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Fixing Twitter

dcurt.is

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Re: Fixing Twitter

#111

Post by scholia »

wpietri wrote: post #61
T2_t2 wrote: post #56

Twitter's problem is simpler: it is great for power users, shite for everyone else. Twitter needs to curate the content I see better - especially for newer users. Twitter is boring as sin until you follow a few interesting people, then it becomes overwhelming as it adds too many more. Twitter needs to focus on the feed being more malleable, both with and without personal effort from me.

That may be trading one problem for another. The number one complaint I hear about Facebook is how unpredictable the feed is. For power users, Twitter's current approach to their feed is predictable and reliable: strict time order, nothing missing from the people you want to hear from. At the beginning of the year Twitter started testing out a "while you were away" feature that curates, currently on mobile only: http…

I see "while you were away" on the browser/desktop version as well....

Re: Fixing Twitter

#112

Post by scholia »

michaelborromeo wrote: post #104

If Twitter didn't exist, what would the world use instead?

Facebook. That's really Twitter's major problem. Facebook used to be mostly friends chatting to family and friends, but nowadays it's the single biggest source of news links and the sort of viral spam that used to circulate on Twitter.

Twitter is still a faster and more reliable source of breaking news, but not that many people (apart from journalists) care about speed. And Facebook's threaded chat provides a much better way to discuss stories than Twitter.

In sum, for most people, Facebook's news feed is probably now a better Twitter than Twitter.

Re: Fixing Twitter

#113

Post by anc84 »

wpietri wrote: post #45
harryh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you care about keeping an authentic follower list? I'm honestly curious because I've never really understood this phenomenon.

For those who care about their image, authenticity is an important social media currency. See, e.g.: https://www.twitteraudit.com/ For some, it's about the same reason one would report spam: a dislike of abuse. I feel both of those a little, but for me it's mostly about having a real connection with my audience. I definitely pay attention to who's following me, who favorites my stuff, et cetera. When I write on some…

Hm, why does that site need my authorisation to read MY profile when I can use it also to audit other people's accounts? A scam to get auth?

Re: Fixing Twitter

#114

Post by scholia »

crucialfelix wrote: post #87
atmosx wrote: post #4

My problem with twitter is that it feels like a desert land more and more. I get more and more bot 'followers' and more ads in my timeline. The signal / noise ratio has decreased incredibly and continuous decreasing, unfortunately.

I have a very high signal/noise ratio but that's because I did the work to follow interesting people. But its also true that the noise is encroaching and we as users have to do work to find more signal. So one of the core problems of twitter is that you are required to do that; it's work. That's fixable. Certainly the front page for a new visitor should be rich with content.

You can improve the signal/noise ratio by using lists to follow groups of people with common interests. This is even more work, but in some cases, you can follow other people's lists instead.

You can get an even better signal/noise ratio by using Nuzzel, which extracts the most popular stories. Again, you can use it to read other people's lists.

http://nuzzel.com/

Re: Fixing Twitter

#115

Post by dr_zoidberg »

blazespin wrote: post #95
patio11 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smarter play may be genuine Kanye doing 100 tweets at a time to 85 people who are identified as Kanye's Most Lucrative Fans In The Town He Is Currently In and 15 folks randomly selected (whose inclusion is for social purposes). I'm peripherally aware of someone who is one or two orders of magnitude smaller than Kayne presently doing this. I believe the vernacular is "killing it." (Think of the economics for a tou…

Yes, I'm sure twitter could highlight the followers with the most followed and then Kanye could reply to them. He could also get a highlight of those most engaged in twitter (though they might not have a lot of followers) and tweet to them as well. And, while it's at it, twitter could provide some kind of AI analysis of his followers to find the ones who are the most positive and have said the most positive things ab…

I think your suggestions are great, but I don't see why Twitter should do it -- what they should do is open up the game for developers, so Kanyer's software development/PR team can work a specific system to do that. Or a company do a generic platform and sell the service to celebrities.

Re: Fixing Twitter

#116

Post by coldtea »

logicallee wrote: post #48
jerrac wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to have meaningful conversations with that kind of limit. You end up having to use "1/N" over and over again. That limit has always left me wondering how Twitter even got started...

most incredible news you've had in your life can be shared in 140 characters. most of the worst, most useless content you've ever written to anyone would be several paragraphs. that's why it worked.

On this is about discussion. News is a different thing.

Re: Fixing Twitter

#117

Post by r1ch »

anc84 wrote: post #113
wpietri wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who care about their image, authenticity is an important social media currency. See, e.g.: https://www.twitteraudit.com/ For some, it's about the same reason one would report spam: a dislike of abuse. I feel both of those a little, but for me it's mostly about having a real connection with my audience. I definitely pay attention to who's following me, who favorites my stuff, et cetera. When I write on some…

Hm, why does that site need my authorisation to read MY profile when I can use it also to audit other people's accounts? A scam to get auth?

Twitter requires auth for every API call, even reading public information. They would burn out their own API quota pretty fast if they didn't have each user grant them a read-only token.

Re: Fixing Twitter

#118

Post by richmarr »

honksillet wrote: post #6
atmosx wrote: post #4

My problem with twitter is that it feels like a desert land more and more. I get more and more bot 'followers' and more ads in my timeline. The signal / noise ratio has decreased incredibly and continuous decreasing, unfortunately.

It is incredibly easy to set up a bot in twitter. (Slightly hard since the API v1.1, but still easy.) If an account is attached to a bot, there should be a small icon in all it's tweet to indicate that.

How would you enforce that? Genuine question. Is there a reliable-enough-to-be-useful way to distinguish between types of API client?

Re: Fixing Twitter

#119

Post by logicallee »

logicallee wrote: post #51
StillBored wrote: post #43

Twitters problem, is that you had an idea, and it took 5243 characters to relate it. So, instead of using their platform you went elsewhere. (139 characters, maybe I should use twitter...)

and if you had written 5243 characters about what you just said (and you could have), then I wouldn't have read a word.

I'm being honest - you took a position and defended it, I read it, and moved on. All in 139 characters.

I literally wouldn't have had time to read a wall of text (which is what 5,000 characters is, it's 850 words, i.e. a dense, full page and a half in a word processor, if 11-point text.)

this is why twitter took off. it makes certain communication possible that just wouldn't be! it lets a celebrity talk to people who wouldn't read even a single page interview by them, for example. sorry if people don't get this.

Re: Fixing Twitter

#120

Post by richmarr »

atmosx wrote: post #4

My problem with twitter is that it feels like a desert land more and more. I get more and more bot 'followers' and more ads in my timeline. The signal / noise ratio has decreased incredibly and continuous decreasing, unfortunately.

The signal/noise ratio bothers me too... exacerbated by promoted tweets, unconvincingly implemented 'while you were away' boxes, and similar, diluting the signal even further.

I'm still stupidly holding out hope that one day Twitter will offer to take money to get rid of that stuff.

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