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Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

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Re: Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Algorithmic feeds are, in all cases, Satan's handiwork. What I want is to see posts from the individuals I have selected, interleaved in chronological order, with no tampering.

If that maximized user engagement, then that is the UI they would present. The fact that they don't do that should tell you that their tests have shown algorithmic feeds are more engaging for users.

“User engagement” on social media platforms in 2019 is a proxy for “triggering users emotional responses and luring them into internet arguments”

Min maxed “user engagement” is almost certainly a net negative for society at large

Re: Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Algorithmic feeds are, in all cases, Satan's handiwork. What I want is to see posts from the individuals I have selected, interleaved in chronological order, with no tampering.

I follow a few hundred people with very varied interests, and I don't log in every few minutes. For non-addicted people, the algo is pretty nice. I want to see a sampling of interesting stuff I "missed" over the last day or two. If I want to go look at a particular person's chronological feed, I can do that. You can change it if you don't like it, click the sparkle button to do so, but don't think nobody likes it.

What you said is ok, and it's fine if that's the default. What people complain about is that you can't opt-out of the algorithmic timeline.

Re: Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Algorithmic feeds are, in all cases, Satan's handiwork. What I want is to see posts from the individuals I have selected, interleaved in chronological order, with no tampering.

I follow a few hundred people with very varied interests, and I don't log in every few minutes. For non-addicted people, the algo is pretty nice. I want to see a sampling of interesting stuff I "missed" over the last day or two. If I want to go look at a particular person's chronological feed, I can do that. You can change it if you don't like it, click the sparkle button to do so, but don't think nobody likes it.

The "sparkle setting" resets if you haven't been on Twitter Web for a while, even if you always keep up with Twitter on mobile.

I use Twitter Web so infrequently that whenever I open it, it has always changed back to the "Top Tweets" view.

Re: Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I actually really like this feature. I'm usually not able to get to everything, so it's great to know when something important or interesting got tweeted and I know to check it out. That notification was actually what slowly made me an active Twitter user, because they kept surfacing me interesting content and giving me a reason to come back and it became a gateway for me to discove…

Then make it an opt-in. Companies should use the more "opt-in" method. Bundle it under "experimental" or "advanced features" in an easy to use page with a very clear explanation of what each feature does.

But what if most people like it? I have to say I think it makes a lot of sense. If a high number of people I follow like something, you might want to show it to me too.

Re: Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that maximized user engagement, then that is the UI they would present. The fact that they don't do that should tell you that their tests have shown algorithmic feeds are more engaging for users.

"User engagement" is a euphemism for "eyes on screen for as long as possible" and is a good metric for selling ads (the best one really). It's not a very good metric for measuring actual usefulness to users at all though. We need a business model for social media where incentives for companies and their users actually line up.

Nonprofit? A service that does what you likely desire would cost in the eight digits a year to provide for the whole world.

Re: Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

#127
post #2

> He suggested that the service works best as an “interest-based network,” where you log in and see content relevant to your interests, no matter who posted it Yeah, no thanks. Has anybody ever been happy with Twitter's attempts to force content from non-followed users into the feed? A couple of times a year they'll opt everybody back into whatever crappy experiment they're running ("hey, we'll put some posts to your…

Algorithmic feeds are, in all cases, Satan's handiwork. What I want is to see posts from the individuals I have selected, interleaved in chronological order, with no tampering.

Make a twitter list. This is exactly what lists do.

Re: Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

#128
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow--this exists? I had heard of Tweetdeck, but I assumed that it was a third-party client which provided a better experience and was therefore at odds with Twitter's interests. You're telling me that, not only is Twitter okay with it, but that they built it?

> but that they built it? It was independent then Twitter bought it.

The original TweetDeck was an Adobe AIR application. Twitter bought it, and then rewrote it as a website. So it could be argued that they built it.

There were alternatives before such as Seesmic, no idea how they work now, if they still do.

Re: Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

#129

> I don’t think I would create ‘likes’ in the first place. _You didn't_. It was called "Favorites", and you later renamed it to "likes". Jack can introspect as much as he wants, but it doesn't change the fact that they keep making the platform _worse_, not better. Another indication is that the official web/client is a cesspool of unrelated content I don't want to see, and somehow they now think they need to double d…

They recently created (maybe not completely rolled out yet?) bookmarks, which work the way favourites did back in the day (but they are private).

Re: Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter

#130

Closed my account long ago in response to the 2016 elections. Not so much to mute the conversation but in protest against giving a voice to a terrible person. My life has been a little better ever since.

“I hate Blonald Blumpf” is not a substantive or insightful comment.
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