#RIPTwitter - Is Twitter Really Screwing Up THAT Badly?

[built]

Apparently they're changing the timeline from recent tweets to sort of like Facebook where the most popular are shown.

If Twitter becomes more like Facebooks "pay to play" then that's a big problem IMO

"CEO Jack Dorsey is determined to make Twitter more user friendly and intuitive for people just starting out with the service. Since a lot of them are probably also using Facebook, they're already accustomed to seeing friends' posts out of order. If Twitter can nail the execution (that's a massive if), this could in many ways make the product more valuable for more people. How exactly Twitter plans to make this switch isn't yet known; Josh Sternberg, director of branded content for NBC News, says the algorithm-based timeline will likely be opt in as opposed to suddenly becoming the new default. Indeed, the company would be wise to follow Facebook's "Most Recent" lead and let people use the service as they see fit."​

http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/5/10925728/twitter-timeline-tweets-out-of-order

 

[CCarter]

Yes. I can tell you It alway starts with the little things here and there. I've watched a lot of companies, brands, and corporations come and go for a long time. The ony thing they ALWAYS have in common is never listening to the userbase. I've see it time and time again, Coca-Cola tried to become Pepsi and had a huge backlash bringing Classic back - that's literally a classic example.

But there are more, almost ever small business has this problem too. For most small businesses it's just that they don't know HOW to listen to customers. And for the people with a dozen analytics installed on their site they don't know which customers to listen to.

The small business owner thinks they may think things will always be the way it was for the past several years, and that "internet" thing is not going to do much. I've driven around my home town recently, I noticed all the big franchises coming into town and pretty much taking ALL sales away from the mom & pop stores. In fact I can't remember the last time I went to a local business, cause I feel like the customer service will be horrible, cause it usually is.

I went outside to get the mail and saw some weird small book wrapped in a yellow plastic bag. It was the YellowPage.

Can you believe that? I kept it cause in my sales mentality I thought this would be a great reference to call businesses who need to jump into the 21st century... even if it's 15 years a bit too late; like who even buys ADs in the yellowpages? A SMART mofo that's who. Not everyone is on the internet and the older generation that's 50+ doesn't really jump online like their counterparts, so yellowpages still makes sense to a degree. But it won't forever. It'll be gone like the payphone one day. The Small business owners need to adapt to survive in the new realm of communication or they'll simple go out of business.

In the new realm of communication there is a two-way channel with customers. I talk about this in the Social Supremacy day of the crash course, but it's worth re-iterating. Customers for the first time can now TALK to brands. In the radio and TV era companies would shout to customers their messages. The companies needed focus groups to understand what "potential" customers wanted. Then the internet came along and people started talking about, and that was shocking and scary to companies.

It was horrible! If you put out a bad product people will tell you AND they'll tell other people, who will tell other people. Then part of that conversations gets saved within Google's search results and now when people google for review of your company they'll see all the bad feedback cause you put out a bad product. And then there were the stupid employees of yours that would get drunk or just not think and say something stupid while representing your brand, creating more backlash.

The potential to destroy a brand now lies in the power of online mob retaliation for bad experience, bad customer service, or bad employees. Let's not even talk about trolls who want to see a company's brand burn for lulz.

Now brands, small and big, were vulnerable unless they knew how to navigate these waters. The one key they should take away is listening to their userbase. That's where the ones that have bad feedback fall short. Sometimes it's simplt because of internal bueracracy that stops a good idea from being implemented. Sometimes it's truly only about the bottomline. But even taking all that into consider you should still listen to the userbase since they may not know you what they want BUT they will ALWAYS tell you what they HATE.

Enter Twitter - the anti-Facebook. I personally don't go on Facebook cause the people on there tend to be from the past. Most aren't doing much with their lives, busy having kids, getting married, I'm not seeing the divorce stage yet except for a couple so that'll be about 1-2 years. I get to see all these people I used to interact with live their lives vicariously through social media. They are my friends though, old ones, but still I care for them.

With Twitter I get to create my own circle of people I like interacting with currently. If I don't like someone I can unfollow, mute, or block them cause I don't need their face in my timeline. But now, I'm starting to see the cracks in the foundation forming. I was fine with the old twitter, it was perfect for ME. I could click on the App scroll through these little messages and then if something interested me from people I liked or respected I'd click on and engage in the conversation or read what they just wrote.

But then one day the "like"/"favorite" turned into a heart. I like you, I'll give you a star dude, but I don't love you in that way. It feels weird giving some other dude a heart, I'll say it cause apparently the PC crowd thinks I should be lulled to sleep. I just don't like giving other guys hearts, blast me for whatever reason you want, I give zero fucks. Maybe it's my imprinting from being a child where I give girls hearts not boys. Blame my upbringing. I prefer to give you a gold star if you said something I like, a heart, meh... I don't love, so I'll be giving less hearts. Maybe THAT was a reason for the heart. Maybe Twitter wanted people to "like" things less and only "heart" things they really really like, not love cause that's not happening.

The heart thing, whatever. Then enter MOMENTS. I'll just say this, FUCK MOMENTS. I even hate the twitter homepage now. It's filled with junk food news like CNN, FoxNews, and all these other retarded media outlets which I stopped going to. The Outbrains of the world have turned serious journalism into Junk Food News as Ryan Holiday describes it. Basically "Kim K did this dumbass shit". Now this is sort of ironic cause I did write ways to create headlines and guides for this type of junk food content (Creating "Compelling" Content, Polarizing Content, and Identifying Trolls). But I never thought for a second that my BELOVED Twitter would morph into that, I unfollow clowns that re-post that nonsense! Now I see it on the homepage, no problem, just click through and I'm on my lovely timeline, so no biggie... hey wait a minute...

Fucking junk food news is now an option in the menu. I was careful to not click it though cause it was next to notifications. I always click "Notifications" cause it's the second option... WTF, they switch the buttons! They KNEW no one was clicking on Moments so they had to switch the buttons breaking our training. This is fucking maddening. Fuck Moments, I don't give a shit what's trending around this god forsaken planet. "Terrorists this" "Kardashians Thats", "Kanyes This", "Trump that", "Black This, White That". Shit man you'd think the world is coming to an end with all these headlines, headlines I purposely stopped reading cause they were so fucking depressing. Whereever I turn apparently someone is trying to kill me... "What 12 things should be afraid of in your kitchen..." I can't even go to my kitchen now!! I'll say it again Fuck moments, fuck @jack, and fuck fuckface-twitbook.

And now this "new algo" that's going to surface bla bla bla... Ugh... Everyone claims it's trying to become Facebook with this. I can't call it cause I haven't seen it. I'll never speculate, I'll observe after I experience it. But what's funny is, remember customer service, I saw an employee from Twitter make this ridiculous comment:

"Seriously people. We aren't idiots. Quit speculating about how we're going to "ruin Twitter" - https://twitter.com/bhcarpenter/status/695811814244773892
​

Well based on the #RIPTwitter hashtag I believe some people will disagree with you. In fact based on my own experience with Moments and this love/hearts saga, I've started to question what's really going on at HQ.

And of course that tweet of his went viral, and had a ton of backlash, it's going on right now. Ironically HE, the twitter employee, didn't see it coming. He WORKS at TWITTER! HE didn't think a sensative subject like would blow up? You are an idiot if you couldn't phantom that happening.

Here are some of my favorite #RIPTwitter posts so far:

@LarryKim

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@FunnyThingsUK

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@ayakhemissi

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@kidd_kong78

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@zzcrane

If you guys see anything great, just post them here!

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@Ziweeee

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So now the question is, WILL Twitter at some point start listening to it's userbase OR will it continue it's decline into becoming Facebook and alienating it's userbase with these completely backwards moves.

On top of that, I'm still thinking about that employee lulz. But seriously on top of all that, twitter will apparently be allowing 10K character tweets instead of 140 character. Now, I can't even begin with that idiotic idea. That's one of those things I think of all things Twitter NEEDS to listen to it's userbase about. But maybe, just maybe when all this nonsense goes lives it'll allow me to get back to focusing by un-installing the Twitter App like I did Facebook already. Maybe this is all for the best for my own sanity.

 

[built]

Why are they not listening to their users though? I don't think anyone can be this retarded unless on purpose

 

[CCarter]

It's hard to balance the "vocal majority" with the silent minority. For all I know Moments could be a huge hit and their analytics shows an increase usage of it. The problem is people aren't vocal when they like something, they are extremely vocal when they dislike something. So it's very difficult to get real feedback unless you look at what people are actually doing. So what you mostly see are the people that hate change, any type, but eventually will come around - MAYBE. What you'll rarely see is anyone defending it when the mob is on the hunt and angry about something.

I personally don't like any of the changes, I got a reply from a tweet this morning, I do like the response it but I didn't "heart" it, cause I ain't about that life.

 

[built]

It's hard to balance the "vocal majority" with the silent minority. For all I know Moments could be a huge hit and their analytics shows an increase usage of it. The problem is people aren't vocal when they like something, they are extremely vocal when they dislike something. So it's very difficult to get real feedback unless you look at what people are actually doing. So what you mostly see are the people that hate change, any type, but eventually will come around - MAYBE. What you'll rarely see is anyone defending it when the mob is on the hunt and angry about something.

I personally don't like any of the changes, I got a reply from a tweet this morning, I do like the response it but I didn't "heart" it, cause I ain't about that life.

That's true, I didn't think about the analytics. They're up to nearly 1 million tweets about the #RIPtwitter

The only issue I have is if they start limiting reach for example like Facebook, that would be a huge problem because right now Twitter is my largest social following.

Maybe now's a good time to increase my optins etc​

 

[CCarter]

Maybe now's a good time to increase my optins etc

It's always a good time to increase your options...

 

[RomesFall]

I haven't actively used Twitter for a while... Same reason as many, it's just not what I liked about it to begin with.

They're making themselves wide open for a more 'vanilla' competitor to jump in and take all their disgruntled users.

 

[B0bbyland]

Well, twitter is just preparing for the new generation of users who get PTSD reading different opinions from theirs on he internet.

 

[Potatoe]

@built Another way to look at this...

On any of my Twitter feeds where I follow random users and brands, it's a ton of sloppy advertising and complete junk Tweets. Spam, automated stuff, contests and giveaways... Junk that gets no interaction and no engagement from users. There's no quality control at all, which is bad for anyone putting out quality because it's lose in a sea of noise. All that shit is getting in the way of our tweets.

If you're actually putting up good stuff on Twitter that will engage people, this algo could help you reach a lot more people.

Hopefully it's going to drown out a lot of the noise and static, and give more attention to the *good* content (along with the *paid* content, ofc.)

To compare it to FB... you can still do really well with FB organic, even with all the throttling, if you know exactly what your audience responds to. I imagine Twitter will be similar, and likely have a lot more room for folks like us to take advantage while they're still figuring things out.

Somewhat playing devil's advocate here, but if this change is bad for the typical user consumer, perhaps it's good for us.

 

[Ryuzaki]

This is how social media makes money. They create restrictions that you can buy your way out of.

There's no need to worry. All you have to do is pump out high quality content that gets engagement, and then you get the snowball effect of virality. As it is right now, your tweet could be the absolute best tweet in the world and get seen as much as the worst one ever. After this change, you can be rewarded for that.

I think it's good. People resist change though, and they could keep them happy by having a "sort by date" option. Just don't let them set it as a default and that's enough to pacify them. Then they'd get sick of clicking one extra button every time and just accept the new algo.

@j a m e s basically said this above me. I haven't had coffee yet.