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Twitter Is Expected to Field Bids This Week

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Re: Twitter Is Expected to Field Bids This Week

#191

Post by slezakattack »

Touche wrote: post #186
slezakattack wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XMPP is simply a publisher/subscriber architecture. So you can just have a "global" publisher that any user subscribes to when they get on the service (registered user or not) for public viewing. The protocol isn't limited to just private chat.

So then XMPP doesn't solve this problem as you need a service which saves and publishes the message for public viewing.

I'm in agreement that I wouldn't necessarily choose XMPP for Twitter but under different reasons. There is literally nothing holding back the XMPP protocol from saving and publishing messages to the public viewing. XMPP is the eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol and suppose to be extremely modular so I really don't think what you're describing is impossible.

Re: Twitter Is Expected to Field Bids This Week

#192

Post by criddell »

jimmytidey wrote: post #183
criddell wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no federated solution can work I don't see why not. Is the problem fundamentally different than SMS messaging or email?

Two thoughts: - How would you provide the functionality that hashtags do on the public timeline? - How would users know which nodes they could trust? I think email and Sms are pretty weird user experiences that have succeeded in part because there was no alternative.

Twitter is already a federation of servers and services. It doesn't seem outrageous to imagine another server or cluster of servers being owned by a second party.

Re: Twitter Is Expected to Field Bids This Week

#193

Post by stephancoral »

jondubois wrote: post #95

Twitter only makes sense for public figures. For regular people, nobody on Twitter gives a crap about what you have to say. Facebook is fundamentally better because you only get updates from people who you know in real life - When you post something on FB, those people actually care about what you have to say (interactions are bidirectional). To the average user, Twitter is just a glorified RSS news feed. You read ot…

Your post is just not true. There are writers, artists, actors, etc who have been discovered through Twitter or have used it to significantly broaden their audience. @sosadtoday and Mira Gonzalez are two writers off her top of my head who basically built their careers on Twitter. And this isn't even getting into the "weird Twitter" phenomenon.

Point being, people do read what you say and it's possible to get a lot of exposure. Maybe you're just not tweeting anything interesting.

Re: Twitter Is Expected to Field Bids This Week

#195

Post by morgante »

jimmytidey wrote: post #189
morgante wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's too useful as infrastructure to hand it over to some greedy jackasses. This is an extremely dubious claim and I don't see why everyone is so eager to support it. What exactly makes Twitter valuable infrastructure? What compelling service does it offer to people and society? What other things would stop working if Twitter were shut down? All I see is a bunch of people shouting at each other. Most people do not…

Twitter is a (I think very well designed) forum for public debate. Good systems for public debate are the precondition for democracy. In a democracy they are the infrastructure on which all other infrastructure depends. Every subsequent spending decision is influenced by them. If you turn off public debate nothing will break the next day, but in a decade most people's lives will be misery.

We had public debate long before Twitter existed. [0] I have full confidence that if Twitter were to close tomorrow that we would continue to have public debate, and it might even be better debate.

[0] You might claim that Twitter is superior to other forms of public debate, but then I'd ask if you're really happy with the way politics are going.

Re: Twitter Is Expected to Field Bids This Week

#197

Post by Touche »

hbosch wrote: post #133
zeroami wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it was too early back then to see the value in it, but does anyone remember App.net? Dalton Caldwell (now working at YCombinator) had a plan to build a backbone for developers to build on top off without fear of APIs being taken away from them[0]. The idea came about from this exact topic (Twitter becoming more and more hostile to developers)[1]. [0] http://daltoncaldwell.com/an-audacious-proposal [1] http://da…

I remember App.net with fondness. I was a paying customer and the community was awesome, pretty much entirely troll-free techie types, and I never felt awkward just jumping into a random thread or conversation. First was the great apps, and the features that continued to roll out for users. Unfortunately it was under appreciated.

App.net proved that locking down the API wasn't Twitter's problem. Once people got over the initial phase of trying out every App.net app they stopped using it. It was the thing that brought them there, but it wasn't enough to keep them using it, regularly.

Re: Twitter Is Expected to Field Bids This Week

#198

Post by rezashirazian »

This is what happens when you have a part time CEO. Leadership always forms the narrative and sets the tone for other employees.

When the CEO is not willing to put in 100% and ensure the success of the company, you really can't expect much from the rest of the company

Re: Twitter Is Expected to Field Bids This Week

#199

Post by taurath »

jimmytidey wrote: post #91
oldmanjay wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm endlessly amused by the attitude people get over websites they like. I'm not sure what your personal argument for forcing twitter to be a utility is, but I'm sure it would make me laugh. Care to let me know?

It doesn't sound like you have a particularly open mind on this one, but I always address this question when it comes up on Hackner News because it's something I have strong feelings about. I'm not going to defend Twitter being a utility (which the parent comment also doesn't mention) but I will say that in general, it's very clear to me we haven't worked out what kind of institutions can best deliver services in the…

I think its a great idea, if a model could be found that would work (with a person at the top with the vision for such a model). Government run just screams surveillance to me, and is a non-starter for a huge percentage of the population. A non-profit wikipedia-like model could work I suppose, but I'm not sure what the problems would be with such a prolific service.

Re: Twitter Is Expected to Field Bids This Week

#200

Post by tootie »

jimmytidey wrote: post #91
oldmanjay wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm endlessly amused by the attitude people get over websites they like. I'm not sure what your personal argument for forcing twitter to be a utility is, but I'm sure it would make me laugh. Care to let me know?

It doesn't sound like you have a particularly open mind on this one, but I always address this question when it comes up on Hackner News because it's something I have strong feelings about. I'm not going to defend Twitter being a utility (which the parent comment also doesn't mention) but I will say that in general, it's very clear to me we haven't worked out what kind of institutions can best deliver services in the…

I would strongly dispute that. Twitter has that much public value. Relativley few people use for critical information. It's a default option for broad communication, but it's hardly the only one.
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