Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Decay of Twitter

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 139 posts

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#81

Post by eloy »

benten10 wrote: post #14

I really hope twitter somehow makes money. I would be willing to pay a subscription fee if that helps it sustain. Facebook, I'd rather see die in the hottest fires of all the hells. I don't exaggerate when I say this: twitter has made me smarter. If I'm interested in a new field, I just follow the experts in that field that are on twitter. The conversations and the discussions not only make me feel like an insider, b…

So much of this. Twitter has made me become interested in InfoSec, so I follow a lot of interesting people there. I discovered Hacker News thanks to Twitter.

For example, @thegrugq and @tqbf tweet a lot of interesing things :)

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#82

Post by jessaustin »

simplicio wrote: post #41
johnward wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On top of that, what kind of revenue do the ads bring in?

They've done a good job upping revenue over the last few years (somewhere north of a billion dollars/yr in 2014). And, IMHO, done so without the resulting ads being too obtrusive. Their problem isn't that they can't make money. It's that their valuation means investors expect them to make a ridiculous amount of money. So all revenues are plowed back into R&D.

That's a bit of an accounting smell, isn't it? Obviously Twitter should have some costs other than R&D, like labor and servers. Even if we say the rest is going to R&D, that's kind of a black box. It doesn't prove that they aren't simply recording reasonable recurring costs correctly while hiding bizarre business-killing recurring costs in R&D.

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#83

Post by pconner »

eloy wrote: post #81
benten10 wrote: post #14

I really hope twitter somehow makes money. I would be willing to pay a subscription fee if that helps it sustain. Facebook, I'd rather see die in the hottest fires of all the hells. I don't exaggerate when I say this: twitter has made me smarter. If I'm interested in a new field, I just follow the experts in that field that are on twitter. The conversations and the discussions not only make me feel like an insider, b…

So much of this. Twitter has made me become interested in InfoSec, so I follow a lot of interesting people there. I discovered Hacker News thanks to Twitter. For example, @thegrugq and @tqbf tweet a lot of interesing things :)

Make sure you follow @SwiftOnSecurity

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#84

Post by kafkaesque »

benten10 wrote: post #76
kafkaesque wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you follow the experts in that field via their site or their online communities? The depth of which they would go into their chosen subject would be much more enlightening, surely. It sounds like you just use Twitter to bookmark the links and "soundbites" experts say. How much depth can a conversation that only allows 140 characters per response relay? They are meant to be "soundbites", only telling part of…

Couple of responses: 0) Your arguments seem to be targeted at social media in general (eg. why I can't follow them on their sites, etc). Don't want to get into a conversation on benefits/disbenefits of social media 1) There was nothing in my comment to imply that my friends were from the U.S (they are not), but as I said, the user growth could be just for me. 2) >Why can't you follow the experts... Twitter IS their o…

With regard to point 2, isn't this what newsletters are for or email notifications? I get notifications of sites I have subscribed to via email. I find it is still a very reliable and good source because my email lists are curated to suit my needs all in one place. I get payment notifications, site update notifications, and correspondences to varying lengths with people. It's pretty great, actually!

As for point 3, text images seem like a poor way to digitise text, because it makes it very unsearchable and is prone to pixelation if you are writing a lot of it. It seems like a silly solution to something that was never a problem.

Actually, I sense a hostility in your response that I sense in Twitter users often when I bring up things I don't agree with. I am not at all attacking you, but rather find the way users use Twitter interesting, because it is something I no longer do. I know every single point you have made because I was a Twitter user for about 4 years -- I deleted my account last year.

Why would I Google arguments for and against Twitter when what I am interested is in your opinion? I would hate to put words in your mouth.

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#85

Post by mikeyouse »

jessaustin wrote: post #82
simplicio wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've done a good job upping revenue over the last few years (somewhere north of a billion dollars/yr in 2014). And, IMHO, done so without the resulting ads being too obtrusive. Their problem isn't that they can't make money. It's that their valuation means investors expect them to make a ridiculous amount of money. So all revenues are plowed back into R&D.

That's a bit of an accounting smell, isn't it? Obviously Twitter should have some costs other than R&D, like labor and servers. Even if we say the rest is going to R&D, that's kind of a black box. It doesn't prove that they aren't simply recording reasonable recurring costs correctly while hiding bizarre business-killing recurring costs in R&D.

They're a publicly traded company with a "big-4" auditing firm to make sure that doesn't happen. The law is very clear on what counts as CapEx and OpEx. Obviously, companies occasionally outsmart (or team up with) their auditors to defraud the public, but the vast majority follow GAAP and succeed or fail on the merit of their business.

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#86

Post by untog »

benten10 wrote: post #14

I really hope twitter somehow makes money. I would be willing to pay a subscription fee if that helps it sustain. Facebook, I'd rather see die in the hottest fires of all the hells. I don't exaggerate when I say this: twitter has made me smarter. If I'm interested in a new field, I just follow the experts in that field that are on twitter. The conversations and the discussions not only make me feel like an insider, b…

I'd really love to see Twitter implement something approximating the reverse of Google+ style circles. Sometimes people follow me because I'm a developer, but I feel guilty when I post stream-of-consciousness nonsense into their feed. It would be great if I could separate that out - subscribe to @me/dev and/or @me/nonsense.

Of course, such complexity might put off new users, which is the problem they already have.

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#87

Post by [deleted] »

rdtsc wrote: post #79
benten10 wrote: post #14

I really hope twitter somehow makes money. I would be willing to pay a subscription fee if that helps it sustain. Facebook, I'd rather see die in the hottest fires of all the hells. I don't exaggerate when I say this: twitter has made me smarter. If I'm interested in a new field, I just follow the experts in that field that are on twitter. The conversations and the discussions not only make me feel like an insider, b…

> I really hope twitter somehow makes money. Never really saw the benefit or value in Twitter. People I care about are not on Twitter most of the time, or if they post, they don't post stuff I care about. In general I found 140 character sentences are not just good enough to have a discussion (it ends up sounding curt and snippy). For links and all I just follow communities on forums (reddit, hn, github, their own si…

[deleted]

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#88

Post by dragontamer »

[deleted] wrote: post #87
rdtsc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really hope twitter somehow makes money. Never really saw the benefit or value in Twitter. People I care about are not on Twitter most of the time, or if they post, they don't post stuff I care about. In general I found 140 character sentences are not just good enough to have a discussion (it ends up sounding curt and snippy). For links and all I just follow communities on forums (reddit, hn, github, their own si…

[deleted]

But its not the service of Twitter that makes people smarter or better. Its the people there.

There is always another social network: Reddit, Usenet, Forums, IRC. Twitter is a place where we have conversations for now, but the "innovation" of fast-paced conversations can exist anywhere... and already exists anywhere.

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#89

Post by reitanqild »

[deleted] wrote: post #87
rdtsc wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really hope twitter somehow makes money. Never really saw the benefit or value in Twitter. People I care about are not on Twitter most of the time, or if they post, they don't post stuff I care about. In general I found 140 character sentences are not just good enough to have a discussion (it ends up sounding curt and snippy). For links and all I just follow communities on forums (reddit, hn, github, their own si…

[deleted]

I agree. At the same time I have enough empathy to see where that comment comes from: It seems twitter has been hyped since its arrival but so far a lot of us cannot understand its appeal despite multiple year-long attempts. Just think what other companies/projects would have given for that kind of year long (and in manys eyes, undeserved) hype : )

The only reason for twitter instead of something else seems to be network effect. In a couple of paticular niches I use google+ and it is, believe me, a whole lot better as long as there are people there. (Of course I am annoyed by the fact that it doesn't have a working API etc etc but then again twitter has made that point mostly irrelevant.)

(OK, a few improvements have surfaced in twitter lately and I am once again interested.)

Re: The Decay of Twitter

#90

Post by reitanqild »

the_watcher wrote: post #64
Jtsummers wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I've just missed it, but my problem with twitter is this: Is there a way to send messages to just these 10 people, and not all 100 followers? That's what I need from a social network. I need a public (everyone can see) channel, and I need channels (that I control) that are visible to specific individuals and groups. My soccer team (in general, some overlap obviously) doesn't need to know about my ballroom dan…

I've never used it, but in interviews, Mark Cuban describes Cyberdust as a social network that allows that, claiming it's a reason he invested in it.

Google+ does all this and more. How I wish Google hadn't tied the name to the youtube cleanup / real name policy.

My opinion is that real names policies mostly should die. Basically the idea that real names will cause people to behave is a fallacy for a number of reasons:

1. Trolls use fake accounts

2. Some people seems to honestly believe that "just nuke Iran/Syria/Israel/Gaza" is a smart comment

3. or they don't care about the consequences of posting dumb stuff.

The only people you stop with real names policies are those with dissenting opinions, who don't make fake accounts and who feel they have something to lose.

Post reply on HN