Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

221–230 of 369 posts

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

#222

> 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…

> Twitter is a prime example of A/B testing gone wrong.

A better way to express this is that if what you're trying to OPTIMIZE is wrong you're going to make an optimally poor product.

They're starting with really poor initial assumptions that things like more pageviews is always a good thing

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

#223
post #167
post #41

Dorsey to me has it half right. Twitter should just follow with what we typically do in real life: "follow" people, but masked by interests we trust those people about. I want to read about politics from the political analysts I follow, but don't care about their cooking adventures on the weekend. I want to read about tech from the software folks I follow, but don't want to hear about their politics. I sure as heck d…

> I want to read about politics from the political analysts I follow, but don't care about their cooking adventures on the weekend. I want to read about tech from the software folks I follow, but don't want to hear about their politics. This is the biggest reason I end up unfollowing people. Say I follow a person because they post interesting technical articles. Over time (as their follower count increases, usually..…

I found the same thing happening to me all the time. I follow software devs, writers, etc. because I am interested in what they do not whatever politics they go on about like everyone else. What I found helped a lot was twitter's mute words functionality, so I just muted words like Trump etc. and it cleaned up my feed a LOT. Much more enjoyable experience now.

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1000 This completely ruins using Twitter as an official support channel for a business. I want to be notified immediately whenever my company is mentioned, but enabling email/push notifications so that I'm aware of these asap also means constantly opening Twitter just to dismiss whatever unsolicited spam they're trying to put in front of me. It adds up to quite a lot of wasted time and is a downright obnoxious user…

This is an honest question - why on earth should Twitter be an official support channel for a business? If I had a business, I would respond to Twitter support requests with “please see our support website for how to contact us” or “thanks, we are now contacting you.” I don’t know why Twitter users should get better support and it seems odd to me to rely on Twitter to provide or to ask for support.

You do customer support via social media for the same reason you do PR and marketing on social media: because that’s where your customers are! People spend a lot of time on social media.

Go to your customers if you can. Don’t force them to come to you unless you have to.

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

#226
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…

> 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

Not to mention Jack/Twitter's co-founder Evan Williams has a company called Medium that literally does just that.

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

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1000 This completely ruins using Twitter as an official support channel for a business. I want to be notified immediately whenever my company is mentioned, but enabling email/push notifications so that I'm aware of these asap also means constantly opening Twitter just to dismiss whatever unsolicited spam they're trying to put in front of me. It adds up to quite a lot of wasted time and is a downright obnoxious user…

This is an honest question - why on earth should Twitter be an official support channel for a business? If I had a business, I would respond to Twitter support requests with “please see our support website for how to contact us” or “thanks, we are now contacting you.” I don’t know why Twitter users should get better support and it seems odd to me to rely on Twitter to provide or to ask for support.

> why on earth should Twitter be an official support channel for a business?

The same reason you do anything - they’ll take their business elsewhere unless you provide service and support in the way they want it.

People don’t like being told to go away and follow some other procedure when they have a problem.

Might as well tell them they should avoid having any problems requiring support while you’re at it - that’ll make it even easier for you.

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

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia gets along just fine. "nonprofit" is not code for "zero revenue"

Wikipedia's costs are extremely small relative the service usage. They don't have a lot of active development (relatively), and they don't need a ton of expensive infrastructure (relatively). Twitter's annual operating costs are in the $2+ billions. Wikipedia's are in the ~$60 millions. Not to say a non-profit twitter couldn't exist - this just feels like an unfair comparison. Just because two services are popular te…

I'm sure a gigantic portion of Twitter's operating costs are the once necessary to monetize their users. I have a feeling the product that is for the users would be much closer to Wikipedia-level costs.

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

#229
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that Jack Dorsey also founded another successful company in Square, right? Pretty hard to argue that he lucked into both of those things.

Not really. Once he had VCs attention he could do what he wanted as he wasn't exactly starting from zero.

Let me get this straight: You think that the hard part of creating a billion dollar company is getting attention from VCs?

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

#230
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know that Jack Dorsey also founded another successful company in Square, right? Pretty hard to argue that he lucked into both of those things.

Not really. Once he had VCs attention he could do what he wanted as he wasn't exactly starting from zero.

I’m sorry but this is ridiculous.

You realize Square is a thriving, $31B public company at the time of this comment?

Starting a company is one thing. Creating the phenomenon that is Square is quite another.

Post reply on HN