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Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

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Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#132
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem, or _a_ problem, is that people can only handle so much controversy. They have lives to lead. You're so spot on. You know how everyone says, "Seinfeld is a show about nothing!" It wasn't about nothing, but what did make it different is that the characters never changed. They didn't have these huge arcs and defining life moments. They just went about their lives and we watched. People say "it was about n…

> But that was why it was popular -- because most people's lives, most of the times, are not filled with drama. A lot of the story arcs involved situations that people loved to gossip about. Like the woman who wouldn't wear a bra, or the whole "regifter" episode.

Put another way; Seinfield was about how people react to a breakdown in social conventions, and really small ones at that. The types of things that happen in Seinfield were the types of things you would go home and talk to your spouse about. "Someone at work today was standing really close to me!" "I was driving through an exit ramp and two cars tried to merge into the same space!" etc.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#133
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a different perspective: Twitter is a digital Public Sphere, and Public Spheres are always noisy. "Controversy" is just another name for clashes of opinions that have occurred since the beginning of humankind and will likely continue to occur until the extinction of our species. These clashes occur within discursive spaces, and Twitter is one such space. This is why I'm bullish on Twitter. It's a space for con…

The parent comment was not about Twitter Reddit Facebook coexisting or not peacefully, but about the logic of all of them competing against our public health. IMHO we should regulate the hell out of them each time a significant harm on society can be proved, like we did for any other things that humans ever invented. But tech evangelists will say that time is different because 0 and 1 are being exchanged

regulating speech is a practically and legally thorny issue not just because tech bros are dumb and lazy

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#134
post #62

In the last two years I've seen a large migration of digital artists off of traditional gallery sites (Deviantart, Artstation, etc) to Twitter as their "gallery". The same thing happened with Tumblr circa 2012-2014, but even those folks are moving to twitter instead of using a dedicated site designed for showcasing art. I've never had a Twitter account because I'd much rather see ostatus and decentralized networks su…

The trend certainly will continue, if only because that's how it's always worked - even before twitter, or even the internet. TV, radio, newspapers, publishers, etc. have always had this power - you had to market yourself to enough people for someone with influence in one of the aforementioned medias to consider you worthy and propel you to visibility and success.

One might even say that the current state of affairs, or trend, is preferable because it's not some small group of people acting as gatekeepers, but instead it's "the hivemind" as you've put it.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#136
post #96
post #65

Rediscovered Twitter for blockchain news. Why: Subreddits for different tokens/currencies end up being echochambers (but still good resources as long you follow multiple subs). HN rarely shows blockchain stuff and the upvoted ones are often just anti crypto. Following 30-50 crypto influencers on Twitter provides a good mix.

Anyone you follow who's prominently against cryptocurrencies structured like Bitcoin, Ethereum's Ether et al - that aren't stable?

https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#137
post #65

Rediscovered Twitter for blockchain news. Why: Subreddits for different tokens/currencies end up being echochambers (but still good resources as long you follow multiple subs). HN rarely shows blockchain stuff and the upvoted ones are often just anti crypto. Following 30-50 crypto influencers on Twitter provides a good mix.

I got a job in crypto on Twitter.

There was a lot more to it, but the conversation that led to the offer started when I replied to a tweet.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#138

So Twitter has finally given up on building for the avg person and begun creating more tools to make life easier for advertisers (ie big money) and they're suddenly more profitable. Shocker!!

Revenue was up 2%. The rest is cost cutting.

https://www.recode.net/2018/2/8/16991140/twitter-profit-q4-2...

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#139
post #51

I've been very active on Twitter in the past 2 years and not due to Trump or other controversies. A lot of developers I want to follow are active on Twitter. So it might be due to Trump, don't know, but I'm glad it's going well for them.

I didn't join twitter due to Trump, but I kept going there to see if his ludicrous tweets were real, when one day I decided on a whim to create an account since I liked the design compared to Reddit and Facebook. I found a lot of good people and pages to follow, and now I login everyday, and it's probably a more useful use of time than my usage of Reddit/YouTube/Facebook.

I started using Twitter daily a year ago and now I follow about 600 deep learning researchers. It is more lively than /r/machinelearning. I quite enjoy occasionally being able to chat with top guys in the field, especially that they are so busy.

Pro tip: when a Trump article comes, select "I don't like this tweet" from the side menu, and after a few such actions applied here and there, your feed is going to feel clean.

Re: Twitter Soars After Surprise Sales Gain, First Real Profit

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment was not about Twitter Reddit Facebook coexisting or not peacefully, but about the logic of all of them competing against our public health. IMHO we should regulate the hell out of them each time a significant harm on society can be proved, like we did for any other things that humans ever invented. But tech evangelists will say that time is different because 0 and 1 are being exchanged

regulating speech is a practically and legally thorny issue not just because tech bros are dumb and lazy

I'm not immediately seeing the connection between legal arguments of curtailing speech and "tech bros" and their intellect or work ethic.

Can you clarify what you mean?

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