> Twitter is the greatest social platform ever built. Period.<p>For you. Not necessarily everyone else. Just saying this because the post is titled that everyone is wrong, so I expected some facts, not just "cuz I said so"<p>> No other platform gives me a chance to talk to people like...<p>Tweeting at celebrities (and hoping they tweet back) is not really a conversation.<p>--
Don't get me wrong, I like Twitter, but not for these reasons.
> 1. Twitter is the greatest social platform ever built. Period.<p>This is like saying "Imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time. because she had one of the best videos of all time. Period."<p>> 2. No other platform gives me a chance to talk to people like Marc Andreessen, Chris Sacca, Tim O'Reilly etc. Twitter empowers us all. Think about how much 1:1 time you can get with influencers on platforms like Facebook or Snapchat. These people won’t take the time out to send you a snap.<p>Welcome to 2016. This guy apparently hasn't used Snapchat before. I can already see a lot of celebrities using Snapchat Stories to interact with their fans in much more intimate ways than Twitter can ever facilitate.<p>3. Facebook is not a fair comparison. But I quit Facebook because it made me unhappy and dissatisfied. Twitter makes me smart.<p>The reason Twitter is having hard time is because of all the competing products that have surpassed it, not just Facebook. There are hard numbers that tell us Twitter is losing people's attention. One person's denial won't change that.
This doesn't really address the popular prediction - that Twitter is going to continue to struggle with monetization and that user growth will continue to remain flat.<p>Twitter may be the "greatest social platform ever built," but it wasn't built on a very strong financial foundation.
<i>Facebook is not a fair comparison. But I quit Facebook because it made me unhappy and dissatisfied. Twitter makes me smart.</i><p>How did this even get to the front page? HN needs some better quality control.<p>Lately been seeing a lot of mediocre medium articles get on the front page.
Can somebody tell me why Twitter, Instagram and all the other big social media sites do not offer something like hats (TF2) or weapon skins (CS:GO)?<p>I am pretty sure there are millions of people who would be totally happy to increase their social credibility with a platinum-twitter-supporter-star in their profile. Make people think that they are not a true Instagram professional without a diamond Instragram supporter badge on their profile.<p>A basic silver supporter start costs 5$ a year and the exlusive diamond ones go for 100$ a year.<p>There is not much effort in implementing this and if done right you have a constant stream of revenue.
Twitter is in trouble if they are on a path to competing with Facebook. They are fine if they manage to reflect on what made them successful in the first place: information constraint and a small(ish) but passionate community.<p>The culprit is diluting the product to chase after growth. This is a losing strategy. They should instead think of catering to their core users and monetizing. They will disappear overnight should the core exit.
Nobody is denying that Twitter is a great tool for a lot of people, the author included. But this pool of people is too small for Twitter's investors. And the way Twitter works currently, the pool looks difficult to grow. Hence all the handwringing about how to make Twitter appeal to a larger audience without losing the power users it already has.
This appears to be an argument that Twitter is unique among the mainstream social networks, which is irrelevant to my predictions of their future. Which of these statements addresses why they're going to stay afloat without being profitable, as users move on, or as advertising's efficacy stales?
I don't see how Twitter makes him smart but Facebook doesn't. I get just as much thoughtful conversation and content from FB as Twitter. This is just one random, insignificant dude's rant.