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Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

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Re: Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

#331

Post by dotBen »

kristianc wrote: post #236
dotBen wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great but it's fair to say that's niche - both in terms of the number of people I'm guessing who are producing that type of content and the amount of monetization that can occur from that community. As a public company, Twitter has to focus on the mainstream, big numbers. I would also suggest that Twitter refocusing to sports and news would give the specialist apps you mention (and others) a better chance at s…

> That's great but it's fair to say that's niche - both in terms of the number of people I'm guessing who are producing that type of content and the amount of monetization that can occur from that community. Although it's niche, you could substitute almost anything else for 'medical' and have it work. There's an equally good and thriving literary Twitter, arts Twitter, gay Twitter, black Twitter, politics Twitter, de…

I think this is kind of my point, actually...

The monetization Twitter has been able to achieve from this niche content hasn't met expectations and that niche content has also seen stalled growth.

Ephemera is what makes a sport/news/politics-aligned Twitter a much more interest proposition that routes around the negatives of the product and the value proposition on that front.

Re: Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

#332

Post by iamatworknow »

nikcub wrote: post #128

1. cut costs by a lot. they shouldn't be spending $2B per year 2. allow the apps to be used without a login - with the default view showing 'what is on now'. almost every member of my family has attempted to use twitter at some point and just been confused. 3. reformat all the explore pages into ordinary twitter streams 4. acquire nuzzel. their view of 'whats on now' is better than twitter's view 5. drop the video pa…

>7. let people pay to get a checkmark

Isn't (or maybe "wasn't") the intention of the check mark to differentiate legitimate public figures from those who would attempt to create fake profiles and impersonate them? Lately it seems like anyone who has had any sort of notoriety has been getting one, but if you could just pay for it instead that would completely defeat the purpose.

Re: Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

#333

Post by lostphilosopher »

grandalf wrote: post #223
eropple wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nnnnnno, it's not "just words". It's threatening to kill and rape people , directly attacking their safety and their right to a peaceable life. It's giving a platform to people who are putting the idea in others' heads that they should hurt and kill people . I don't have to follow the "race realist" assholes among us to have the fact that they are given a platform by a company under no obligation to do so--and that t…

> they use that platform to gather followers under the direct purpose of separating the white race from the blacks or the Jews or whoever the hate-object-of-the-week is I find the sort of speech you describe highly unsavory, but I also disapprove of many other messages. Many people would advise Twitter to suppress the speech of gay people or immigrants, all the groups they hate. The point of speech being speech is th…

I'm not sure why Tweets and free speech are so closely intertwined in this sort of discussion. Twitter is a for-profit business that isn't profitable. The OP asks what would you do to turn it around (which I'm taking as "make it profitable"). Some suggest better prevention of perceived harassment. My Uber driver has the free speech right to tell me 'my father smells of elderberries,' but if they do it's reasonable to assume I will no longer be riding in Ubers. Consequently, Uber sees it in their interest to try to prevent this sort of occurrence. Nobody tells me 'my father smells of elderberries' on Twitter, but if they did on more than a one-off basis I could see myself no longer enjoying the product, and consequently no longer using it, engaging with it, or promoting it. Twitter would be acting rationally to try to prevent this. So really the question becomes, is the damage to their brand and their user base from perceived harassment greater than the damage to their brand and their user base that would be induced by blocking this perceived harassment. Since one harasser can harass many users I suspect that the benefits would weigh in favor of protecting users from perceived harassment. I use "perceived" repeatedly here because I don't think it matters to the business of Twitter whether it's real or over-sensitivity, the customer is always right.

Re: Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

#334

Post by x0x0 »

artursapek wrote: post #185
nikcub wrote: post #128

1. cut costs by a lot. they shouldn't be spending $2B per year 2. allow the apps to be used without a login - with the default view showing 'what is on now'. almost every member of my family has attempted to use twitter at some point and just been confused. 3. reformat all the explore pages into ordinary twitter streams 4. acquire nuzzel. their view of 'whats on now' is better than twitter's view 5. drop the video pa…

> 2. allow the apps to be used without a login - with the default view showing 'what is on now'. almost every member of my family has attempted to use twitter at some point and just been confused. I never understood why their home page is so basic. Is it just to reduce load on their servers from lurkers?

A guess: to push people to register. For several reasons: (1) they are judged on that every quarter; (2) a hypothesis that this makes the experience better for users, and hence more likely to contribute to MAUs; (3) a hypothesis this improves ad targeting.

Re: Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

#335

Post by 0xCMP »

iamatworknow wrote: post #332
nikcub wrote: post #128

1. cut costs by a lot. they shouldn't be spending $2B per year 2. allow the apps to be used without a login - with the default view showing 'what is on now'. almost every member of my family has attempted to use twitter at some point and just been confused. 3. reformat all the explore pages into ordinary twitter streams 4. acquire nuzzel. their view of 'whats on now' is better than twitter's view 5. drop the video pa…

>7. let people pay to get a checkmark Isn't (or maybe "wasn't") the intention of the check mark to differentiate legitimate public figures from those who would attempt to create fake profiles and impersonate them? Lately it seems like anyone who has had any sort of notoriety has been getting one, but if you could just pay for it instead that would completely defeat the purpose.

For people maybe, but now that twitter is at scale it might not be for someone who cares about their brand

Re: Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

#336

Post by yellow_postit »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #314
kleiba wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm academic. I'm not addicted to twitter, nor is anyone of my coworkers.

Well, you should consider the possibility that you and your coworkers are not representative of academics more generally. In my research field Twitter is quite matter of factly really big. Also note that this was just an example showing that there are more areas where Twitter is doing really well than those that OP listed.

Shouldn't you consider the same, that your group is a set of outliers? Comparing anecdotes will get us nowhere.

Re: Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

#338

Post by davycro »

coffeemug wrote: post #249
davycro wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Twitter's modern-day utility seems very low outside of news/sports/politics" Twitter has tremendous utility for the medical community. I am final year medical student and through twitter can follow worldwide leaders in emergency medicine (my field of interest). These doctors post clinical factoids, cases reports, unique ekgs, and other learning points live from the wards (all de-identified to protect patients of cou…

Could you recommend 5-10 leaders in emergency medicine to follow? (I'm trying to build up a good follow list outside of my usual domains, and I find recommendation graphs to be really useful)

@EMcardiac (Badass south african doc) @EMNerd_ (Great research commentaries) @M_Lin (Program director at UCSF, posts lots of clinical pearls)

My favorites though are docs I know from away rotations and the wards. They aren't famous, but their opinions especially matter to me.

Also follow @medicalaxioms

Re: Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

#339

Post by elgenie »

jy1 wrote: post #306
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #283

I'd tear it apart until all that's left is a profitable, maintainable core. Like Craigslist. Twitter's payroll (to say nothing of its stock-based compensation expense) is bloated. Slashing staff isn't a popular play. This is a textbook private equity deal. Twitter's habit of ringing in the year with $500MM losses could be single-handedly cut with a 2/3rd staffing reduction (which costs lots in payroll and $800MM in s…

That's not a turn around scenario. It would be better to try to find a buyer at the current price.

That's just begging the question.

OK, so you've found a buyer; what's the buyer to do to turn Twitter around?

Re: Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

#340

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dotBen wrote: post #18

Refocus the company to be the Netflix of live TV, focusing on the delivery of live sports and news broadcasts while enabling fans/viewers to discuss in real time. It's a greenfield space no one else is really jumping upon yet. Focus may have turned to on-demand TV, but people still want to watch sports live, and Twitter already has acquired some of those deals as the sport franchises get more comfortable with online…

I think Ben Thompson's take on live-TV-on-Twitter is spot on:

"Twitter is still selling the exact same value the service offered back in 2006 — 'live commentary, live connections, live conversations' — and the only product ideas are to do what old media like television does, but worse: becoming the first screen for what is happening now means a screen that is smaller, more laggy, and, critically, in the way of seeing the actual tweets one might care about. It’s also an example of the worst sort of product thinking: simply doing what was done before, but digitally." [1]

Trying to replicate live TV - a market whose margins are currently contracting - is likely to mean preparing for a bloodbath.

[1] https://stratechery.com/2017/twitter-live-and-luck/

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