Jack Dorsey says it’s time to rethink the fundamental dynamics of Twitter • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by luckylion » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 4:54 AM UTC

TomMckenny wrote: post #78

luckylion wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be happy that today it's not life on this planet or the universe itself that is at stake. ;) In my experience, there are primarily three kinds of people that regularly claim there's a lot on the line, and it doesn't matter what their political views are. 1) young people that are inexperienced, 2) people that need to feel good about fighting for something important, and 3) people that exploit the other two by appealin…

Perhaps there are better examples of that claim. More than a dozen democracies have fallen in the last twenty years. Many times that over the last century, making predictions of that correct. Obviously neither life nor the universe have ended as many times in that period. Furthermore, I know of no well informed people that have ever predicted the later but many who have successfully predicted the former.

> More than a dozen democracies have fallen in the last twenty years. Many times that over the last century

Is "the party I prefer has lost the election" the same as "a democracy has fallen"? Because I really don't see a dozen democracies that left democracy behind, and certainly not many times that. I suppose it depends on your definition of democracy, but for anything close to the common understanding of a modern liberal democracy, that just sounds ridiculous.

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

#282

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 5:06 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #227

massysett wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#283

Post by aestetix » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 5:08 AM UTC

massysett wrote: post #189

danenania wrote: post #137

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.

Because it's cheaper than having an actual support hotline and easier to ignore than having email.

And in the US especially, companies hate having to support users, which is why they are also pushing for AI support instead of actually having a human there.

Think about it, when is the last time you had an issue with some Bay Area Saas company and could call them on the phone to get support, like you'd do with a bank?

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

#284

Post by shard972 » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 5:10 AM UTC

So we killed RSS feeds for this? I think it's time to bring back the RSS feeds.

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

#285

Post by voltagex_ » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 5:38 AM UTC

massysett wrote: post #189

danenania wrote: post #137

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.

Twitter has been the absolute best way for me to get actual support from Australia Post and Telstra*

Unfortunately, the Telstra CSAs on Twitter aren't actually allowed to do anything useful so they mostly direct me to other, more useless support channels.

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

#286

Post by rconti » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 5:40 AM UTC

gfodor wrote: 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 just can't get value out of Twitter, for this very reason. I know you can use any social network for any purpose, but for me, Facebook has always been about following friends and family, and I enjoy the content. Twitter has always been pushed as a way to be "in the know", but no matter how hard I try to 'curate' my feed, I find that following people who I don't personally know means that most of the tweets I see are worse than meaningless, they have negative value. So my entire feed ends up being either ads, or content I don't want to hear about from the people I follow for other reasons.

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

#287

Post by dorfsmay » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 5:56 AM UTC

SllX wrote: post #186

jsnell wrote: 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…

Let me quote the full paragraph: >> In his view, that means rethinking how Twitter incentivizes user behavior. 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 — rather than a network where everyone feels like they need to follow a bunch of other accounts, and then grow their follower numbers in turn. What he…

Sounds a lot closer? It's exactly reddit.

I configured twitter to keep tweets in chronological order and not to filter anything, so I only see tweets from accounts I follow, and I see all their tweets, and see them in chron. order.

What he wants to do is copy reddit. I can't see what they could add to reddit, but they'd completely lose what twitter is good at (following people).

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

#288

Post by bubblewrap » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 6:02 AM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #217

Abuse and misinformation are certainly the big issues but even more bigger and rather meta-issue is the strong hub-and-spoke model that Twitter promotes. Here's an example: You could tweet some of the most informative and useful tweets relevant to, say, robotics enthusiasts for day after day and years after year, and you might still end up with absymal engagement in terms of likes, retweets and followers. Meanwhile,…

That's not an issue of Twitter, but of human nature. I don't think technology can do anything about it. That is just wishful thinking about "future people" who spend their time learning and improving their skills 24/7, instead of slacking and having fun. Unrealistic - presumably people simply need time outs.

You could argue that Twitter actually does well with that problem: after all, if you follow a robotics enthusiast, you WILL see some tweets about robotics among all the sneezing.

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

#289

Post by oska » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 6:05 AM UTC

SllX wrote: post #186

jsnell wrote: 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…

Let me quote the full paragraph: >> In his view, that means rethinking how Twitter incentivizes user behavior. 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 — rather than a network where everyone feels like they need to follow a bunch of other accounts, and then grow their follower numbers in turn. What he…

> I might be following an individual for a particular topic they are typically insightful on, but I’m also getting their sports and politics at the same time.

I've had this happen, typically with interjections of sport commentary, and I will immediately unfollow them. None of the unfollows has been a great loss. People who are truly insightful have enough self-awareness not to self-indulge like this.

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

#290

Post by _AzMoo » Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 6:14 AM UTC

SllX wrote: post #186

jsnell wrote: 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…

Let me quote the full paragraph: >> In his view, that means rethinking how Twitter incentivizes user behavior. 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 — rather than a network where everyone feels like they need to follow a bunch of other accounts, and then grow their follower numbers in turn. What he…

I use twitter specifically because it's focused on people and not interests. I love learning more about the history of communist mapping because somebody who I followed after meeting them at a conference tweeted about it.