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Twitter's Fucked

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Re: Twitter's Fucked

#231

Post by iaw »

jonstokes wrote: post #87

True story: I was at a fundraiser in SF in about 2009, and over the course of the evening I found myself chatting about Twitter on two different occasions: once with Bill Maris of Google Ventures, and once with Joi Ito. Bill and I were actually talking about what kind of investments GV was looking to make. He stressed that GV was looking to invest in businesses that were actually good businesses. As a counterexample,…

I was a huge naysayer about the Facebook model that Joi espouses in your story. Facebook ended up being very successful with their users first approach surprising everyone.

I suspect that in 10 years Facebook will be an exception rather than a rule.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#232

Post by jonathankoren »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #132
sievebrain wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big spectrum in-between an essay that took two days to write and a tweet. Hacker News is a good example of messages that are long enough to say something useful and short enough to not require any commitment by the reader. I dislike the way the article uses the word "violence". Nothing that happens on Twitter is violent. The definition of violence right from a Google search for "define:violence" is behavior…

Yep. I can understand that he wants to make a distinction between aggressive word usage, and non-aggressive. But calling it "violence" is hyperbolic, and dangerous to free speech. Threats of and exhortations to violence are universally considered unprotected by free speech. So people who dislike other peoples speech have an incentive to call it "violence".

"Mental anguish" and "harassment" (which is also a a crime, and not protected) are a much better terms for things that are not a threat of actual physical violence. However, trying to dismiss all of this as simply hyperbole is... well... dismissive. See http://femfreq.tumblr.com/post/109319269825/one-week-of-hara... This is a woman who gets vile harassment and actual death threats for doing academic critiques of video games.

Let's be honest here. These tweets aren't a discourse. It's a mob.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#233

Post by snaky »

specialist wrote: post #167
snaky wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatives are ok with freedom of speech, 'safe zones' are invented by progressives.

Yup. Notorious progressives Bush and Cheney gave us "free speech zones": http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/free-speech-...

Bush and Cheney were much more progressives than conservatives.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#234

Post by munificent »

drabiega wrote: post #130
snaky wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatives are ok with freedom of speech, 'safe zones' are invented by progressives.

The liberals are who take safe zones too far are the same type of people as the conservatives who view any disagreement with them as censorship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#235

Post by forloop »

ivraatiems wrote: post #211
forloop wrote: post #145

> (edit: I said the article didn't mention. I missed the mention.) Amazing your comment is top—given you didn't read the article. > The man deserved what he got From what I've seen (I'm no expert on the subject), that's debatable.

I noted that I didn't read that section, apologized to the first person to point it out, and edited my comment to reflect it. The rest of my points stand quite well on their own and have nothing to do with Milo except as an example.

> > I refer of course to the Milo Yiannopoulos situation

You make reference to your first paragraph (see above) as being to do with Milo. The second para is about Milo. That's The majority of your comment.

You sir, are a liar.

Addendum: Presume I'm getting downvoted for calling the OP a liar. It's literally what he did. It's in writing.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#236

Post by nhangen »

tedunangst wrote: post #188
devishard wrote: post #116

My rule is that if nobody would pay for your service, you probably don't have a worthwhile business. If Google instituted a $0.99 monthly fee to use Google search, people would line up to pay it. They don't have to, because their business model works differently, but they could do that, and it would work. I'd probably pay for an account. If Facebook instituted a $0.99 monthly fee to use that, a lot of people would do…

Is that not exactly what app.net is? They have hardly taken all of Twitter's users.

It was the reverse of what the OP suggested. Twitter is still free, and App.net charged people a fee to use it.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#237

Post by majani »

harryh wrote: post #196
jonstokes wrote: post #87

True story: I was at a fundraiser in SF in about 2009, and over the course of the evening I found myself chatting about Twitter on two different occasions: once with Bill Maris of Google Ventures, and once with Joi Ito. Bill and I were actually talking about what kind of investments GV was looking to make. He stressed that GV was looking to invest in businesses that were actually good businesses. As a counterexample,…

Bill is wrong. Twitter's revenue per user is quite good. Their problem is that user growth is poor. They can't get enough users to meet their goals. Joi was correct that focusing on users first was the correct decision. They just haven't been able to execute on that goal as well as they hoped for.

There is evidence from past social networks that if you don't hit critical mass of mainstream user adoption, and you've got these lofty valuations, the company is in for a really bad time

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#238

Post by devishard »

fusiongyro wrote: post #207
devishard wrote: post #116

My rule is that if nobody would pay for your service, you probably don't have a worthwhile business. If Google instituted a $0.99 monthly fee to use Google search, people would line up to pay it. They don't have to, because their business model works differently, but they could do that, and it would work. I'd probably pay for an account. If Facebook instituted a $0.99 monthly fee to use that, a lot of people would do…

App.net briefly tried to be a paid-for Twitter clone. I guess they've sort of pivoted from that model but it was an interesting idea at the time. And obviously it didn't work, because free is cheaper than non-free.

Yeah. But even if they both charged the same amount of money, I think they'd just both go out of business, because nobody is going to pay for what either has to offer.

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#239

Post by pkamb »

If you post a well-shot picture on Instagram you'll immediately get a bunch of random (but not spam) Likes and maybe a comment or two (I assume people search their interests via hashtag: "#architecture" or "#cars" or etc.). Same with Reddit or Hacker News; post a comment and you'll often get an upvote/reply/comment/banter in return. On Facebook your IRL friends will Like your stuff.

Without a meaningful number of followers, on Twitter you get nothing.

Hashtags eat into your 140 characters, and are mostly used ironically or for singular events/causes, which aren't really appropriate for the majority of tweets. So no one's going to find it via search or hashtag.

There are no communities/topics/forums/subreddits to join. No way to tweet at all the other people who like this one thing.

So to get any kind of notice/interaction with a Tweet of your own you're left to tweeting at someone else, which feels wrong/argumentative/pushy for all the reasons this article laid out. Infinitely more intrusive than a comment reply. Hoping that they either retweet you or reply to you, which gets your tweet those precious views, favorites, and replies enjoyed (and dreaded) by the most average tweet of a well-followed account.

Those metrics (and lack there-of) either lead you to not tweet yourself and only follow [celebrities / internet-celebrities / news] or constantly [reply-to / tweet-at / annoy / troll] those same high-profile accounts. Which is better for Twitter?

Re: Twitter's Fucked

#240

Post by snaky »

adrianratnapala wrote: post #122
snaky wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatives are ok with freedom of speech, 'safe zones' are invented by progressives.

In the US, and in this particular decade it is true that the left is keenest on actual politicking to create censorship. But in terms of the human weakness of not wanting to hear arguments against your own POV, then the right is at least as bad. I think the difference behind the political fireworks is this: conservatives already revel in sub-communities like churches where they can protect themselves from unwanted sp…

Do you have a couple of examples of 'right wing censorship' outside US, let's say in Europe?
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