Twitter's Myocardial Infarction
Is Twitter living in denial of its own arterial plaque buildup or have the developers been sniffing the Ruby dust again?
Recent changes on and reports about Twitter, along with the staff's dodgy answers to the outcry generated by these changes and reports, are pointing to Twitter's demise - a situation that is quickly becoming inevitable.
First came the #fixreply debacle, when thousands of users found their Twitter streams suddenly silenced in a "we-know-better-than-you-what's-best-for-you" feature removal by the Twitter crew (second paragraph of the post added after the move blew up in their faces). Twitter posted three blog replies, the last marginalizing the ordeal as a "kerfuffle", then proceeded to completely ignore user's requests for reinstatement of the reply feature, compounding the problem. Twitter has apparently decided that the ostrich strategy is their best tactic here and that if they leave it alone long enough, the glassy eyed masses will return to their cud.
Hot on the heels of #fixreply came reports of a "Twitter TV show" that would center around the use of Twitter as a tool for "spotting" (read: stalking) celebrities that use the service. Twitter has responded with two blog posts, one post reeking of plausible deniability, claiming "simple agreements" with production companies and the other dancing past the subject with the statement that "Twitter is not making a television show" (of course not, the production company makes TV shows). Regardless of Twitter's protests celebrities world-wide have stated clearly: should such a show become reality they will abandon Twitter en masse.
Are these two examples blips on the screen or the numbness before the ambulance? Personally, I believe that Twitter needs to make sure its health insurance card is handy.
The longer Twitter ignores the #fixreply issue, the more likely the users crippled by it will leave and either explore other platforms or build their own micro blogging service. While Twitter claims that only 3% of accounts had the feature turned on, this number still equates to an estimated one hundred fifty thousand users who are likely to get their kicks elsewhere should Twitter continue to fail to provide a reasonable answer.
More remarkably, Twitter is courting the loss of several million users should celebrity accounts bail on the service. To quote Ashton Kutcher, with 1.9 million followers alone, "It's all fun and games until somebody gets stalked." Kevin Spacey, who has advocated an open conversation with his fan base since the creation of his Twitter account, echoed the sentiment with the statement that he "too would disappear from Twitter" should the proposed Twitter TV show be greenlighted. Twitter seems to believe that the masses would stick with them, even if celebrities disappeared or began to endorse another service.
With a steady diet of these value-meal sized misjudgements on Twitter's part and whiffs of further grease choked decisions such as banner advertising on the site and the implementation of SMS support for foreign countries before scalability issues are resolved, one has to wonder just how long it will be before the internet hears Twitter calling "You hear that, Elizabeth? I'm coming to join ya, honey!"
Recent changes on and reports about Twitter, along with the staff's dodgy answers to the outcry generated by these changes and reports, are pointing to Twitter's demise - a situation that is quickly becoming inevitable.
First came the #fixreply debacle, when thousands of users found their Twitter streams suddenly silenced in a "we-know-better-than-you-what's-best-for-you" feature removal by the Twitter crew (second paragraph of the post added after the move blew up in their faces). Twitter posted three blog replies, the last marginalizing the ordeal as a "kerfuffle", then proceeded to completely ignore user's requests for reinstatement of the reply feature, compounding the problem. Twitter has apparently decided that the ostrich strategy is their best tactic here and that if they leave it alone long enough, the glassy eyed masses will return to their cud.
Hot on the heels of #fixreply came reports of a "Twitter TV show" that would center around the use of Twitter as a tool for "spotting" (read: stalking) celebrities that use the service. Twitter has responded with two blog posts, one post reeking of plausible deniability, claiming "simple agreements" with production companies and the other dancing past the subject with the statement that "Twitter is not making a television show" (of course not, the production company makes TV shows). Regardless of Twitter's protests celebrities world-wide have stated clearly: should such a show become reality they will abandon Twitter en masse.
Are these two examples blips on the screen or the numbness before the ambulance? Personally, I believe that Twitter needs to make sure its health insurance card is handy.
The longer Twitter ignores the #fixreply issue, the more likely the users crippled by it will leave and either explore other platforms or build their own micro blogging service. While Twitter claims that only 3% of accounts had the feature turned on, this number still equates to an estimated one hundred fifty thousand users who are likely to get their kicks elsewhere should Twitter continue to fail to provide a reasonable answer.
More remarkably, Twitter is courting the loss of several million users should celebrity accounts bail on the service. To quote Ashton Kutcher, with 1.9 million followers alone, "It's all fun and games until somebody gets stalked." Kevin Spacey, who has advocated an open conversation with his fan base since the creation of his Twitter account, echoed the sentiment with the statement that he "too would disappear from Twitter" should the proposed Twitter TV show be greenlighted. Twitter seems to believe that the masses would stick with them, even if celebrities disappeared or began to endorse another service.
With a steady diet of these value-meal sized misjudgements on Twitter's part and whiffs of further grease choked decisions such as banner advertising on the site and the implementation of SMS support for foreign countries before scalability issues are resolved, one has to wonder just how long it will be before the internet hears Twitter calling "You hear that, Elizabeth? I'm coming to join ya, honey!"
posted by wlturland at
6:19 PM
1 Comments:
Hear, hear!
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