Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company

Re:Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company by throwaw12ay on Tuesday December 20, 2016 @07:37PM (#13225770)

Twitter can make money, all it has to do is reduce its operational costs first. Then launch new products to grow. Twitter isn't going to become the new ad-sense or Facebook if it isn't a platform at first place. And you don't become a platform if your product isn't relevant to a lot of people.

People use Google for search. People use Facebook to connect with friends and family. Who needs a Twitter account aside from journalists and attention-seekers? my grand mother doesn't need a twitter account. Nobody cares about her cooking a chicken or planting cucumbers in the garden BUT her closest relatives. And there is already Facebook for that.

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Re:Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company by tw04 on Tuesday December 20, 2016 @08:35PM (#13226113)

What twitter SHOULD have done, and should probably re-consider, is leave the API open, but charge a fee to utilize it at scale. Let startups come up with creative new uses for your platform, and if they get traction - acquire them. You print money and find an easy target for growth.

Twitter's problem is their continued refusal to recognize themselves as a platform. It's probably too late at this point, but I don't think they have anything to lose.

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Re:Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company by mgkimsal on Tuesday December 20, 2016 @10:49PM (#13226661)

Similar to aws? micro-pricing, or some free level? paying, say, 1c per 100 tweets for my app(s) would probably be doable. Or perhaps giving more metrics for paid accounts, or prioritized delivery?

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Re:Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company by brentm on Wednesday December 21, 2016 @10:18AM (#13229741)

> Who needs a Twitter account aside from journalists and attention-seekers?

Twitter is what you curate it to be. To me, Twitter is kind of the publishing platform Linked In was trying to build. Smart people posting interesting links (to their posts or others) and people discussing.

However since Twitter is what you make Twitter to be, garbage in garbage out. I quit Twitter for about 2 years but then unfollowed every account and started fresh. Now I use it all the time, way more than Facebook, etc.

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Re:Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company by drdeadringer on Tuesday December 20, 2016 @10:09PM (#13226533)

I use Twitter as a sort of "Facebook writ small".

At the moment, and since just after I quit Facebook, Twitter has worked for me regarding how I communicate and consume over such "live feed" social media.

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Re:Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company by _audakel on Tuesday December 20, 2016 @08:06PM (#13225936)

i would totally pay a few dollars a month for an ad free experience on twitter

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Re:Twitter’s Chief Technology Officer to Leave Company by throwaway5752 on Tuesday December 20, 2016 @08:35PM (#13226111)

Honestly, I was going to say that didn't square with their valuation per user, but I hadn't realized that it was less than $50/active user now. At $3.95/mo it appears to make sense at their current valuation / profit margin (admittedly very back of envelope)

edit: before anyone notes it, I'm just thinking about offering it and the relative value of each on a per user basis vs ads. Yes, it would churn their userbase out of existence.

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