Hacker News Reader

Comment by staunch | Hacker News Reader

Twitter needs multi-level threaded discussions and "sub-tweets" that are more than 140 characters. Right now Twitter is an exercise in frustration. It takes so much work to understand other peoples' views that few bother, leading to endless misunderstandings and fights.

A miscommunication platform. #DescribeTwitterIn3Words

View on HN

That's part of the appeal. Twit something just before you go to bed, and find out that it got misheard and created a twitterstorm overnight and in the morning your boss says you are fired because someone figured out where you work and DDoSed your employer's network in retaliation.

Usually you have to juggle chainsaws for a similar rush.

The character limit is part of the usefulness in Twitter, for me - make your point. Be succinct.

This is why I hate people doing things like tweetstorms.

Character limit also means that the views that make good sound bites have a better chance of winning vs more nuanced views. Succinctness is good, but it isn't necessarily the same as 140 characters

Sometimes the character limit delivers on its promise. Other times, it's as useless as posting a 30 MPH (50 KPH) speed limit on a six-lane interstate highway.

I think that's the least of Twitter's product woes. They're struggling from user growth.

The value of twitter is directly correlated with the time and effort they put into curating their personal feed. Power users do that all day long; most new users don't, never see the value, and leave the service.

That's probably 99% of Twitter's problem right now. It's so hard to see the value in Twitter if you don't invest a lot of time and effort.

You do realize that the limited characters is perhaps the single most important feature in its success so far?

Sure, but also a relic of the time of its inception. The usefulness of the limit was technical and is now cultural.

People very often work around it by creating a string of tweets to build long(er) form posts. It's mostly arbitrary right now and people who wish to use the service for longer content have to do so in a stupid way.

It's not as though there's an actual limit, it's just an extra step to take if you wish to produce more verbose content.

It's the root of what identifies Twitter and there is value in consuming 140 char tweets. Twitter is not for everyone and shouldn't try to be. That will be its demise though as investors demand that it become more like Facebook and more power users leave the platform. Soon, only the bots and marketers will be posting regularly.

"Perhaps" and "so far" are sort of the keywords here.

It was probably a combination of things at the time, but the important question is now, nine years on, is there a better way for Twitter to use its position?

Innovator's dilemma.

I disagree. IMO, every feature addition Twitter has made in the few years have done nothing but muck up what was once a elegantly simple and beautiful thing. I think your suggestions are just more of the same.

I'm hesitant to agree with removing character limits, but when people are posting images as text you know you have a problem.

multi-level threaded discussions would ruin twitter.

you have reddit for that kind of discussions.

twitter is just really for 1:n-communication, to give your followers an update. don't try to change the way a social network works, just use another one which suits your needs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com