Ask HN: How would you turn Twitter around?

yes, speakers of agglutinating languages would be able to shove in a few more words, but a) they'd be looked at strangely by their compatriots for using some strange new combo word and no-one wants to have to decipher megawords like that b) (this should be obvious) switching to a different language means that the people who follow you can't read anything you say. So no, people will not switch to German, or any other agglutinating language to beat a word limit.

Launch a new but simpler product. Its the most difficult thing but very rewarding when done right.

Allow rich text attachments to Tweets. Instantly it's a blogging platform.

I feel there are majorly 3 issues which Twitter can address right away and increase their Revenue and user base. I am really pissed off that they are not doing this and sitting on this since so long:

1. Focus on getting more users onboard. Apart from Japan, where twitter has lot of users, there are very few users in Asia & Africa. The Twitter sales team in these regions are not working hard enough. They are focussing only on business side of things. They should focus on getting more users use twitter. Find innovative ways to draw more users onboard.

It's a simple math, the more users you have using the platform the more money you can make. I can't believe no one at Twitter is thinking about this. They have been mostly US centric.

2. Ask your sales team to form partnership with other sporting events. They are only focusing on livestreaming NBA. I would love to have live streaming of football(Euro cup, English Premier League etc.) & Cricket(whole of India will be using Twitter once you start live streaming cricket matches). This will increase user engagement. Outside US no one follows NBA!!!

This again shows they are not thinking beyond US.

3. Find other means of generating revenue, the advertising on twitter feed is one way. Since twitter doesn't have lof of user data these ads are abrupt and not highly personalized. Instead of advertising in feeds, monetize business accounts and provide them premium features.

Yet, the people who like it, like it, and changing it would mostly make them leave, and the people who don't like it already left for something else and aren't coming back.

Its like daydreaming if the next version of Microsoft Word were reskinned EMACS with a new splash screen. Superficially that sounds pretty cool. But six months later everyone who wanted EMACS continued to use real EMACS and everyone who didn't want EMACS switched away from the MS Word clone of EMACS, leaving MS Word with zero users.

That's twitter's problem, the people who are really into "twitter 2016" are just going to leave if things are changed, yet the number of people into "twitter 2016" is seen as too small.

Perhaps their best bet is to abandon acting like a startup. Absolutely no one wants my local electric company to pivot into water and sewer services or open an office on Mars. There's nothing immoral or lower class about operating a respected public utility.

What twitter should be terrified about isn't finding the next billion users, but avoiding the 1970s CB Radio bust or the decline of BBSes in the 90s. The odds are much higher that twitter is going to be out of business and forgotten in 20 years than they're going to be ten times bigger in size/revenue/profit. Essentially twitter is a fad or a utility or in between and has to be monetized as a fad or a utility.