WTF Is Wrong with Twitter?

Dick Costello in 2013 During the Stock Symbol Confusion

Listen to this post here as read by me.

A week ago a few suitors threw their hats into the Twitter acquisition ring. None remain. The stock price continues to fluctuate and has closed at 17.26 USD today dropping below half of their trading price on October 5th.

Yet, earlier this week when everyone’s toaster and garage door opener conspired to take down the site — people couldn’t deal. You didn’t get to see the outrage, of course, because Twitter would be the outlet for such a thing. As noted here on Medium:

Without Twitter, many of us could and presumably would try to use Facebook to fill the void. But it would not be the same. — M.G. Siegler, A Worse World

I find this interesting in that thousands of us who live on Twitter see its value and yet there’s a real tailspin going on right now. Its for this reason that I want to address the issues with Twitter. Something has to be done and seemingly soon.

Even with Twitter being the unanimous champion during these Presidential Debates, there is question as to the platform’s value and (worse) its viability. This area only continues to strengthen and has been commented on for years.

Couple this with Twitter joining the NFL Bubble and the live streaming of Thursday Night Football and it wouldn’t take much to see where this is going.

Now, before I go into all of the ways I would make Twitter better… lets address some of the current issues. There are warts on this pig after all.

1. There’s a fuck ton of fake accounts
2. Twitter may also be the leader in trolling/abuse
3. Where’s the revenue model?

Yes, these are big but solvable issues. Fake accounts need to be removed and recirculated as new if someone wants to register them. More vetting and usage needs to be required to keep accounts active.

User accounts have to arrest control over how they are referenced including language blacklisting. I’d also like to see the ability to post a tweet publicly or only to your followers. This would blend the public Twitter profile and protection in a more nuanced and modern way. More on this later.

And yes, revenue is a big issue. The advertisement model has been spoken of ad nauseum. That’s not the solution. In fact, I don’t think anyone likes advertising as a revenue model… including the platform itself. Its a default move and in that way I think leads to default or poor results as seen in this case.

OK… equally I’d like to raise some of the positives about Twitter:

1. The brand is ubiquitous and all over TV, radio, and alternate media
2. Its the third largest social media network online
3. Its micro blogging structure is uniquely poised for timely interaction and conversation

Many people have written about this, as Chris Sacca has addressed Twitter’s direction in June of last year:

So, I’ll get into it then.

Live Events

Weaving Twitter’s natural conversational tools into events enriches what you’re watching. We’ve seen it, as mentioned above, and it works.

• The commentary below the live event needs to improve. Way too many people talking in one room. Toggles for the general room, your network, and an invitation only room would help a lot.
• Individuals should be able to do this as well directly inline Twitter. Mixing Periscope with Twitter in this way would be better and in keeping. Commentary should follow the above rules. Not being able to interact with Periscope unless you’re in Periscope is stupid. Drop that.
• Live Events should be revenue available. Broadcasters should be able to charge a PPV fee for a feed and/or allow Twitter users to subscribe to future live events.
• Integration on YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, or similar media networks for inline Twitter commentary would only broaden the appeal.
• Sharing audio in Twitter has to be improved greatly. Native video sharing isn’t ideal either. Allowing audio to be shared as a tweet allows for more emotive interaction but if you wanted to share a podcast episode you should have that availability too. Dragging the tweet to the bottom of the app should allow you to continue hearing the audio while reading or sharing other content. Tapping the audio would bring back to full screen for further commentary surrounding that share. Take note of ProductHunt’s podcasting.

Other Revenue

There are legitimate ways to create revenue by offering value to accountholders or followers.

• Premium following. Follow for premium tweets via subscription model. Either a monthly or annual model. Revenue sharing between the accountholder and Twitter.
• Premium tweets could be actionable and targeted to just your paying followers.
• Premium tweets could be the Live Events as illustrated above or access to recorded content (i.e. songs, podcasts, interviews, etc).
• So long as you can sell intangible stuff you may as well leverage off of the same interchange to enable people to sell product peer-to-peer and take a small payment fee.

More Ubiquity

To me, Twitter means conversation and sharing. There should be less barrier to this than there is.

• A Twitter browser that immediately enables all webpages and content to be conversational. Toggle to see all commentary surrounding a page, add to the conversation, and then go somewhere else. This brings the internet back to the forefront and away from the internet in an internet that is Facebook. And I don’t mean those DISQUS plugins either. Something much more native and natural.
• The above could be achieved via a Chrome extension as well but the longterm approach of your own browser would be a better move to avoid interruption of service.
• A layer over all of the TV content from AppleTV, ChromeCast, or otherwise that does the same for playable content. A gesture to pull up commentary and the ability to add to the convo/share.

There’s a lot that can be done here. What the fuck is wrong with Twitter? Its not showing off enough to dominate the space. That’s what’s wrong.

Twitter’s market cap has dropped $12.5B in the last three weeks. Its time to capitalize on its strengths and blow this open. I, for one, really hope they stay independent and make strides forward including the list above.

I’d love to come on board and help too… if you’ll have me, Twitter, I’ll definitely clear my schedule.