I think this project was put into works > 1 year ago. It's obvious it wasn't designed to incorporate Moments, the no character limit for DM's and Polls (all new features from 2015). Building out a Mac app shouldn't be a top priority of any company today, unless you're into productivity (i.e. Sketch, Adobe).
I'm almost sure that Twitter was stretched thin with Obj-c/Swift engineers building out the iPad app and refreshing the iPhone app (Moments) this past year.
I haven't actually read Product Hunt much since this kerfuffle, but after looking at the comments on that submission:
> Interesting concept. I like emoji and GIFs, does openhunt support that? 🤔 <food.gif>
This is a) a jerk comment since the commenter works at Product Hunt and therefore is throwing shade at a competitor's MVP-ness and b) Product Hunt is still quirky-and-randum?
I think the real core value prop of Twitter is the niche communities people can build around their interests. It's about the interest graph. I posted this in another article on the front page today, but I'll do it here also. I think they need to double down on growing communities within Twitter. It's just too hard right now.
So... an IRC channel? Feels like joining a Star Wars room wouldn't differ from `irc.Twitter #StarWars` other than platform. The creator of an IRC channel is the Op and can promote others to be Hops (moderators). IRC channels are generally based on what can be seen as the equivalent of a hashtag...
You'd have to find a way to sell this as something different than IRC, because I doubt the idea of "IRC on Twitter" has never crossed Twitter's mind. What differentiates it other than being hosted on Twitter?
Rooms is an interesting direction. Twitter is part RSS reader, part chat room. It would be nice to follow hashtags on a topic, but then spammers would flood the hashtags with ads.
That's definitely something to figure out. I have a few thoughts about it, I just didn't wanted to keep the post short(er). But yeah that's a great point.
> 2. Twitter Moments is trying to be everything but Twitter.
This is true, and I think it speaks to a deeper problem: nobody at Twitter really seems to understand exactly why the core product was successful, so they're afraid to evolve it out of fear that they'll somehow break the magic spell. When ancillary products like Moments are developed, though, the designers and developers feel freer to be bold, because there's no spell there to break. So when those products get bolted on to the side of the main product, they feel exactly like that -- bolted on.
Facebook has been much more fearless about changing their core product as their userbase has grown and changed -- remember when the News Feed was a controversial new thing? -- and as a result they can give their products a unified feeling that Twitter can't.
nobody at Twitter really has a feel for exactly why the core product was successful
My 2 cents...
When twitter launched, Facebook was still closed to the general public, personal "blogs" were popular but somewhat out of reach of the general public (setup complexity), and a lot of people realized that while they had things to say, those things weren't enough to fill a blog.
Twitter allowed people to converse publicly, put micro-blog style opinions out, and do it without needing to register any domains or customize a page (MySpace).
IMO, twitter primarily filled a time-sensitive gap that has now mostly been overtaken by aspects of Facebook, Linkedin, etc. Much of Twitter is kind of paparazzi-like, and if a company came along that really leveraged the celebrity and sports icon base Twitter would fade away to a bunch of "SEO and Marketing Experts" all tweeting pre-scheduled thinly-veiled promos at each other.
That might have been the spark that lit the fire but I believe that people who are NOT celebrities that tweet actively, do it to reach a broader audience and engage in conversation with others in their vertical. This is in stark contrast to the network you would have in Facebook which is much more intimate.
Twitter is the internets water-cooler conversation.
Facebook is the conversation you have at home with your family and friends.
Moments fails because is misunderstands that Twitter is a real-time network and that its users see little value in curation. Curation is much more than just throwing a title onto some semi-random tweets and calling it a product. My two cents: http://newslines.org/blog/a-momentary-lapse-of-reason/
However, to say that Facebook is fearless about innovation is off base. They have bolted on so many parts to the core social network that it has become a Frankenstein's monster. Whatever new idea comes along every six months they bolt something new on, until the whole thing is just a big mess of competing ideas. What is needed is a rework of the social network at its core.
That's a great point. It's almost as if they're trying something new for the sake of trying something new rather than taking the risk to make the bold change where it could actually matter: their core product.
No Apple Watch sales numbers revealed. They obviously sold millions on launch but I believe they don't want to set expectations too high by revealing the number until they see next quarters results. Making the overhyped launch sales the de facto benchmark will hurt the stock in the future because it will be a tough number to top. The more likely scenario will be that they'll wait till the year is over and come out with an average sales number for the year.
Note that Apple isn't into surprises -- they announced in advance that they weren't going to break out Apple Watch sales. And they didn't. That was already priced into the stock.
Apple Watch is on a steeper trajectory than iPhone and iPad were.
>The Apple Watch has sold more units in the first nine weeks following its launch than either the iPhone or iPad did at the same point after their respective releases, Apple CFO Luca Maestri said on Tuesday. [1]
I believe thats mostly due to the combination of the hype surrounding the release of Apple's latest product line, and the fact that Apple has A LOT more potential customers paying attention to it than it did when it launched the iPad and definitely when it launched the iPhone.
Also Apple launched the iWatch in more countries than the iPhone and iPad, including China (their second biggest market). The iWatch demand and initial sales will be more front loaded than the iPhone and iPad
Also: the aWatch is cheaper than either the iPhone or the iPad was at launch (both cost $500 for the cheapest model, as opposed to $350 for the watch).
