211–220 of 648 posts
You can't just turn a business around from your core competency, which in the case of Twitter is short bursts of emotions. You can't turn it into a Medium or Facebook, you'll fail miserably.
Turn the entire business model 180 degrees. This might be very radical, but hear me out. 1) Creating a twitter profile (with tweeting privileges) costs $5. Profiles without tweeting privileges are free. 2) Once you have 10000 followers, you need to pay additional $$ per year. This fees increases exponentially as you gain more followers. Eg. Famous people pay a lot. Unless this $ is paid, the follower count caps up an…
"1) Creating a twitter profile costs $5." It's over then. 99% of users don't care about Twitter that much to pay a dime. Can't charge old users, and growth is already small anyhow. Only about 1% of these various service entities will pay. And the number of 'truly famous people' on Twitter is very small. Some kind of 'unit payment' scenario would be feasible, but only if it were truly seamless, and no such paradigm ex…
I think sometimes we need to rethink what growth and engagement means. In my model, Twitter does not rely on advertising.
Famous people might still be interested, because you allow them un-fettered access to disperse their message directly to the population without any filters and trolls bothering them.
# Mass Monetization
1) Integrate payments and one-click purchasing, take a cut.
2) Host specific pages for live-stream events (not within tweets) like sports games. Target the remaining pieces of cable TV: Live sports, ESPN, Awards Shows, Olympics, Talk shows (e.g. Daily show, Colbert Report, etc.)
# Large Account Monetization
1) Charge for additional features, e.g. private/protected accounts, verification, having more than XXX followers.
2) Build tools specifically for managing a) large accounts and b) brands/customer service. Charge them for it!
# Data Monetization
1) Build API access for alternative clients that is free for a certain number of users (~10k) then charges on a per-install basis.
2) Partner with marketing platforms (e.g. Salesforce) to build marketing funnels from Twitter into CRM or marketing platform.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Twitter's modern-day utility seems very low outside of news/sports/politics" Twitter has tremendous utility for the medical community. I am final year medical student and through twitter can follow worldwide leaders in emergency medicine (my field of interest). These doctors post clinical factoids, cases reports, unique ekgs, and other learning points live from the wards (all de-identified to protect patients of cou…
That's great but it's fair to say that's niche - both in terms of the number of people I'm guessing who are producing that type of content and the amount of monetization that can occur from that community. As a public company, Twitter has to focus on the mainstream, big numbers. I would also suggest that Twitter refocusing to sports and news would give the specialist apps you mention (and others) a better chance at s…
http://www.thelongtail.com/conceptual.jpg
You have to think a little differently to design for the long tail. You can't just design one consistent experience, you have to design tools that can be used in many scenarios.
My greatest problem with twitter is that those whose who have something worth saying tend to talk an awful lot less than those with nothing to say. I want twitter to be a feed of thoughts an opinions from people I respect, or important updates from companies I'm interested in. I see a secondary value from twitter by people contributing to a conversation around an event, be that a sports game, a site outage, a traffic…
This just reflects real life. It's not a Twitter problem.
Btw I made an app[0] last year as my first iOS app which centers conversations around Live events using hashtags. Based on comments on this thread, with some UX improvements the app could meet a lot your requirements. Will gladly accept feedback, and willing to iterate. [0]: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/event-is/id1141185734?mt=8
Wonder how did you get your app review approved with screenshot demo text such as "appStoreTestApp"
But anyways. You might have a good idea, but that app doesnt do it justice. Poorly designed and implemented. Also, one screenshot?!?
Refocus the company to be the Netflix of live TV, focusing on the delivery of live sports and news broadcasts while enabling fans/viewers to discuss in real time. It's a greenfield space no one else is really jumping upon yet. Focus may have turned to on-demand TV, but people still want to watch sports live, and Twitter already has acquired some of those deals as the sport franchises get more comfortable with online…
I think Twitter is already pretty great. My suggestions are below: - Twitter is a platform, open it up to allow any clients first class access. - Stop political censorship immediately. It's fine to prevent scams and bot-nets, but do not stifle political speech. - Lower burn rate. Cancel all of the product-oriented projects that are expensive, simply focus on building the infrastructure to make Twitter's platform as i…
> do not stifle political speech And when that political speech threatens violence or is intended to foment violence against a person or people? 'Cause I'm not saying you're conflating the two, but a whole lot of people for whom this is an axe they grind really kind of constantly do .
Politics is truly separate from threatening to kill/rape people, why are you grouping them? You can threaten people over anything, why conflate threats with political speech? There is real censorship on twitter over political ideas, and threats don't even enter into it.
