Twitter’s Midlife Crisis: Forget The Algorithm, Spin Off “Moments” Instead

AKA: A Tale of Two Twitters

Another day, another reason to sound Twitter’s death trumpets (are those a thing?). Last time it was a small but senior executive exodus; there’s the constant cries from Wall Street; and most recently, an unclear plan to introduce an algorithm that is seen as an affront to many power users, myself included, that would dumb down the Twitter feed to make it more like Facebook’s.

It’s time for the execs at Twitter to acknowledge that its two distinct user groups — the highly active (tech/media slash content creators and investment/trading community), and the more passive masses (who are the bulk of targets Twitter’s advertisers wants to reach) — require different products and experiences. That’s not a bad thing. In fact, it could be great, if Jack Dorsey & co. stopped living in denial, conflating these groups, and started catering to each’s needs individually.

Maybe the masses need an algorithm to help them sort through the firehouse and surface relevant tweets. Hell, I may like it too sometimes.

The same could be said for “Moments.”

In fact, I’d argue that “Moments” could be Twitter’s saving grace and deserves the focus of its executives’ attention, rather than these unwarranted Facebookian algorithms. But not in it’s current form.

I believe (for whatever that’s worth) that the most impactful thing Twitter could do is unbundle. Namely, spin off “Moments” into a standalone app and web experience geared toward the more passive, news consuming, mainstream audience.

How many news apps have we seen over the last few years, all birthed out of, or built on, the desire to mine, organize and re-present, Twitter’s endless stream of content?

“Moments,” as a standalone service, could be the news app to end all news apps. A real-time, personalized, editorially curated experience — ripe for all the promoted tweets and sponsored content that brings Wall Street, publishers, and advertisers just love.

Instead, “Moments” is built directly into Twitter proper, making both Twitter and Moments clunkier. Worse yet, it’s being force-fed it to user base who doesn’t necessarily want or need it…which is why perhaps so many of us fear it’s algorithm will follow suit.

Twitter’s core users — the power users — have spent years building and customizing our own Twitter feeds (and the unfortunately oft-neglected ‘lists’) to serve as a personalized, highly curated, real time news stream — basically a better version of Moments!

But the majority of users (and potential new users) haven’t been doing that and may consequently appreciate the benefits of that type of experience, without having to put in the time and effort. Ditto for the algorithm.

But if Twitter wants to emulate Facebook, it should do so by mirroring it’s app portfolio strategy, which has resulted in a suite of services beyond Facebook proper, including the acquired Instagram and Whatsapp, as well as Messenger, Paper (it’s news app), and it’s own photo-organizing tool incidentally also dubbed Moments .

I suppose Twitter started down that road with the acquisitions of Vine and Periscope. Then, a short while ago, many tech/media ‘secret handshakers’ speculated that Twitter should or could spin off DM’s into a standalone messenger, which I’d be OK with though I’m not sure there’s any real need.

Rather, the imperative and opportunity lay with with Moments (and for the same reasons, this new algorithm).

Twitter has the right idea: create an experience, designed from the ground up for the passive, consuming, mainstream audience— but it must live on it’s own as a compliment to the core app, not as a replacement, and certainly not bizarre frankenstein app that relies on Twitter tricking users into clicking by switching it’s placement with the notifications tab (you know exactly what I’m talking about).

A standalone app like this would also come with a much clearer value proposition to convey to the public — something Twitter’s new CMO, Amex veteran Leslie Berland, might well appreciate — and make the growth and new user acquisition Wall Street demands, that much easier.

Twitter cannot be all things to all people. And that’s OK. If Jack can helm two companies at once, surely he can handle building two experiences for two drastically different groups of users.

[Update: As several people have pointed out to me, a somewhat related issue is Twitter’s insistence on recommending celebrities to follow, almost exclusively, as opposed to…say…real people. This may be fine (and even desired) amongst the general populous, but continues to ignore the behaviors and needs of the power users.]