Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive

#151

Post by curiousjorge » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 6:52 PM UTC

kylebgorman wrote: post #44

I'm short Twitter. The fact of the matter is it that Twitter should never have become a multibillion-dollar company. There is no barrier to entry into this space---any competent web developer could make a non-scaling Twitter in an afternoon---except network effects, and those have proved weak due to poor user experience, particularly for new users. Twitter should have treated itself like a utility, and focused less o…

I have to say that for Facebook as well. When the IPFS picks up, we'll have a distributed clone of twitter and facebook that runs on such architecture.

There would be no desire or need for advertisement or money making or tracking people when there are no owners, no benefactors but the people using it.

The end is nigh for traditional SV unicorns that offer no barrier to entry in a distributed and anonymous internet.

Re: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive

#152

Post by nacs » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

kibibu wrote: post #76

catshirt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"see more" link? groundbreaking stuff. someone get Twitter on the line! i know Dave deserves respect but if i was even a janitor at Twitter this post would piss me off.

What made me giggle was: > that doesn't force you to click a link to see the rest (includes a link you click to see the rest)

I thought I was missing some fancy rollover-to-show and tried to get the rest to show without clicking the "Read more" link.

Re: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive

#153

Post by rco8786 » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #25

code4tee wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally unreadable. This sums up a lot of what's wrong with Twitter. If even the CEO struggles to communicate effectively using the platform then...

Dave Winer mocked up how a fat tweet could look and I think he has it right: http://scripting.com/2015/10/02/whatWouldAFatTweetLookLike.h... Obviously, they've thought of this internally too. I wonder what the point of the 140 character limit is today (I think it made sense originally).

> I wonder what the point of the 140 character limit is today

2 things:

1) Nearly a decade's worth of technical infrastructure built around the assumption that tweets will only ever be 140 characters.

2) A vocal, but shrinking, group of users who are still using Twitter via SMS.

Re: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive

#154

Post by airencracken » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

minimaxir wrote: post #62

chippy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sort of unsure of this generally. It's certainly changed. My examples are: The gossip and snark of say Startup L Jackson vs the gossip and snark of a valleywag post. IRC backchannels during conferences versus a Tweet Wall.

Those aren't good counterarguments in favor of Twitter. Valleywag is dead because of reasons unrelated to the death of media (and I genuinely miss it). IRC backchannels are dead because IRC is dead .

Oh man. I'll have to tell Freenode that IRC is dead so they can shut down all of their servers.

Re: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive

#155

Post by loganu » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #144

seiji wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk lives in LA and takes his private jet up to San Jose every week to work at Tesla (then back to LA to work at SpaceX). If anything, Musk has two full time jobs (priorities: 1. SpaceX; 2. Tesla; 3. everything else) and actually does 80-100 hours per week of work. He's not out creating vanity designer clothing lines in his spare time. You can't create world class products or companies while maintaing a silly "becau…

"because i'm so special i'll only work 6 hours a day, 4 days a week, 1 week a month" generally curious, where did you read about Dorsey having this mindset?

There have been lots of articles mentioning Dorsey taking sewing classes, sketching classes, going sailing, etc while running Twitter. (And in moments that outsiders consider crises, and employees were working longer hours to hit deadlines). The 6/4/1 is an exaggeration, but still...

Re: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive

#156

Post by supergirl » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 7:04 PM UTC

when twitter finally pops everybody will see the bubble. or maybe uber pops first

Re: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive

#157

Post by jpeg_hero » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

tajano wrote: post #133

meatysnapper wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly. Twitter's user base is not growing, and their product basically hasn't changed in 5 years. They have a valuable brand, but they need to figure out how to fundamentally improve the ease of use of the whole thing and make a decent value proposition. Photos, messages, videos, search... make the app not suck. Snapchat and Instagram are very quickly taking over the celebrity/new/sports one-to-many angle…

> they need to figure out how to fundamentally improve the ease of use of the whole thing I've frequently heard this theory, that Twitter's problem is that it's too complicated. I don't buy it. It has a simpler UI than Facebook or Snapchat, and it's not significantly more complicated than Instagram or Vine or Periscope or any other media sharing platform. If you personally enjoy Twitter and derive value from it, it's…

I feel like it took me a few years to get my "Following" list to where I really liked my stream. Took a lot of patience of adding people every week for what seemed like forever.

when people say "ease of use" that's what i think about

Re: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive

#158

Post by rufb » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 7:14 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #129

killwhitey wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then his job is find something else for Twitter to make. Facebook has launched a lot of experimental apps like Paper, Rooms, Slingshot, Messenger. And they bought Instagram which is very successful. Under Costolo Twitter bought vine and periscope, but they haven't tried to experiment with new app ideas internally.

In what world is Paper, Rooms, or Slingshot even remotely successful? And obviously the messaging service attached to an already massive social network would be compelling, that's not really an "experimental app" by any definition.

In that case, we'll give you: News Feed, Pages, Groups, Messenger, Events, the Platform, and Connect, which have all been pivotal to Facebook's success (I guess more than one of these has been the first time email was dethroned as unquestionable medium for doing some thing or another).

Re: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive

#159

Post by Xyik » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 7:27 PM UTC

kylebgorman wrote: post #44

I'm short Twitter. The fact of the matter is it that Twitter should never have become a multibillion-dollar company. There is no barrier to entry into this space---any competent web developer could make a non-scaling Twitter in an afternoon---except network effects, and those have proved weak due to poor user experience, particularly for new users. Twitter should have treated itself like a utility, and focused less o…

lol - so which features are you going to exclude? Is your weekend-twitter-app going to support a feed, favoriting / reteweeting only to your followers / dming only between followers / ability to block / filter / rate-limit users who tweet-spam / mobile app / push notifications / e-mails to new users who sign-up / and various other necessary features an app usually has before it even launches a MVP?

Re: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Chief Executive

#160

Post by jleader » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 7:29 PM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #37

bru_ wrote: post #5

People are worried that Jack will be too busy between Twitter and Square, but what they don't know is that the dude's been completely spaced out for the last 4 years, making the same motivational presentation about his Dad's pizza shop to anyone that will listen. Nobody at Twitter talks to Jack anymore, even the most Senior people.

[citation needed]. Seriously though, are you an employee at Twitter or Square, or are you basing this statement on the fact that you (presumably someone who doesn't see what's going on within Twitter and Square) only see Jack in interviews, and he tells the same story? I mean, I'm by no means a big time CEO, but the only contact people outside my company have with what's going on internally are interviews. And when I…

In my experience at startups, especially as they get past 100 employees or so, if you see the CEO around the office a lot, something is probably wrong. The CEOs where I've worked have usually been off talking to investors, potential partners, large customers, etc. Sure, they show up for all-hands meetings, and they're in the office for a couple weeks at a time sometimes, but at least half their job is externally-facing, explaining the company to the world.