Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left • Hacker News Board

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#51

Post by PeCaN » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:50 AM UTC

timcederman wrote: post #38

PeCaN wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still didn't explain why they need that many people. What exactly _is_ required for “running something at the scale of Vine”? Yes, they have/had a lot of traffic, but traffic in and of itself does not require a large staff to manage.

I'm not going to explain the individual job functions of 50 people, and for folks who work in the industry this should seem like a reasonable number just from their own experience. However, let's do some rough numbers. It says they had 3 product managers. I would guess this means 8-10 engineers. 3 QA folks would be a decent enough ratio. You've then got a GM, a head of product, head of UX, head of data science, head…

> I'm not going to explain the individual job functions of 50 people

Good thing I didn't ask you to.

> It says they had 3 product managers

Seems like a lot of product managers for a company with one product which isn't especially complicated. Smells like a sign of hiring really fast to try to grow.

> I would guess this means 8-10 engineers

The fuck do they even do? You don't need that many people to make something like Vine. Unless I'm missing something and there's more to the service than the video-related social CRUD app?

> You've then got a [bunch of dept heads]

Eh, I can see those I guess.

> Now we've got […snip handwaving about team sizes and numbers…] over 40 people easily.

OK.

> help centre and customer support

Yeah pretty sure Vine doesn't have a custom support team.

> ops [and] IT support

If they're managing their own servers that would add a lot of overhead I suppose. If they're just running off EC2 or Linode or whatever then there's not a whole lot of staff there.

> Does that all make sense now?

No.

> there are a lot of specialized roles to keep something with 25-30 million active users a month running smoothly

I think it takes more people to work out a revenue model for Vine than to sustain 25-30 million active users.

---

Basically, bullshit. In Vine's case, you really don't need a big engineering team, which means you don't need a lot of people to manage your engineering team. I find it much more likely that Vine hired a bunch of people (engineers and otherwise) with VC money when they were growing fast.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#52

Post by reitanqild » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:51 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #39

niftich wrote: post #25

It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Facebook (and Instagram) and Snapchat have both transformed from their original incarnations, in ways that have improved the companies' valuation, but have not always improved the experience of users. It seems every single social network is trendin…

Twitter just doesn't have an idea about where to evolve. They've tried small changes, and nothing helped their bottom line. Rumors are that part of the reason is that they are not sure what their "secret sauce" is, so they are reluctant to change anything in fear of harming it. Also, they are dying. They have never turned a profit. Facebook or Google or Microsoft will eventually buy them, because of the users - but t…

>> It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can.

> Twitter just doesn't have an idea about where to evolve.

My feeling is the secret sauce was "being cool and disruptive". /s

To secure that position they have, IMO, spent the last few years painting themselves into a corner.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#53

Post by terda12 » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 4:59 AM UTC

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #8

Makes sense, Instagram has essentially beat them at their own game.

Instagram has more everyday users. Think about me, the average dude. I have 100 followers on Instagram, most of whom are from high school/college. I have zero followers on Vine. Unless I dedicate my life to making funny Vines, I probably won't get any followers. Whoa, now Instagram has pushed a video feature, great! Now I can share "vines" with my 100 followers. No need to download Vine after all.

Not to mention a lot of the funny vines get posted onto a youtube compilation anyways, so in the end youtube is profiting from vine's success. Vine's business model was just doomed to fail.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#54

Post by niftich » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 5:03 AM UTC

beagle3 wrote: post #39

niftich wrote: post #25

It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Facebook (and Instagram) and Snapchat have both transformed from their original incarnations, in ways that have improved the companies' valuation, but have not always improved the experience of users. It seems every single social network is trendin…

Twitter just doesn't have an idea about where to evolve. They've tried small changes, and nothing helped their bottom line. Rumors are that part of the reason is that they are not sure what their "secret sauce" is, so they are reluctant to change anything in fear of harming it. Also, they are dying. They have never turned a profit. Facebook or Google or Microsoft will eventually buy them, because of the users - but t…

Twitter (the service, not the company's) secret sauce is:

You can have a public platform, using an identity you choose for yourself, to broadcast snippets of information.

Where do you evolve this? Blogger, Blogspot, Livejournal, Tumblr, Medium, they're all in this same space, except they focus on traditional, long-form content. I don't see Twitter as a social network (although many do, that's okay). I see it as a broadcast medium, a soapbox, a blogging platform.

But if you see Twitter as a social network, you're subject to a different set of pressures than a blogging platform.

Also, Twitter holds no value to FB, Google, MS, or Yahoo. They all have subsumed parts of its core functionality into their offerings. If they ever get acquired, it's by some 'outsider' that wants to enter this space, like Verizon or Yandex.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#55

Post by terda12 » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 5:03 AM UTC

dkarapetyan wrote: post #14

I've seen this cycle a few times now. Just give it a merciful death (vine and twitter). Some things are meant to be ephemeral. I think vine and twitter are in that category. Just like a forest needs fires to be a healthy ecosystem. People should be more willing to let go of business ideas that see explosive growth but lack the business fundamentals to be sustainable. Instead what's gonna happen is that it is going to…

I may be out of the loop of some drama, but to be it seems like Twitter has been so successful, and it seems like its here to stay. It's got advertisement in between tweets which will be viewed by tons of people. It's the preferred social network for well known people. My twitter feed is also much less of a toxic junkyard than Facebook is right now.

Vine on the other hand I agree with, the business model is doomed to fail. Instagram already has a huge userbase, and all it has to do is implement a video feature to kill Vine.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#56

Post by timcederman » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 5:08 AM UTC

PeCaN wrote: post #51

timcederman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to explain the individual job functions of 50 people, and for folks who work in the industry this should seem like a reasonable number just from their own experience. However, let's do some rough numbers. It says they had 3 product managers. I would guess this means 8-10 engineers. 3 QA folks would be a decent enough ratio. You've then got a GM, a head of product, head of UX, head of data science, head…

> I'm not going to explain the individual job functions of 50 people Good thing I didn't ask you to. > It says they had 3 product managers Seems like a lot of product managers for a company with one product which isn't especially complicated. Smells like a sign of hiring really fast to try to grow. > I would guess this means 8-10 engineers The fuck do they even do? You don't need that many people to make something li…

If you think you can come run a team more leanly and successfully, I invite you to come do it - clearly, if there is a market inefficiency here you could reap the rewards.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#57

Post by prostoalex » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 5:12 AM UTC

spydum wrote: post #19

dkarapetyan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is valuable about it? I keep hearing this but it is just a jumble of collective stream of consciousness. Has anyone that has read Ulysses actually made any sense of it? Twitter is the collective analog of Ulysses.

It can be pretty useful for sentiment analysis across large populations - for a lot of different purposes/clients

It can, but at what price? Parent was questioning this data being "extremely valuable" - is sentiment analysis at $.001 per user an attractive proposition to a client? Likely. Is it still a viable product at $.01, $.10, $1 per user?

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#58

Post by function_seven » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 5:15 AM UTC

tlrobinson wrote: post #42

niftich wrote: post #25

It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Facebook (and Instagram) and Snapchat have both transformed from their original incarnations, in ways that have improved the companies' valuation, but have not always improved the experience of users. It seems every single social network is trendin…

Consider that two major newsworthy events in the US in the past week (Philando Castillo killing and Dallas attack) were live-streamed on Facebook rather than Periscope. Facebook already has a huge advantage with 10x the active users of Twitter, AND they integrated live video directly into the app that many of those users already have, rather than a separate app most of them don't. "App constellations" may be a better…

> AND they integrated live video directly into the app that many of those users already have, rather than a separate app most of them don't.

> "App constellations" may be a better user experience... if you bother to download the whole constellation... but I think a similar principle to "the best camera is one you have with you" applies.

I agree. Why does Facebook insist on Messages being a separate app then? They should re-integrate it into the main app for all the reasons you wrote.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#59

Post by niftich » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 5:17 AM UTC

justinator wrote: post #48

niftich wrote: post #25

It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Facebook (and Instagram) and Snapchat have both transformed from their original incarnations, in ways that have improved the companies' valuation, but have not always improved the experience of users. It seems every single social network is trendin…

> It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so > than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the > original form of their product as they can. I admire that. Except for that time they blocked third party access to their API. That was kinda big. [0]. I guess you could also say that this move supports your point of view, but those third parties were partly responsible for the popularity of the platf…

Agreed, blocking API access was an overconfident move on their part, likely in the anticipation of display ads, and they never recovered.

Re: Vine isn’t growing and most of its top executives have left

#60

Post by godzillabrennus » Wed, Jul 13, 2016, 5:22 AM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #45

beagle3 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter just doesn't have an idea about where to evolve. They've tried small changes, and nothing helped their bottom line. Rumors are that part of the reason is that they are not sure what their "secret sauce" is, so they are reluctant to change anything in fear of harming it. Also, they are dying. They have never turned a profit. Facebook or Google or Microsoft will eventually buy them, because of the users - but t…

> Facebook or Google or Microsoft will eventually buy them, because of the users Those companies already have those same users.

Maybe Rupert Murdoch is feeling adventurous again. I mean he did buy MySpace once.