Mom said we can have Twitter at Home
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First, I know I wrote about Blogging already and didn't follow through. That was at a different time, and now times have clearly (Duh, Elon acquires Twitter? Recession and what not) changed. The recent events definitely had me wanting to pin down my thoughts about this whole Twitter debacle.
First, I want to be wrong. I really like Twitter and it has given me so many friends. It's the place that I learn a lot from the network, and I feel really sad about the current state of affairs.
Something about Twitter doesn't feel right to me anymore. Maybe that feeling has been growing in the background, and the new events just accelerated it. One big reason why I'm not optimistic is the fact that I haven't heard one sane idea to keep users happy and make money from all the leaks that are happening. Paywall'ing Twitter, Verification through Blue, Paying for DM's are all borderline terminal to the platform. Keeping aside the fact that none of these are engaging, organic - They are disengaging in a very bad way. None of this should give you an impression that I don't like new features, I actually do. Spaces, Super-Follows and Communities are all well conceived, and executed features IMO.
I haven't even started talking about all the security concerns with the user data from Twitter, when you are in a money crunch. I hope, We don't have to go there.
Considering the company is now private, I wouldn't be shocked if we don't get to know the actual impact of all these new ideas on user engagement. I guess, This is what happens when you overpay for something, and now have to find ways to get the ROI asap without having enough time to invest in building longer lasting things that would help you make money.
Also, Bryan Cantrill wrote an excellent post on this topic to which I'm in full agreement with.
Mom said we can have Twitter at Home
Twitter at Home:
I'm actually liking Mastadon! The platform seems to have all the foundational pieces to make a social network work already. Obviously, It's a bit slow but not necessarily bad. It's definitely growing on me. Considering that a lot of folks from my network are already there, I feel home. I would recommend giving it a try.
I'm still on Twitter but definitely keeping my eyes open on how things will unfold.