Wednesday, March 16, 2011

What has Twitter become? - O'Reilly Radar

Controversial changes underway at Twitter

Twitter states that 90% of their users use an "official" Twitter client at least monthly. I'm sure that's true, but it's also misleading. I easily use a dozen Twitter clients, including clients built into other apps. While I use an "official" client daily, it's probably under 10% of my total use. And that's certainly part of the problem. I'm sure that Twitter is feeling pressure to find a viable business model to justify billions of dollars of valuation and hundreds of millions of investor capital. Promoted trends, tweets, and follower recommendations might be viable, though my reaction is often "You're kidding; why would you even think I'd want to follow X?" Offered a choice, I'd rather not see them — and the clients I prefer don't force me to see them. Is that the real issue? Other clients aren't displaying "promoted" topics or users? Other clients give users choices that Twitter would rather they don't have?

What has Twitter become? - O'Reilly Radar

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