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Ask HN: Why did Twitter succeed?

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Re: Ask HN: Why did Twitter succeed?

#41

Post by rythie »

It does solve a real problem.

In order for people to maintain more than a few friends, it's nessasary for them to know what those friends are doing. If you have More than 100 friends/acquiantances, then talking to them say once a week or once a month is not time efficient.

Personal blogs and broadcast emails helped solve this problem, but the time taken to compose posts means that they are often infrequent and irregular.

Twitter (and Facebook) solved this by lowering the barrier to publishing by allowing it work from mobile and be short with no text formatting. Facebook was focused on a closed group of friends which left a gap for Twitter to target people who want publish to a wide number of people which includes very many people who have their own companies or otherwise see a lot of benefit from being well known.

I think Twitter executed well with the following:

- 140 character limit which forces people to be direct as non-professional writers tend to go on too long.

- Raising money early and therefore having a big team to build the product.

- API, this allowed massive innovation to happen outside twitter and to fill in the long tail of applications for this service in a way that no other site could match and they would have not been able to do internally.

- Keeping the product simple to use

- Publicity

Re: Ask HN: Why did Twitter succeed?

#43

Post by dennisgorelik »

gojomo wrote: post #22

From: http://ycombinator.com/rfs3.html Twitter is important because it’s a new protocol. Fundamentally it’s a messaging protocol where you don’t specify the recipients. It’s really more of a discovery than an invention; that square was always there in the periodic table of protocols, but no one had quite hit it squarely. We could try to draw a small excerpt of this 'periodic table': LONG SHORT ONE:ONE email im/sms ON…

Blogs existed well before twitter. Blogging also sends messages to nowhere.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Twitter succeed?

#44

Post by cmurphycode »

gojomo wrote: post #22

From: http://ycombinator.com/rfs3.html Twitter is important because it’s a new protocol. Fundamentally it’s a messaging protocol where you don’t specify the recipients. It’s really more of a discovery than an invention; that square was always there in the periodic table of protocols, but no one had quite hit it squarely. We could try to draw a small excerpt of this 'periodic table': LONG SHORT ONE:ONE email im/sms ON…

You're right about Twitter hitting the missing square in the periodic table. I think you glaze over the importance of the short nature of Twitter, though.

Yes, you can write arbitrarily short blog posts. But you don't, because you feel like you have an obligation to make your official blog be a well written, safe-for-future-eyes snapshot of your personality. Most of us have started a blog with grand intentions and given up after the effort of crafting essays carefully became too much.

Twitter requires no more commitment than a minute of your time. The simplicity of the medium (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackdorsey/182613360/) is its greatest strength, and it is also why nobody else was able to make it. It takes a special sort of daring to provide a product that does so little. I'm sure users are constantly clamoring for the 140 character limit to be lifted, for new features to be added, and for more in general. But if Twitter had been created with no emphasis on short, simple messages, it would've been just like all the other blog ecosystems.

The impact of the small commitment goes beyond the importance to the average user. I think that one of the huge factors in Twitter's success was all of the hype generated by celebrities. What better way for celebrities to connect with their fans? They can do it in the privacy of their home, it takes nearly zero effort, they get extra points for being tech-savvy, and they cut out the middleman of the media. For the star basketball player who think he's misunderstood (e.g., @TheRealShaq), this is perfect. No more media twisting his words, just one-on-one conversation. Except it's better than one-on-one, because the whole world gets to see how you treat your fans.

In short, I think Twitter took off because even though they didn't know it yet, people yearned for a low effort medium of communication.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Twitter succeed?

#45

Post by gojomo »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #43
gojomo wrote: post #22

From: http://ycombinator.com/rfs3.html Twitter is important because it’s a new protocol. Fundamentally it’s a messaging protocol where you don’t specify the recipients. It’s really more of a discovery than an invention; that square was always there in the periodic table of protocols, but no one had quite hit it squarely. We could try to draw a small excerpt of this 'periodic table': LONG SHORT ONE:ONE email im/sms ON…

Blogs existed well before twitter. Blogging also sends messages to nowhere.

Not guaranteed-short messages, collected in a merged timeline, with interruption (via SMS delivery) as a common/easy option.

There is a dimension on which blogging and Twitter are similar. That's why they share a row in the table! But the added constraint, and the possibilities unleashed by that constraint, are a crucial part of Twitter's success.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Twitter succeed?

#46

Post by gojomo »

cmurphycode wrote: post #44
gojomo wrote: post #22

From: http://ycombinator.com/rfs3.html Twitter is important because it’s a new protocol. Fundamentally it’s a messaging protocol where you don’t specify the recipients. It’s really more of a discovery than an invention; that square was always there in the periodic table of protocols, but no one had quite hit it squarely. We could try to draw a small excerpt of this 'periodic table': LONG SHORT ONE:ONE email im/sms ON…

You're right about Twitter hitting the missing square in the periodic table. I think you glaze over the importance of the short nature of Twitter, though. Yes, you can write arbitrarily short blog posts. But you don't, because you feel like you have an obligation to make your official blog be a well written, safe-for-future-eyes snapshot of your personality. Most of us have started a blog with grand intentions and gi…

As a fan of oulipo, I totally agree the shortness constraint has powerful positive impacts on Twitter's adoption. It changes how writers write, how readers read, and how groups converse in various permutations.

The 'ONE:ONE'/'ONE:MANY' and 'LONG':'SHORT' dimensions are not the only ones in which Twitter colonizes a new part of the possibility space, just the easiest ones to label. (We may need new words to describe all the hybrids of communication styles enabled by Twitter.)

Re: Ask HN: Why did Twitter succeed?

#47

Post by cloudkj »

hartard wrote: post #6

Back when I used AOL/AIM in high school there was an explosive adoption of "always on" internet services such as DSL and cable. During this time, it became fashionable for teens to express their current emotions/actions/likes as their "Away Messages" on AIM, which was something new compared with the limitations their previous dial-up connections. I'd go as far to say these messages were the precursor to services like…

+1. That's exactly how I view Twitter - as a modern version of "away messages." I remember looking forward to the always-on Internet connection in college dorms as a way to set long-lasting away messages so friends can see what I'm doing or some witty remark I thought of.

Re: Ask HN: Why did Twitter succeed?

#50

Post by extension »

People need nutrients, shelter, and a few creature comforts. Everything else in life is a frill. If all we did was solve problems, there would be no culture and no civilization.

The most important inventions are the ones that nobody "needs": rain dances, the bible, symphonies, television, the Internet. All those little problems that need solving are the gaps created by these frontiers. There are straightforward opportunities in those gaps, but don't expect to find the most successful ideas there.

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