Whether it’s due to constant stability issues/outages, or tweaking the site’s functionality, Twitter has constantly found a way to irritate it’s unusually loyal users. This week’s dustup over Twitter suddenly changing which replies you can see has me wondering, how much longer will Twitter’s loyal user base stick with the site?
I’ve blogged about this several times before, but one of the key elements of building a vibrant community is to JOIN that community. And by that I don’t mean that simply using Twitter, as @biz, @ev and @jack do. But I mean interacting with community members and LISTENING to them.
A year ago, we were wondering why Twitter was constantly having outages, without ever reaching out to its community to let us know when, what or why. Then this week, Twitter suddenly announces that it’s made a change in the tweets you get from people you are following. Previously, if you followed someone’s tweets, you saw ALL of their tweets.
But earlier this week, Twitter changed the settings so that if someone you were following left a reply to someone else that you are NOT following, then you didn’t see that tweet (from the person you WERE following). Of course, this move was immediately and overwhelming blasted by the Twitter community.
And Twitter heard the backlash, and updated their blog with a post Weds morning entitled ” Whoa, Feedback!,” where Biz implies that Twitter was apparently taken aback at the criticism that this move received.
To me, this is pretty scary. First, it’s scary that Twitter would make such a huge change in the site’s basic functionality without asking its users. And second, it’s scary that the reaction seemed to have surprised Twitter. This tells me that they are disconnected from the Twitter userbase, and what they really want from the site.
It’s tough to have a vibrant community when you keep them at an arm’s distance. My advice to Twitter today is the same as it was a year ago; don’t take your community for granted, or they might just stop being your community.
Unfortunately many Web 2.0 companies that have been successful BECAUSE of their communities tend to drink their own kool aid, thinking that they are popular because of their technology. What they don’t understand is that they are successful because of the EXPERIENCE of using the technology.
Twitter could transform their business by simply tapping into their already strong and vocal user base. It seems like common sense, but it is something that is obviously escaping the understanding of the Twitter founders.
Right on Mack.
Twitter has a helpdesk site, but I submitted a ticket over a week ago and have heard nothing.
I know several ppl who have sent messages @twitter which are never answered or responded to.
@ev does not know his application anymore. He is out of touch with Twitter’s users, how they use the product, and what they like/dislike.
Just like you, I was most taken aback by their utter ‘cluelessness’ of what ppl are doing.
Great insight, I agree!
I became worried after @Biz said on The View, “Twitter is not a social network, it is an information network.” It made me think that Twitter’s leaders and its users live on different planets.
It’s ironic that the cutting edge social medium doesn’t have much a relationship with its users. I also can’t help but think that the reason twitter has such bad customer service/customer knowledge is that they refuse to have customers. We are all just beta testers. I know it’s very old school to think that the exchange of money for service enforces quality and innovation, but in this case it seems true.
It’s ironic that the cutting edge social medium doesn’t have much a relationship with its users. I also can’t help but think that the reason twitter has such bad customer service/customer knowledge is that they refuse to have customers. We are all just beta testers. I know it’s very old school to think that the exchange of money for service enforces quality and innovation, but in this case it seems true.
It’s ironic that the cutting edge social medium doesn’t have much a relationship with its users. I also can’t help but think that the reason twitter has such bad customer service/customer knowledge is that they refuse to have customers. We are all just beta testers. I know it’s very old school to think that the exchange of money for service enforces quality and innovation, but in this case it seems true.
What’s to wonder here? They can’t satisfy everyone and it is impossible to make such a large community happy. They make mistakes as anyone else does.
Twitter will most probably be history in something arround 5 years. Perhaps it will even survive…
Well said.
I think that Twitter is quickly forgetting who brought them to the party. It is abandoning the people who mad it into what it is, in favor of the critical mass, mainstream people (jokingly called Oprah followers).
The changes they are making, if true what they say, are to provide stability to the platform. Stability is necessary for growth, and I am sure it is welcome. I know I get tired of the “is twitter out?” tweets.
The problem is that they are responding to the financial pressures of their funding partners to become a sellable entity (lots of clients), and losing the core users in the process. And they don’t seem to care.
I think that the management is quickly losing control of their vision and it is becoming another AOL very quickly. I hope not, but I cannot imagine how they move forward without alienating their core base in an effort to attract more users (if you want a more recent case, see what happened to MySpace).
At any rate, I think that the flaws in teh Twitter design will be “enhanced” by someone else in the not so distant future, and a new platform will emerge (friendfeed?) that will solve these issues, listen to their users, and become the next stepping stone.
Of course, I don’t expect to be using either of them in 5 years time, but they are good places to pick up lessons and move forward.
Such is the fate of the market, and the products in it.
Thanks for the comments, everyone. And to Esteban’s point, I have no doubt that this latest move with limiting replies that can be viewed is about increasing stability. But it’s the fact that they suddenly sprang such a huge change in functionality, without asking anyone beforehand, that has so many so upset, IMO. With as much VC money as Twitter has gotten over the last year alone, they could have easily hired just ONE person to be a Community Evangelist for the company, and the move would have repaid the company tenfold in an increase in positive perception, if nothing else.
Right now Twitter’s community feels totally ignored, and it’s been this way for a while. That’s the funny thing about a community, if you continue to ignore them, at some point they stop being your community. Don’t think every current and potential Twitter competitor isn’t watching this backlash, and taking detailed notes. At least the smart ones are.
What’s said of Twitter can also be said of Facebook. Same song, different verse.
Let me speak to the loyalty issue. Now that Twitter has moved well past the “early adopter” stage and into more of a mainstream userbase, I don’t expect you’ll see the same loyalty that folks like you and me have ascribed. What’s the latest numbers? Something like a 60% dropoff rate? (I didn’t check that figure before posting, so may be off. But, it’s sizable indeed.)
The tire kickers won’t hang around long when and if the failwhale shows up or Twitter keeps pulling stunts like this one.
As to the disconnect between founders Ev and Biz, I think they conceived Twitter to be one thing in its inception and it has become something else.
As to Liz’s point about planets. Yes, they do live on a different planet, one called Silicon Valley.
Paul I think the study saying Twitter has a high dropoff rate is claiming that many Twitter users stop using the site about a month after they signed up.
But I think the study made the incorrect conclusion that this meant users were leaving Twitter, when in fact many were leaving the WEB version of Twitter, for a client such as TweetDeck or Twhirl. If you believe that study, I left Twitter in the summer of 2007, when I started using Twhirl (and now TweetDeck).
I’m sure some people are signing up for Twitter to see what the ‘big deal’ is, then quickly leaving. But my guess is that percentage is a fraction of what the study claims.
What is there to worry about, sure there could be a dropoff rate, the thing here is the signup rate, people are still signing up at a fast pace.
If improvements continue, what’s to stop this from getting bigger than it already is?
I have to say I enjoy Facebook as I have been able to re-connect with old friends and actually follow what my younger sister is up to regularly. I do see the value of a business using Facebook as well.
However, I have to admit I do not get Twitter. I have followed people and so on but it got to be a bit tiresome. Maybe I need to delve in and really give Twitter a go.
In addition to Twitter outages, I’ve also had issues with using tiny.cc for URLs. The links I posted to Facebook and Twitter were timing out when people tried to visit the site. It’s one thing for me to connect 1on1 with family/friends, but “tweeting” for business will only remain viable if the provider (Twitter) is reliable. It’s sort of like an Internet connection. If you have spotty coverage, you switch providers. If people can’t communicate on Twitter due to its reliability issues, they’ll turn elsewhere and next year around this time, we’ll be talking about whatever new hottest microblogging service took Twitter’s place.
- Kathy Cabrera, Director of New Media, http://www.carabinerpr.com
Just because the tools are new, doesn’t mean that marketing principles have changed in the past hundred years…you still need to know your customer…staggering that they aren’t using their OWN platform to engage in on-going “free” consumer research!