It’s not as if there’s some other mysterious force that maintains Twitter’s API platform, and now poor ol’ Twitter is forced to shut down old technology because there’s simply no other recourse. No.
Twitter, in fact, is the one responsible for its User Streams and Site Streams APIs – the APIs that serve the core functions of these now deprecated third-party Twitter clients. Twitter is the reason these APIs have been stuck in a beta state for nearly a decade. Twitter is the one that decided not to invest in supporting those legacy APIs, or shift them over to its new API platform.
Ugh, Twitter. They don’t like their users. They don’t like the developers that helped make the platform successful. I don’t think they really like themselves. If there is a bad decision that can be made, Twitter will find a way to do it—they’ve proven that over and over again.
twitter is lame. i only use it because Daring Fireball wants to outsource his website’s comments. otherwise whats the point…a place for celebrities to broadcast to their followers. i have no need for that. if it went away tomorrow i wouldnt care.
I’ve been living (well) without it for years. I don’t miss it a bit.
Twitter started out as something useful. Long before most celebrities got onboard, it was a great place for discussion and sharing. Not anymore, though.
Twitter is what *you* make of it. The way it’s set up is that if you find it “lame” it means you’re following the wrong people. If you think it’s a place “for celebrities to broadcast to their followers”, then don’t follow celebrities. I don’t. I find Twitter very “unlame”. YMMV
I don’t follow celebrities and I find it a great place for discussion and sharing because I carefully curate who I follow. Twitter is what you make it.
“I note Jim still uses it a lot.” LOL Actually, no he doesn’t. The last time Jim posted something that *wasn’t* a RT of The Loop Twitter feed was August 14th. Before that, it was August 11th. Hardly a frequent user of Twitter. 🙂
My only use for twitter these days is a RT of a blog post for the few people who care about that.
I find it less useful, and more anger-inducing, as the years go by. At some point, I’ll have forgotten that I was even there…
I don’t dispute that there are good communities on Twitter, and, if you’re disciplined and targeted, it can be a good medium for exchange. But the noise level is so high that it makes my head hurt.
Then follow different people. Who you see in your timeline is everyone you follow (and people they retweet) so it’s kind of silly to complain about the noise when you inflict it on yourself by choosing who you follow.
Your complaint is like wandering into a bar filled with people you don’t like and who aren’t interested in what you’re into, then complaining that no one there is your kind of person and their conversation is boring.
Also, go to Settings, Notifications and tune your settings.
First, it’s Steven. I wouldn’t point this out, but you accused me of being lazy, so a spelling error is fair game. 🙂
But seriously…
Honestly, my problem isn’t so much who I follow as people I don’t follow who @ me. That said, I could probably go on an unfollow spree and be happier.
Twitter never knew what made their product successful. Literally—all of the features of Twitter organically came out of what power users did. Meanwhile, Twitter wanted to become Facebook, because Facebook was successful. Ergo the algorithmic feed, and the deprecation of clients that won’t support it.
That said, there is a solution: people stop using Twitter. I’ve reduced my use by about 90%. I note Jim still uses it a lot. If you’re upset as to what Twitter is doing, why continue using it?
I assume the answer is “no better alternative,” but then, that means you’ll continue being stuck with what Twitter does…
Twitter is still useful, You and Stephen are just being lazy. For example, there are a bunch of scientists on there, some of whom are really good at pointing to interesting things for those of us who like science. Same for a lot of specialties.
That you don’t use the site that way doesn’t mean those uses don’t exist.
Then follow different people. Who you see in your timeline is everyone you follow (and people they retweet). Your complaint is like wandering into a bar filled with people you don’t like and who aren’t interested in what you’re into, then complaining that no one there is your kind of person and their conversation is boring.
Also, go here on your profile and turn on some of the options https://twitter.com/settings/notifications_timeline
Twitter is a carbuncle.
#deleteTwitter.
Twitter is not what you make it its algorithms News feeds and other clutter make your rating it more trouble than it’s worth. And there are other better ways to form an discussion. #deleteTwitter
Except Twitter is doing all it can to force you to rely in its algorithm and prevent self-curating.
He also tweeted 3 replies in the last 24 hours.
That’s still an order of magnitude more than me. I post once every few months at most, and read Twitter about once a week.
Well, if you use a third-party client, you don’t get the algorithmic feed. So, it is possible to carefully curate an experience.
But Twitter doesn’t want you to do that anymore. 🙂
I see no “algorithms News feeds and other clutter” in my Twitter feed.
I hate it when I do that… 🙂
See the notifications settings I listed above. Might help.
Yeah, which is why I use Tweetbot and why this API change is so annoying
Tweetbot absolutely defines Twitter for me, so all this makes me sad. It’s far superior to any Twitter client (native, web, mobile, etc).
What I don’t get out of all this is “What is the value for the end user?”. I get the value for Twitter, but what is value for me? Why do I want this?
Twitter could have been the world wide hub for events and data. News, conferences, social, commerce…you name it. A global event architecture (pub, sub, view, analyze, visualize, etc) would be worth hundreds of billions. You could commoditize an open API based platform in multiple ways. Instead they are trying lock users into a lowest common denominator user experience ad platform in return for the deep and insightful thoughts of Trump and the Kardashians.
BURNNNNNN! And rightly so.
I think I’ll post this… on Twitter.