Comments on: Why people are leaving Twitter

By: Duchess O'Blunt

Duchess O'Blunt — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:35:14 +0000

As a relatively new “Tweeter” (is that a word) I can say that Twitter can make a person feel stupid. When you are a beginner, who knows what “DM me” means?

I still find it impossible to think in 140 characters, and have a difficult time spelling words incorrectly on purpose.

I will be checking out some of these tools you speak of. I’m not giving up just yet. I’m a hip old lady and I’ll get it sooner or later (If I don’t expire first)

By: Tom Humbarger

Tom Humbarger — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:03:24 +0000

I think the UI could be part of the reason, but the larger reason is that it takes more than a month for people to really get it.

New Twitterers have to build up a group of followers (minimum of 100), get used to sharing thoughts, ideas and links (minimum of 50-75 tweets) and discover the value of Twitter search.

Is Twitter doing anything to reach out to people who have not Twittered recently? They could help by reminding people via an email blast to check it out, suggest people to follow and provide tips for getting value. But that’s just me wearing my community manager hat…

Tom

By: marc meyer

marc meyer — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:29:16 +0000

@Robert, what we really need to see is how scalable they can be. because right now they are really struggling with it. I would suspect though that the biggest struggle will be whether to keep it or sell it..

By: Robert Spears

Robert Spears — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:52:07 +0000

I agree with all of the comments. In addition, Twitter – the company and its community – has done a poor job communicating what it’s really about. “Microblogging” and “What are you doing right now?” were a big turn off for the longest time for me. And then I would hear sincere, qualified advocates stumble over their words trying to explain why outsiders should care. I am most impressed with their real-time search capabilities and hope they keep up with the tools race to help manage the mass of messages.

By: marc meyer

marc meyer — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:08:26 +0000

@Derek I can only believe that they have bigger fish to fry
@Ari agree with you.

By: Dennis McDonald

Dennis McDonald — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:58:06 +0000

I think you’re right. They’re obviously doing a lot of things wrong. That’s why the number of users isn’t really growing.

By: Ari Herzog

Ari Herzog — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 07:20:15 +0000

Check out some of Twitter’s developers. Look at their tweets. In some cases, nine out of ten times, they tweet what they’re doing.

Your argument holds weight–but not necessarily with those who hold the weights.

By: Derek Peplau

Derek Peplau — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:13:31 +0000

I’ve thought this for quite some time; they’re not doing themselves any favors with these designs. It’s almost as if it’s being done intentionally to make you work for it, or to keep up some sort of lo-tech street cred. Note that Google’s homepage is equally simplistic and always has been. The difference there is that most people who visit Google have at least one of their products/services clearly in mind (search) when they go there. Twitter is not something the uninitiated user is going to “get” without either someone to help them or a considerable amount of effort.

By: amanda

amanda — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:54:25 +0000

People have a huge fear of feeling stupid. Navigating your way through something so riddled with seemingly exclusionary code words and fragmented conversation threads can have a strong, “I am going to feel stupid” effect for first-timers. That said, the doubting thomases from our office have gotten hooked, though in their own way, tweeting a couple of times a day and following a manageable number of people.

I still like it and use it, but I have lately been culling my follow list in an effort to boost value of experience.

Great call for improvement, though I suspect they have a pretty long list as it is.

By: aggie

aggie — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:39:35 +0000

Could it also be that people don’t want to come back to having more spam then myspace produced? The next twitter will be more like what facebook did to myspace