Let My Tweeple Go
I learned a long time ago that when you make something “idiot-proof” the world just engineers a better idiot. I am fully aware that for every rocket scientist or AIDS researcher there are probably at least two morons car roof surfing their way into intensive care. But the web and Twitter are two of the easiest tools for the average human to figure out. So why does Twitter insist on trying to find new ways to protect us from ourselves?
I was all set to write the newest post about Twitter trending topics and how irrelevant they could become. Just yesterday David Turner created the tag #theBNParetwats. What started as a simple statement about politics in the UK became the number one trending topic. This amount of power, the ability for one person to make a statement and for that statement to become a tweet heard around the world is nothing short of awesome. Why Twitter, why would you want to stifle the power of human interconnection?
Robert Metcalfe is well known in technology circles. He was a researcher at Xerox PARC when he co-developed Ethernet in 1973. He was also the founder of 3Com. He formulated what is known as Metcalfe’s Law. Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a communications network is proportional to the square of the number of the connected users of the system. This dynamic is what has not only fueled the growth and popularity of Twitter but it is also what makes Twitter so powerful.
There have been a raft of seemingly minor changes that have been made to Twitter recently. They are minor if you are not really paying attention. These changes have been explained to the lowly twits as an enhancement implemented on our behalf, improvements for our benefit. I’ll channel Colonel Sherman Potter and heartily say “horse hockey.”
Recent changes including the following to followers ratio, eliminating auto-following and yesterday’s elimination of the @replies setting will kill the network and hurt Twitter in the long run.
The old way allowed a user to see replies to or from friends you do follow that were sent to or from someone you don’t follow. I follow people that say things that interest me for one reason or another. I assume they do the same. These so called “fragmented conversations” allowed me to find new people that had something to say that resonated with me for some reason.
On May 12 Twitter announced what they called a “Small Settings Update” where the fragmented conversations would no longer be visible. The Twitter blog pitched this as the elimination of an undesirable and confusing option. But this option was undesirable to whom exactly? Not to the twits of the world because this very issue touched off a firestorm of protest and #fixreplies turned #theBNParetwats into a mere blip on the public timeline.
Evan Williams responded the same night and the truth, however understated, was on the Twitter blog the next day.
“The engineering team reminded me that there were serious technical reasons why it had to go or be entirely rebuilt”
Thank you for the truth, albeit a tad late. But Evan, you wrote about this last year on your blog so even this minor admission seems a bit hollow.
This is a pattern of public relations ham-handedness, not an isolated instance. In November, Twitter announced limits on following to followers ratio and the number that can be followed in one day. The whitewash for this change was an effort to minimize spam. The announcement also said the following:
“If you follow too many people, there is no way you can keep up with everyone’s updates in your home page.”
The friendly folks at Twitter also were doing us a favor because they felt that keeping the numbers under control gave us an opportunity to really focus on quality, not quantity. Balderdash! Tools such as TweetDeck, not the home page, help us manage all the information just fine. But the most annoying part of this message is this sense that Crystal at Twitter is going to be the arbiter of how I want to use the tool. Crystal, I think we can handle it on our own.
If I don’t like one radio or TV station I can change the channel. If I think someone is a spammer I can choose not to follow them back, or block them as a last resort. Don’t automatically follow those that follow you. Oh yeah, that’s another capability that they are quietly killing off.
I may want to run around the house naked, with a rubber glove stretched over my head yelling “look at me, I’m a squid, I’m a squid.”* That is my prerogative, however lobotomized I might look. If I want to follow everyone that is following Ashton Kutcher, even though I could never keep up with all the tweets I should have that option. Oh, but it makes life difficult for Twitter.
Ask yourself the following question; when was the last time you saw the FailWhale? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You probably have not seen it since, oh, about the time that Twitter started slipping in these “little” changes. Could it be that Twitter’s resources could not keep up with the very capabilities that made Twitter…Twitter? But what we got was a song and dance about spam and the ability to keep up with all the information. Insulting.
Back in 1999 AOL tried to keep users of competing instant messenger platforms from communicating with AOL users via IM. What a colossal failure that was. When you silo users and their communication you create the reverse of Metcalfe’s Law and lower the value of your network. Twitter, do you want to be AOL? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Twitter, we love you for the most part. The reason that I tweet is because of the sheer interconnectedness of people and the free flow of thoughts and real time information. The possibilities are endless, unless you end them.
Here is a bit of free public relations advice. Don’t give us a whitewash. We might be Twits but we are not stupid. Tell us like it is. Tell us the real reason and we will respect you for the honesty. This will only bring us closer, not move us farther apart. But when you take something away that gives us value make it temporary. Also, tell us when it will be coming back. Listen to your customers and show, don’t tell, them that you are listening.
After the last twenty-four hours it is you guys with the rubber gloves on your heads screaming “I’m a squid.” Take the bullet, get past this, apologize and don’t do this sort of thing again. We can then collectively move on in a stronger relationship. Otherwise you might soon see #theBONEHEADSatTWITTERaretwats trending painfully high.
Update: Since the posting of this entry Twitter has released a plan to address the replies issue. Perhaps it does “bring back some serendipity and discovery” as stated in the announcement. We will have to wait to see if it is truly all that. The most important issue here underscores and reminds me what it is that I like so much about Twitter. Here is a tool with tens of millions of active worldwide users. A change was implemented and the users responded immediately. Twitter was able to see the response and take action based on feedback all in one day’s time. Even if the fix turns out to be merely a band-aid this is powerful stuff. Every company that wants to listen to customers should take this lesson to heart and immediately incorporate this practice into their business.
Updated Update: Everything the same is the same again. ReadWrite Web does a great job visually explaining how “fragmented conversations” worked before, during and after the change @ replies in this post. The net net from my standpoint is that Evan and Biz and the rest of the Twitzenjammer Kids are listening. The problem is the resulting action still does not appear to give back what everyone seems to want. There may be legitimate business or technological reasons for this. Twitter, you could end this whole ongoing lament if you would just give it to us straight if you can’t give us what we obviously want. Colonel, why did you order the Code Red? We can handle the truth.
*“Look at me, I’m a squid, I’m a squid!” A quote from Bamaland, a cartoon by Walt Guthrie that appeared in The Crimson White, the student newspaper at the University of Alabama when I was in school. Thanks Walt, I have used this quote many times over the last 20+ years.
i think they misunderstood the basic premise of “only 2-3% of Twitter users switch this option on”. Obviously, the people who engage with Twitter are the ones who do switch it on, and the lurkers who don’t say much tend to leave it off. I want that option back. I also want something you missed from your list of “things they’ve quietly removed” brought back – the Everyone Button used to be on the right of the front page. You could grab a little slice of Twitter with everyone talking, was quite fascinating.
Funny, I was just reading a feature in this month’s Wired magazine about how users own Twitter. When the developers change something, the users react as if their home was being invaded. I’m seeing the same behaviors here. In a situation where Twitter would be absolutely nothing without the dedication of its user base, the users wield a lot of power. As you said at the end, if the devs go too far, the users may turn their own tool against them.
Even my iron would find that ironic.
This post was written at the same time as the issue at the core of that Wired article. Of course they overlooked this little protest for the story.