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Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

thetwitcleaner.com

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Re: Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

#71

Post by igravious »

Retric wrote: post #19
xnxn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound trivial to me. Many would just use a client/extension that doesn't render said obvious ads. On the other hand, that is the status quo of the web (cf. AdBlock) and it mostly works.

I suspect if they made it a terms of service violation to block adds they could fairly effectively police smartphone apps. If nothing else it would be interesting to see them try. I am also of the opinion that a vary cheap add blocking option say 1$/month would prevent most people from jumping though many hoops for add-block software.

Most people aren't even aware that they could be experiencing the web ad-free. It just never even occurs to them that should a thing could be possible.

Re: Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

#72

Post by hboon »

glesica wrote: post #38
njl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard it stated quite so plainly, but that makes a lot of sense. I wonder if the billion dollars in funding demands more.

This seems to me to be the problem. They took too much money to monetize in this way. A few bucks a month from a few million users, plus whatever they can make by occasionally inserting ads into the stream (which can't be that much considering how many people would never even see an ad because their streams are too noisy) just doesn't seem like enough to justify all the VC money...

It's improbable they would have the amount of users they have now if users had to pay a subscription. Do you think Facebook would?

Re: Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

#73

Post by sidawson »

sbarre wrote: post #3

Could this be rebuilt for, or ported to, app.net? Seems like a good place for the author to continue what is obviously a project he cares about.

It would depend on app.net's data policies - how much (and how fast) we could get information out of them.

Of course, they own the field, so they could change the rules at any time, thus (once again) killing the project.

From a technical basis, 90% of the effort was building a robust system atop Twitter's. The actual core behavioural categorisation engine was relatively trivial.

Ie, it would require a major rebuild, without lessening the risks at all.

Re: Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

#74

Post by sidawson »

shurcooL wrote: post #70

Speaking of twitter API, is there any efficient way of getting just the single latest tweet from all the users someone follows?

Ha!

No. Off hand, it'd require batching the users into groups of 100 and using an API call (/users/lookup) for each group. That gives you a user object each (which you don't care about), but also the latest tweet.

The limit is 180/15 mins, ie a max of 18k in any 15 minute window.

Re: Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

#75

Post by ExpiredLink »

moocow01 wrote: post #43

It seems pretty obvious that Twitter is trying to become a business and these alienating changes are part of the strategy but the unfortunate part is that they seemingly have picked the completely wrong strategy around what their business should be. Twitter really from a tech prospective is a protocol and it seemed that Twitter as a business was in line with what they were providing. Twitter.com acted as the centrali…

> Then they realized they need to start making money.

The VC mantra is: 'We acquire a large amount of users for free our services. Someone (the buyer) will monetize them later'. Users are the currency of internet startups.

Re: Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

#76

Post by seanp2k2 »

phillmv wrote: post #50
BlackJack wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you're saying, but you really don't have to "jump through hoops" to get ad-block software. It takes about 30 seconds to install an ad-blocking extension. I think the better argument is that most people don't know/care for ad-blocking software. I think AdBlock and its alternatives are prevalent in the tech community, but we're just a small part of total users.

>It takes about 30 seconds to install an ad-blocking extension. I'd be willing wager that those 30 seconds of barrier would deter like 70-80% of the computer using population. Very few people as a whole know or are comfortable with browser extensions.

Is it wrong that I blame IE for a lot of this? I feel like IE was a major factor in ramming the "DON'T INSTALL TOOLBARS / ACTIVEX ADD-ONS NOT NO WAY NOT NO HOW" knowledge down consumers' throats (and that still remains good advice).

Re: Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

#77

Post by mst »

phillmv wrote: post #50
BlackJack wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you're saying, but you really don't have to "jump through hoops" to get ad-block software. It takes about 30 seconds to install an ad-blocking extension. I think the better argument is that most people don't know/care for ad-blocking software. I think AdBlock and its alternatives are prevalent in the tech community, but we're just a small part of total users.

>It takes about 30 seconds to install an ad-blocking extension. I'd be willing wager that those 30 seconds of barrier would deter like 70-80% of the computer using population. Very few people as a whole know or are comfortable with browser extensions.

If it was only a dollar or two per month and not a -complete- pain in the ass to sign up for, I'd probably pay anyway.

I wonder if you could encourage the people who hate ads but would happily take a legitimate option by detecting ad blockers and instead of haranguing them for it, put up a polite advert for how to legitimise their ad free usage? (thinking in general, not just for twitter)

Re: Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

#78

Post by PebblesRox »

mst wrote: post #77
phillmv wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It takes about 30 seconds to install an ad-blocking extension. I'd be willing wager that those 30 seconds of barrier would deter like 70-80% of the computer using population. Very few people as a whole know or are comfortable with browser extensions.

If it was only a dollar or two per month and not a -complete- pain in the ass to sign up for, I'd probably pay anyway. I wonder if you could encourage the people who hate ads but would happily take a legitimate option by detecting ad blockers and instead of haranguing them for it, put up a polite advert for how to legitimise their ad free usage? (thinking in general, not just for twitter)

That's a good idea. Just the other day I turned off Ad-Block on the Let's Play Archive (http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-Boatmurdered/) because they had a little banner message that asked me nicely if I would consider it.

Re: Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

#79

Post by carlisle_ »

hcho wrote: post #23
itafroma wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me is that they aren't even re-hosted: they're hotlinks to other websites' imagery. Besides being incredibly lazy , leaching off of other people's bandwidth without giving them credit or placing the imagery in their original context by linking to the pages they appear on is just a low move.

Leeching bandwidth? Really? This is not 1999 anymore, no one cares if their images are hot linked anymore. Be ready to be surprised, people found ways of making money from hot linked images.

I would care. There's no excuse for your site affecting my server in any way. If it's a site that gets enough traffic the number of connections being made to my web server for a single resource could be enough to adversely affect my site. Besides why are you going to take the chance that the image stays online and in its current location. Just rehost it, it takes such a minuscule amount of effort.

Re: Twitter? It’s Not Fun Anymore

#80

Post by rschmitty »

TFA is about the API, but when I read the title prior to clicking my immediate reaction was "it was never fun"

I'm in my 30s so I don't feel that "get off my lawn" old, but I just never "got it" I guess. Any tech person I want to follow normally has a blog because you are limited to the character limit.

I wish twitter had built in filters, what drove me away was all the pictures, the "lolz", and food/drink shots in exchange for a few tech links that aren't on the persons blog and if I were not following them I might not have known.

Twitter feels like reddit to me while RSS is akin to HN. HN is super focused, and while some funny OT stories make it to the front page, for the most part it is solid tech news. reddit you get _everything_

If twitter could somehow provide "channels" or something like professional/personal I'd really see the value. Not everyone is going to hashtag their tech only stuff or personal only stuff

Am I doing it wrong?

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