* Create a simple pub sub backend message system
* Limit it to 140 characters
* Allow everyone uninhibited API access to it
They've definitely done a great job at appealing to a certain demographic. However, twitter isn't about engagement. It's not about communication. It's about broadcasting 1->many. It's about producers and consumers. That's IMHO what limits its usefulness.
As a business decision, giving away access to 3rd party developers seems like favoring short term growth well above profit and the future. Most people don't use twitter.com which if I was an investor would be worrying.
Facebook OTOH is far more engaging and compelling in its usefulness. You can quickly paste URLs, images, vids, etc. It's more about communication.
I'm not sure being popular should be the aim of a startup. You can be wildly popular for a year or two, then go out of fashion. The people using Twitter aren't particularly known for their loyalty either.
However, twitter isn't about engagement. It's not about communication. It's about broadcasting 1->many
Why does "communication" only count on a 1 to 1 sense? Furthermore how can we possibly jump to the conclusion that just because it's about broadcasting 1 to many, that it is not about engagement? As a service I find it's engagement has a much longer-tail than that of facebook's. Once you've seen all the pictures, added all the obscure acquaintances, and checked all the relationship updates facebook becomes more of a weekly "check to keep up" service than one of daily engagement. Twitter on the other hand is constantly engaging because it's one and only service is to allow people to bring fresh content/media/insight to many people with one update. There's no dilution of which feature i'm going to use now, or which one i'm going to get good at.
As a business decision, giving away access to 3rd party developers seems like favoring short term growth well above profit and the future
Really? If you realized your main product was this successful communication protocol (pg's words, not mine) you would want to limit it's usage to just your own domain? Your value is in the protocol itself, not where it's being used. If I was an investor, worrying why people don't use twitter.com would fall somewhere between "did i leave the coffee maker on this morning?" and "where did i park my car?".
Can you name any open protocols that are profitable businesses? I don't think writers of the email RFC made all that much money out of the email spec :/
The 3rd party clients can all just get together and setup their own backend. Most people are using 3rd party clients anyway.
If a few influential people with tons of followers were using twitter client X, and that client decided to stop using the twitter backend, and instead use something else, you'd likely see a mass exodus (As long as the client was good enough and available on multiple platforms etc).
I guess my point is that the valuable bit, the bit people care about, is the client, and who they can access from it. The network, protocol, backend etc, meh.
I'm just saying that it's kind of strange seeing people say so-and-so is doing essential-thing to successful-product completely wrong.
I mean, maybe, just maybe, part of Twitter's success is due to it being so simple. Due to the 140 character limit, due to the lack of features like image uploading, etc. Maybe, just maybe, the ecosystem that has been built around Twitter — largely due to lack of features — actually plays in their favor?
I just don't see how you can be so sure that everything they're doing is wrong, and they're successful in spite of it, rather than successful because of exactly what they are doing.
Oh I absolutely agree. But I'm not sure that's sustainable. Where do twitter go next? They've effectively said "We're all about one thing, and no extra features." How can they move forward from that? Also as I've said before, fashions change. How soon until twitter is 'so totally last decade'.
Twitter aren't limited by your inability to imagine where they can go next. If anything, their limited feature set gives them more options on what to do next, rather than fewer.
My understanding is that their income is derived from a couple big partnerships. Their partners control their profitability. In a publicly traded company, this would be considered an unacceptable risk.
If they mitigate that risk, then I would agree that they succeeded. Until then, they are a high-risk venture with a shaky income stream.
Is a company that just perpetually gets more investment money 'profitable'? I guess in strict terms if you can convince people to give you money like that, then yes. But it can't go on forever.