrote: post #36

timcederman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This question gets asked pretty much every time there is an article about the size of tech companies. If you think about what is required for running something at the scale of Vine, 50 people makes a lot of sense, and if anything that seems somewhat lean.

You still didn't explain why they need that many people. What exactly _is_ required for “running something at the scale of Vine”? Yes, they have/had a lot of traffic, but traffic in and of itself does not require a large staff to manage.

Video processing at that scale can't be that easy

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#42

Post by tlrobinson » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:34 AM UTC

niftich wrote: post #25

It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Facebook (and Instagram) and Snapchat have both transformed from their original incarnations, in ways that have improved the companies' valuation, but have not always improved the experience of users. It seems every single social network is trendin…

Consider that two major newsworthy events in the US in the past week (Philando Castillo killing and Dallas attack) were live-streamed on Facebook rather than Periscope.

Facebook already has a huge advantage with 10x the active users of Twitter, AND they integrated live video directly into the app that many of those users already have, rather than a separate app most of them don't.

"App constellations" may be a better user experience... if you bother to download the whole constellation... but I think a similar principle to "the best camera is one you have with you" applies.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#43

Post by WWKong » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:35 AM UTC

niftich wrote: post #25

It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Facebook (and Instagram) and Snapchat have both transformed from their original incarnations, in ways that have improved the companies' valuation, but have not always improved the experience of users. It seems every single social network is trendin…

You state that these social networks haven't improved experience for user. But user count has steadily gone up and so has engagement. I'm sure the evolution is also inline with their internal metrics. Why is not evolving based on data a good thing?

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#44

Post by mbesto » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:35 AM UTC

timcederman wrote: post #38

PeCaN wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still didn't explain why they need that many people. What exactly _is_ required for “running something at the scale of Vine”? Yes, they have/had a lot of traffic, but traffic in and of itself does not require a large staff to manage.

I'm not going to explain the individual job functions of 50 people, and for folks who work in the industry this should seem like a reasonable number just from their own experience. However, let's do some rough numbers. It says they had 3 product managers. I would guess this means 8-10 engineers. 3 QA folks would be a decent enough ratio. You've then got a GM, a head of product, head of UX, head of data science, head…

> Now we've got some HR staff, maybe a recruiter or two, finance team, people underneath the UX, editorial, data science and BD teams (let's generously assume 1-2 hires each), and we're over 40 people easily. We haven't even discussed marketing, a DBA, ops, or IT support.

All which presumably can be filled by pre-existing Twitter people. In the M&A world these are called "synergies".

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#45

Post by manigandham » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:35 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #39

niftich wrote: post #25

It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Facebook (and Instagram) and Snapchat have both transformed from their original incarnations, in ways that have improved the companies' valuation, but have not always improved the experience of users. It seems every single social network is trendin…

Twitter just doesn't have an idea about where to evolve. They've tried small changes, and nothing helped their bottom line. Rumors are that part of the reason is that they are not sure what their "secret sauce" is, so they are reluctant to change anything in fear of harming it. Also, they are dying. They have never turned a profit. Facebook or Google or Microsoft will eventually buy them, because of the users - but t…

> Facebook or Google or Microsoft will eventually buy them, because of the users

Those companies already have those same users.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#46

Post by niftich » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:36 AM UTC

s3r3nity wrote: post #30

niftich wrote: post #25

It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Facebook (and Instagram) and Snapchat have both transformed from their original incarnations, in ways that have improved the companies' valuation, but have not always improved the experience of users. It seems every single social network is trendin…

Shouldn't this data be a validation of Facebook's/Instagram's/Snapchat's growth model? Maybe you _need_ to iterate and change up the game a bit if you're to continue growing, expanding into new markets, etc. ("There are no sacred cows.")

Oh absolutely it validates their business model (or so it seems), but I can't help but feel that value is paradoxically lost (for the user) once everyone iterates themselves into equivalence. Network effect advantages become almost irrelevant when everyone maintains an equally split presence. And if value is lost for the user, their platform loyalty will plummet.

Facebook and Snapchat will begin to be perceived as a 'utility' (something that has already happened to Twitter), meaning, we as a society all expect these functions of social networking and messaging to be fulfilled by a provider, but the exact provider is no longer relevant. Pressures to maintain a positive balance sheet will lead to a proliferation of ads.

This will leave room for new upstarts to target a niche they can serve better than the incumbents, and lure engagement away. They will use VC money to fund their effort and offer ad-free, carefully-focused refuges away from the big networks. But the incumbents have so much money, they will all get bought out in the end. (Snapchat refused to be bought out by Facebook for $3,000,000,000, at a time when it was still known as a sexting app)

I see analogues to the churn of free image hosts -- new one starts up because all the old ones are full of ads; introduces ads a few years later because they can't pay the bills. The cycle continues.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#47

Post by snowwrestler » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:36 AM UTC

niftich wrote: post #28

ajmurmann wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Twitter user I wouldn't like to see that happen. What other platform do you suggest I use instead?

Most power users who command an engaged audience ('influencers' or 'VIPs' or 'celebrities' or 'streamers' or insert-your-noun-here) already cross-post on every single service. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Youtube, Tumblr, Twitch... Staying exclusive to a particular platform only pays if the platform literally pays you for your content. Otherwise you want to reach as wide of an audience as possible.

Well I think you've hit on something there: since certain types of content are cross-posted to every platform, maybe that particular type of content is not why people value Twitter, specifically.

In other words, maybe you don't actually understand why people like Twitter. Which is fine--not everyone needs to like Twitter--but if that's true, you're probably not the best person to point Twitter fans toward good alternatives.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#48

Post by justinator » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:42 AM UTC

niftich wrote: post #25

It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Facebook (and Instagram) and Snapchat have both transformed from their original incarnations, in ways that have improved the companies' valuation, but have not always improved the experience of users. It seems every single social network is trendin…

   > It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so
   > than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the
   > original form of their product as they can. I admire that.

Except for that time they blocked third party access to their API. That was kinda big. [0]. I guess you could also say that this move supports your point of view, but those third parties were partly responsible for the popularity of the platform.

[0] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/03/twitte...

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#49

Post by timcederman » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:44 AM UTC

mbesto wrote: post #44

timcederman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to explain the individual job functions of 50 people, and for folks who work in the industry this should seem like a reasonable number just from their own experience. However, let's do some rough numbers. It says they had 3 product managers. I would guess this means 8-10 engineers. 3 QA folks would be a decent enough ratio. You've then got a GM, a head of product, head of UX, head of data science, head…

> Now we've got some HR staff, maybe a recruiter or two, finance team, people underneath the UX, editorial, data science and BD teams (let's generously assume 1-2 hires each), and we're over 40 people easily. We haven't even discussed marketing, a DBA, ops, or IT support. All which presumably can be filled by pre-existing Twitter people. In the M&A world these are called "synergies".

Depends on how they're running the company. Post-acquisition at my last startup it was much easier to keep our startup intact within the larger company.

Regardless, the point is whether 50 people is reasonable to run something like Vine.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#50

Post by niftich » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:47 AM UTC

jakelarkin wrote: post #37

niftich wrote: post #25

It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Facebook (and Instagram) and Snapchat have both transformed from their original incarnations, in ways that have improved the companies' valuation, but have not always improved the experience of users. It seems every single social network is trendin…

"But there's Twitter. All these years, it has stayed remarkably close to the original concept of microblogging." right, they only added photos, video, FB style profile pages, link shortening, location metadata, algorithmic timeline, moments, messaging, and extensively developed mobile apps but otherwise yes exactly the same as when they were an 140 char SMS broadcast service.

I knew this was going to be challenged, and you're not wrong. But Twitter still feels closest to the original incarnation of 'here be a (roughly) reverse-chronological list of text-message length posts'. They had the timeline, the "friend feed" first, and most enhancements affected only the payload of their messages. Moments was a big innovation, and it's presented as a separate offering on their website.

Whereas Facebook's primary function went from a carefully-curated yearbook-style personal and interest page to an... algorithmic timeline of friend's status updates and tumble-blog reposts.

Snapchat went from an app that sends disappearing photos to a general-purpose multimedia messaging app that happens to still put a timer on photos.

Instagram went from a photo and selfie-sharing app to a general-purpose social network with an algorithmic timeline, sponsored posts, and private messaging.