I thought of @Arif's point when I read this quote:

"The idea that Twitter is a behemoth that can’t be overtaken is shortsighted. They shouldn’t be afraid of upstarts, but not because upstarts aren’t threatening. The reason they shouldn’t be afraid is that they should already be pushing toward what’s next. They should have a vision for what the future of communicating and sharing looks like, and be building it. But from the looks of it, they aren’t. They’re just trying to protect what they’ve already built. That’s always a losing position… Always. ALWAYS."

- Chuck Skoda, on Twitter's future

Twitter has fallen short of it's promise in many ways and has, for some, turned into an RSS feed of their interest without conversation.

Is Twitter fixable?

Will Branch, Medium and others fill the gap and spark conversation from the foundation Twitter and Facebook created?

"They’re just trying to protect what they’ve already built."

This is a great summary sentence which applies to pretty much everything that has once been invented, was revolutionary, but over time, became standard....

This actually reminded me of Wordpress and Blogspot. I've been a critic of both suggesting that their innovation has stopped for a long time, irrespective of what you see them develop and innovate. Both of them were revolutionary when they arrived, but overtime, they've been .... trying to protect what they've already built.

However, we should also discuss the context of the type of category of products which are different in their nature. For example, there are examples of products/websites which people build for one specific purpose, but the public receives them and uses them for totally different purpose. Wordpress and Blogspot had one specific purpose and they served their purpose when it was launched and introduced. Public received blogging as such and we joined the band wagon staying true to the purpose.

Twitter on the other hand was type of product which has been adopted and used differently by the public. If I recall correctly, its initial purpose was to tweet hello and notify "what you're doing".

Overtime, as I mentioned above, Twitter has become an advertising, celebrating-following, news-following, short and un-substantive conversation and all sorts of other purposes.

Such type of adoption is actually good as well as bad for any product. Good because the owners and the community can feel proud that the invention is being used by everyone as they see fit, and bad because it seems aimless.

Is it possible to pivot the purpose? Should they even try? Or could they incubate spinoff and/or add-on products?

In the case of Twitter, there are visible signs of them pivoting the purpose. They've attempted to make Twitter a media company.

In the case of Wordpress, particularly after Tumblr, they did attempt to pivot (not necessarily the core directly, but their hosted wordpress.com for sure) towards the social-adoption. I have this post which shows "why" Wordpress may be attempting to pivot towards the social-web.

webwanderings.wordpress.com

Above blog post is actually a culmination of what initially started as a discussion on a strategy change at Wordpress.com which was leading the blogging towards social-networking world (I was very much against that idea and I have several blog posts on it).

However, my ultimate point is that the example of wordpress shows a struggle for survival, where as the example of Twitter shows a strategic guiding towards a future. This may or may not be an accurate analysis but that's how I see it.

In other words — Twitter's discussion, and focus, on becoming a media company/media platform puts them in a better place in your view?

Imho, the number one thing missing from twitter and most social networks is automatic feedback and acknowledgement from readers: when we tell a story at, say, a party, we know who we told it to. We remember what information or views we've expressed and to whom. Our brains are ingeniously attuned to this: remembering who we've interacted with, and whether those interactions and utterances were productive or not.

That's a powerful, almost unconscious guide. And it's almost completely missing from most social networks: the only time we know if someone heard something is if they directly respond. But that's a vanishingly small subsection/sample of total readers.

The result of this is a focus on broadcasting, marketing, rather than interaction. That makes our conversations disjointed and confusing: everyone is lacking critical context on the many different threads and angles feeding into any one tweet.

Blogs and websites at least had this basic mechanism reflected in analytics. Even though we may not have known every person who read something, we at least had a sense of how many people did: giving us. But so far, the only attempt to correct this has been in the recent update to FB groups, which records/reports every potential view. It's at once creepy and at the same time: promising.

Drew - thank you for your thoughts! This is something I brought up in another Branch (branch.com) related to one way that Josh and company could build this platform. They ought to find a way to showcase conversations, connect random individuals and/or experts to Branches, show read counts and provide other rewards to drive participation.

I agree that Twitter is the one platform where you can feel the least reward which likely drives engagement frankly.

Twitter launched this Certified Product Program.

t.co

So this is a clear signal of what Twitter exactly is. It is a business in the first place.

The question I have to ask, as a content creator at this business (when I Tweet), what exactly do I get in return when I do business with Twitter?

The obvious answer is that if I Tweet, I am sharing something from which I expect a valuable return in self-favor.

This is fine and dandy if I am a marketer/business myself and have something to sell (we'd be in good business together).

But is Twitter of any value to me if I'm not a business myself and am only there to have authentic social-conversation?

It seems that if I use Twitter to only have authentic social-conversations, than I become a product of Twitter which they willingly sell to their business partners. They both get something in return as value (off of my willing use of their business platform). But what do I get in return? Certainly I am using their business platform for free and I'm being fed Advertisements. But what is it that I get in return myself?

The answer lies in human psychology.

The value is that your friends and contacts are on Twitter, right?

Well, given the boundary-less framework of Twitter, the whole world on it is supposedly my friend and contacts. So in terms of social-conversation, I don't really communicate with one or two or any group of people directly.

Do you not gain value from the responses and engagement from your followers?

I've seen a disparity in usage where people use it as a publishing platform but then many younger individuals use it as a way to mass text and/or "free" text.

In answer to your main question, probably. The value that you write about depends on the context of the 'social' stream, i.e. whether it is a brand updating its audience with marketing links, interacting with questions or a combination of both. The return from content creation is minimal, especially if Twitter makes no money from it, and as for the tweens, they probably couldn't care less either way. As a communication platform, it works as well as somebody wants it to. As a fairly late adopter, the 'word-of-mouth' type of value isn't all that apparent. Not everyone is convinced.

Try:

blogs.hbr.org

or enter twitter in the hbr.org search box for other perspectives.

ATB

One of the challenges is making it easier to find your friends, make connections and send people your way. It doesn't feel like Twitter has figured that out which leads to more people consuming v creating — which is, perhaps, not a bad thing.