Twitter Has Become Secret-handshake Software

Hardly per day has gone by recently when people thinking about tech haven't found another alarming headline about Twitting. Departures of major professionals. Worries about growth inside users. Questions about how it could possibly bring in more income. Plunging confidence in the company on Wall Street. Predictions of its very doom.

Twitter Has Become Secret-handshake Software

To potential new consumers, it's a real challenge to learn all of Twitter's generally arcane little features. And even for individuals that have been using the actual service multiple times daily for some time, like me, it could be tricky to decide when to use which feature and during which situation. For instance, new users could possibly be confused about what a new retweet is, or the difference between that and a "quote tweet" (where anyone say more about some thing you're reposting). And they surely might not understand the need to place a period before the handle of a consumer, when that handle is at the very start of the tweet you compose, yet not elsewhere inside tweet.

But, yesterday, I found a friendly but dogged argument among several very encountered, heavy Twitter users about when it's appropriate to use offer tweets and periods.

And there are numerous more examples. Try to explain to a mainstream consumer, even someone who's decent at having an iPhone or Facebook, what counts inside famed 140-character limit inside a tweet, or the difference between "blocking" or "muting" a good unwanted follower, or whether "liking" a new tweet means you believe it or not.

In terms of Twitter's version of individual chatting, Direct Messages? It feels like a forgotten stepchild.

Fundamentally, Twitter has become precisely what I call "secret-handshake software" — some thing that's so complicated which, as in a magic formula society, only insiders realize the rituals that discover its power.

That should stop. New Twitter CEO (and co-founder) Jack Dorsey has to tear out many this stuff by the actual roots and rebuild the service inside a clearer, more accessible variety. The trick will be to discover a way to do this that's both inviting for new users whilst still being attractive to Twitter fans.

Dorsey has said publicly that she wants to make Twitting "far more approachable than many experts have in the past. " And, he has mentioned, "What should you be expecting from Twitter? You should expect Twitter being as easy as looking your window to see what's happening. "

Twitter Has Become Secret-handshake Software

But he's got to walk the speak. One way to do that you will find to either build much better apps for accessing Twitting, especially on mobile, or to allow third-party developers, who were restricted lots of years ago, back into the actual tent as full, innovative citizens. Personally, I'd want to see more and more rapidly iteration on TweetDeck, the powerful desktop request owned by Twitter that allows you to quickly follow multiple individuals and streams. It gets updated very slowly possesses no real equivalent upon mobile, even on drugs or phablets.

As another example of his wide open mind, Dorsey has said he's considering allowing tweets of up to 10, 000 characters. Maybe that you will find a good thing for users (as opposed to his business model). Maybe not.

But complexity isn't the only problem Twitter has. While its attraction is the smart, funny, short feedback people you follow produce, you may never see them. Why? Because members' news feeds update very quickly, and in a rigid, reverse chronological order. Unless you are staring at Twitter throughout the day, you'll miss huge amounts of tweets, including some you may consider gems that are not retweeted enough to appear all the time.

Example: earlier this week, when I looked at my Twitter account for the first time in the morning, the idea said my feed received 2, 992 new tweets because night before. (I follow about 700 people, which may be higher than a great deal of users. ) Like each day, I had no the perfect time to scan all that I would missed, even though, like each day, I checked into Twitting on various devices no less than a dozen times. The service has tried to ease this with a feature called "While you were away, " which resurfaces a small number of tweets that Twitter's algorithm thinks you want to see based on your own past behavior. But it's not enough.