Am I the only one who never really liked the whole concept of Twitter?
With this mix, my twitter feed varies greatly. Unrest in Ferguson? Breaking news from the ground. Microsoft Build conference? Latest in tech from Redmond. Eagles training camp? Live highlights from reporters I trust. It's really a wonderful thing.
You need to look deeper if you think it has nothing for you.
Surely the onus is on Twitter to make the information easy to locate? This is one of their key failings, if you have to wade through too much noise to find something of interest, then the app isn't good enough.
Facebook is pretty much engineered to give you what you like - the "news bubble". There's no "civil unrest" on Facebook, or is there any disagreements or arguments or storms - things you don't like just go away. There are upsides to this of course, there is better user engagement and there's no trolls. However compared to Twitter, Facebook is a Brave New World.
Twitter, once it clicks is an addicting source of news - and its so hard to get it to click, I only really started seriously using twitter when I had blocked Facebook, Reddit, HN, and other distractions in an attempt to stay focused on work - even still, I don't tweet.
My "twitterverse" is much more diverse than any other platform I visit - (my facebook feed is now nearly exclusively pictures 20-something yuppies on vacation or HN which might as well be heavily curated) and there are a lot more interests outside my own bubble that I can at least pretend to have insight to just be being exposed to it.
However without the curation nor the inherent network effects of Facebook I can see why Twitter can be hard to use - you really have to invest in the platform and it does take a while.
There is a perceived need in Western society to hear about events right now even if those initial reports turn out to be inaccurate or plain false. Not only does it seem pointless to spend time discussing such reports but often they are a distraction from things that are important.
If the event is significant, there will be in-depth analysis at the weekend and I'll learn about it then.
It also delivers little value to businesses who advertise on it because people tweeting have a very short attention span. The Twitter ecosystem is closed since they closed their API. It blows my mind that Tweets don't appear in Google searches.
It's almost as though the management team are going out of their way to stifle growth and innovation. The areas where Twitter could have been powerful and unique have not been maximised at all.
I don't need it.