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0 pointstajano10y ago0 comments

> they need to figure out how to fundamentally improve the ease of use of the whole thing

I've frequently heard this theory, that Twitter's problem is that it's too complicated. I don't buy it. It has a simpler UI than Facebook or Snapchat, and it's not significantly more complicated than Instagram or Vine or Periscope or any other media sharing platform.

If you personally enjoy Twitter and derive value from it, it's easy to believe that people who don't get into Twitter just don't understand it it. My experience is that many people sign up, send their first tweet, and then say, "OK, I get it, and I have no use for this." I've helped my friends follow news sources and celebrities they like, but then they look at the wall of Tweets and say, "OK, I get it, but I don't want to read things in this format." It's not about ease-of-use for them, it's about the basic value proposition of tweeting and the Twitter feed.

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jpeg_hero10y ago

I feel like it took me a few years to get my "Following" list to where I really liked my stream. Took a lot of patience of adding people every week for what seemed like forever.

when people say "ease of use" that's what i think about

xeromal10y ago

Reddit has a list of default subs to get people started. A lot just keep the main list, but some continue to add and subtract as their tastes change. Is that what you are proposing?

meatysnapper10y ago

Here's the problem. Twitter has to decide whether it is A) algorithmic (facebook style, they show you content they think you'll like an optimize it by the time you are engaged with it), B) curated - someone else decides what you may like and it is suggested C) you organize it yourself.

Lots of people at Twitter are all about (C), and have ideas how to improve it. However, management has never really been hot on it, and prefers (A) because it is easier to "measure" and optimize for. If (C) was done well, and allowed users a good way to find content they though was interesting, it would be super helpful.

Another problem is that Twitter still sucks for media. Michael Sippey, then head of product, was against anything but text. He was out within a year. Text is hard to create (well), but photos are very easy- snap, apply a filter and bam, billions of food photos on Instagram. One of the appeals of Snapchat and Instagram are that they allow you to broadcast photos/video very easily. In essence, they are a better Twitter for 99% of the population.

shampine10y ago

I think that was more common to hear as people didn't seem to understand @messages and #hashtags. So when they saw:

> .@jack #awesome

They didn't know what that meant. Now that hashtags and @ style messaging are just about everywhere, I don't think it is a valid theory.

dnr10y ago

As a non-twitter-using software engineer, when I land on a twitter page, I still find it fairly intimidating and requiring special knowledge. For example, why is there a dot before the @ in your example? (I actually know the answer to that because I looked it up once, but it's totally not obvious.) What's with all the slashes in numbered lists?

Because of the character limit, people use a lot of abbreviations and shorthand that I can usually figure out with some puzzling, but I shouldn't have to do that.

I still see url-shortener urls all over on twitter, when I should just see regular urls.

These may be minor points, but it adds up to giving off the feeling that there's an in-crowd and I'm not invited. It is much better than it was a few years ago, though, so maybe it'll get there.

(I'm not even getting into the difficulty of actually following a conversation on twitter! Reverse-chronological order plus the lack of linking replies to their parent messages make it nearly impossible, but that's a well-known issue.)

jay_kyburz10y ago

I agree that the @ at the beginning or the @ in the middle is a problem.

here is my opinion Jack if you are reading.

Every tweet needs some extra field when you are creating them.

  * to: field like email. A list of people or "everybody"
  * body: 140 characters.
  * tags: relevant tags so that your tween can be found by non followers interested in a specific topic. 
  * url: seperate url so as not to use up your 140 chars. Nobody wants to use a link shortener.

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pratyushag10y ago

If you're an active twitter user, you likely know how it works. But otherwise, the @ mentions etc. are not very simple w/o somebody teaching you. And even after that, it can seem difficult.

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