41–50 of 95 posts
I've heard a lot about twitter's support for third party apps. I have never encountered one of these apps myself. When I see quotes like "the world of third-party developers", it suggests that there is a large number of applications somewhere that I'm missing. What are these apps?
Facebook is the Jurassic Park of startups. Founded by a hacker-idealist who wanted to bring people and technology together like never before. The experiment worked wonderfully at first as millions of people flocked to Facebook's revolutionary platform from around the world. Soon, questions of profitability came into the picture, forcing executives to compromise ethics for additional revenue. Chaos erupted and million…
Facebook is the Jurassic Park of startups. Founded by a hacker-idealist who wanted to bring people and technology together like never before. The experiment worked wonderfully at first as millions of people flocked to Facebook's revolutionary platform from around the world. Soon, questions of profitability came into the picture, forcing executives to compromise ethics for additional revenue. Chaos erupted and million…
It's a good story, but I think you're remembering both the plot details and the themes of Jurassic Park differently than I am.
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Excuse me? My hacker friends and I have all discussed this at length and agreed that the largest motivator for us is working on hard problems. This is how some of us justify working for the military; they offer really tough problems to solve. Twitter is the same; if twitter offered me a job, I would practically move to the bay and live out of my jeep to do it.
I think there's a faction of engineers who want to work on interesting (which can be hard) problems, and those who want to work on interesting products. I believe this is demonstrated clearly by the jobs pages for both Apple and Google. From Apple: * Every detail matters… It matters all of the time. That’s how we do things at Apple. The result is some of the best-loved products in the world. * Simplicity isn’t simple…
In my experience this only describes 10% of the programmer population. The rest don't really want either, they just like the benefits and the paycheck.
They also don't work at Twitter, Google, or Apple, not many do anyhow.
Actually, I don't think the distinction really exists. Some people like to crack hard algorithmic problems, some people like to crack hard systems problems, others like to crack hard markets, or hard product verticals. It's all part of the same thing - people like to accomplish things that are hard to do and interesting to try.
Twitter already said that most people access Twitter through their web ui and mobile apps. So even if they were shutting their whole API down, it wouldn't have such a negative effect on their usage growth. The only thing that's happening is that devs won't be able to build toys around Twitter, but Twitter doesn't care as most people don't use nor need these toys. Some of us devs just have to admit that we are not tha…
My gut reaction is to agree with you that the Hacker community is overreacting to getting screwed over and that Twitter will go on fine without us. But without any facts about how popular and widely used these third party apps are, my opinion is really just a guess.
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Seems like the only logical reason they are doing this is because they are in the start of an acquisition. They have to prove some type of revenue stream (ads) and restricting users to the twitter site/app will help them guarantee the made up numbers.
I very much doubt Twitter is interested in an acquisition.
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It's a good story, but I think you're remembering both the plot details and the themes of Jurassic Park differently than I am.
I perceived inGen trying to re-create complex organisms and arrange them into a simple system, and not being prepared when the consequences of chaos unfolded. I love the movie but it leaves out much of the discussion of complexity and chaos found in the book. You ever read the books?
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Yes, but the problem with Twitter is they took too much money. You don't need to have $1Billion dollars in financing to offer a service like this -- this is what the likes of app.net are teaching us. A $50million Twitter could have "easily" sustained it's vision/objective without having to cannibalise it's entire ecosystem. However someone promised the moon to a bunch of financiers and now they have to deliver above…
1) How do you know how much money it takes or does not take for Twitter to offer it's service? 2) Don't you think it's a little early to compare app.net and twitter? App.net is in it's infancy and is nowhere near the product twitter is 3) What could Twitter have been exactly? How did closing a few API's off prevent it from getting there? 4) Have you ever imagined that perhaps your vision for Twitter and Twitter's vis…
2) Don't like App.net? Pick Reddit vs Digg, same case. One managed to "get by" with a core team, the other took a ton of money, hired a bunch of folks, made a bunch of promises, and tried to shoehorn their original vision, the one that got them established in the first place, into something completely different. Reddit, makes money and is sustainable -- it just didn't need to make that much money -- as a user that's fine by me, and the reason why Reddit "won". If only Digg was happy to "just" be a $50mill website...
3) Twitter is what it's users/supporters made it to be. Its service/value was understood from the get-go, and in turn, it's popularity grew for that same reason -- ppl understood it's vision and supported by building upon it -- hence cannibalizing your core base by knee-capping your API, probably isn't the best way to go.
4) My vision of Twitter is fine, like many others, I think it's got something to do with SMS-web-mobile-140-characters-distributed-micro-messaging-or-summin? Does it need to be more than that?
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A different question is, who would want to buy them? Twitter, who should know their network better than everyone else, is still trying to figure out how to best monetize it. Who would want to take that task on? In the old days, I'd guess Yahoo! would be in the running, but since they have a history of buying popular sites and then letting them wither, I hope Meyer isn't going to fall for that again.
I would be surprised but not totally shocked if either Microsoft or Apple bought Twitter. Tight integration into OS and devices + the huge critical mass of active social users + the social and cultural relevance of Twitter would be assets for them.
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Yes, but the problem with Twitter is they took too much money. You don't need to have $1Billion dollars in financing to offer a service like this -- this is what the likes of app.net are teaching us. A $50million Twitter could have "easily" sustained it's vision/objective without having to cannibalise it's entire ecosystem. However someone promised the moon to a bunch of financiers and now they have to deliver above…
1) How do you know how much money it takes or does not take for Twitter to offer it's service? 2) Don't you think it's a little early to compare app.net and twitter? App.net is in it's infancy and is nowhere near the product twitter is 3) What could Twitter have been exactly? How did closing a few API's off prevent it from getting there? 4) Have you ever imagined that perhaps your vision for Twitter and Twitter's vis…
1.16 billion of capital and 140 employees
6.0-7.0 billion valuation, estimated
In terms of profit per employee, you're looking at 50 to 100 million to 'break even' at that vauation
So, part of it is the $$ raised and part is the $$ valuation
Is it possible paint yourself into a box, strategically, if you take money at aggressive valuation?
Source: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/twitter
Edit: Headcount data look out of date at TechCrunch. See comment below, this now ~1,000 not 140.