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GeekNights Monday - Why Twitter Can't Monetize

MrPeriodMrPeriod
in GeekNights

Tonight on GeekNights, we consider why Twitter is so dead set on ruining itself to make money in all the wrong ways. In the news, Rym finally bought a phone (The z5c US Edition), and also an expensive knob. Scott is looking for a good solution to the pain of an aging shell. Facebook shuts down Parse. The dangers of IaaS. Machine learning is getting scarily powerful.

Rym was on an amazing horror panel hosted by Kris Straub at PAX South. The GeekNights Patreon is nearing its first goal!

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  • PeguPegu
    edited February 2016
    MrPeriod said:

    expensive knob

    *giggles*
    Post edited by Pegu on
  • Mycroft000Mycroft000
    Rym is right, Scott is wrong. Plus that shuttle has more used than just video, the lower model of that controller is what I use for my scroll control for Teleprompting on both my Mac and Windows prompting software.
  • ninjarabbininjarabbi
    edited February 2016
    Yeah Twitter is really fucking themselves if they go through with it. Especially if your tweets might be time-sensitive like if you care about live tweeting or if you have a large following and want to go "Hey I'm in blah blah blah right now, who wants to have a quick meetup at blah?" Now those won't affect me but I'd at least like to know I'll get everything if I keep scrolling. If they want to add another feed like "moments" then fine but leave the reverse chronological feed as is. And not a bullshit way like Facebook that defaults to "top stories" and even the "most recent" feed is algorithmic and filled with other garbage.
    Post edited by ninjarabbi on
  • PeguPegu
    Pegu said:

    MrPeriod said:

    expensive knob

    *giggles*
    Actually listened to the episode now. This is some Grade A "Rym and Scott are gay."
  • RymRym
    Twitter has a new feature coming where advertisers can force their brand bullshit to the top of your timeline.

    https://blog.twitter.com/2016/introducing-first-view
  • MATATATMATATAT
    I haven't listened to the episode yet but the whole Twitter making money thing always seemed like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.
  • ColdguyColdguy
    edited February 2016
    Dividends, there is your answer.

    As for Rym's marketing message here is a song that summizes it.

    Post edited by Coldguy on
  • Victor FrostVictor Frost
    edited February 2016
    Rym (on the show) said:

    Lead-acid batteries don't lose their life ever.

    As a guy who has strapped several lead acid batteries to his bike to run a stereo, take it from me: even if you recharge them every time you use them, lead acid batteries absolutely DO wear out, especially if you deep cycle them, but even if you don't.

    And car batteries only last about 4-6 years because they're really only used to get the engine started, at which point the alternator takes over the electricity requirements for the car and, simultaneously, brings the battery back up to nominal charge (roughly 12-14V).
    That's why, when you have cars modded with massive stereo systems or trucks with lots of lights, they take out the air conditioner compressor and put another alternator in its place.

    It's also why, when your alternator dies, your battery light comes on. It's telling you that the voltage is starting to drop.

    In a use case where the battery is regularly cycled, Li-on or Li-Po batteries can go through a TON more cycles than lead acid (Gel or AGM). Why do you think Tesla is making lithium based home power cells as opposed to lead acid ones? Also, lead acid batteries have a self discharge rate that is several times higher than lithium batteries (hence the need for long term garaged cars to use battery tenders).
    Post edited by Victor Frost on
  • ninjarabbininjarabbi
    Yeah I had the same thought but I'm no expert so I wasn't sure. One interesting thing to me at least is that the Tesla cars actually run on a shitload of 18650 cells. I have flashlights that run on those, and they're often what make up laptop battery packs. I would have though that a Tesla battery would just be several huge cells instead.
  • Victor FrostVictor Frost
    edited February 2016
    ninjarabbi said:

    Yeah I had the same thought but I'm no expert so I wasn't sure. One interesting thing to me at least is that the Tesla cars actually run on a shitload of 18650 cells. I have flashlights that run on those, and they're often what make up laptop battery packs. I would have though that a Tesla battery would just be several huge cells instead.

    Why make your own battery when you can just ones that are already being mass-produced by the billions? A good cost saving technique. Besides, when batteries are discharged or charged they generate heat which has to be managed with a cooling system. Cooling three big things is a lot harder than cooling a thousand little things amounting to the same size.
    Post edited by Victor Frost on
  • NeitoNeito
    Butt malware... *shudder*
  • PeguPegu
    Neito said:

    Butt malware... *shudder*

    It's called chinese food.
  • sK0pesK0pe
    Pegu said:

    Neito said:

    Butt malware... *shudder*

    It's called chinese food.
    No way it's clearly Chipotle.
  • GreatTeacherMacRossGreatTeacherMacRoss
    I'd love to see a report of the numbers of people who use social media like Twitter and Facebook versus the amount of money spent attempting to advertise to said people by injecting ads into feeds/fake postings, and how much of that is turned into actual money for the company advertising.

    I'm willing to bet the number is unprofitable.
  • RymRym
    Twitter's stock is down, they're laying people off, and I notice in the last several weeks that they appear to have nearly doubled their ad push inventory.

    Bad times ahead.
  • AprecheApreche
    Rym said:

    Twitter's stock is down, they're laying people off, and I notice in the last several weeks that they appear to have nearly doubled their ad push inventory.

    Bad times ahead.

    Let's make a Twitter clone that solves the troll problem.
  • NaozaNaoza
    Apreche said:

    Rym said:

    Twitter's stock is down, they're laying people off, and I notice in the last several weeks that they appear to have nearly doubled their ad push inventory.

    Bad times ahead.

    Let's make a Twitter clone that solves the troll problem.
    I propose a solution where Scott either personally verifies you're not a troll or hires and fires the people who check.
  • AprecheApreche
    edited October 2016
    Naoza said:

    Apreche said:

    Rym said:

    Twitter's stock is down, they're laying people off, and I notice in the last several weeks that they appear to have nearly doubled their ad push inventory.

    Bad times ahead.

    Let's make a Twitter clone that solves the troll problem.
    I propose a solution where Scott either personally verifies you're not a troll or hires and fires the people who check.
    Not a bad idea, but it's too time consuming. I got better plans. Let me know if you have any.

    Realistically, I think we can just look at all the feature requests and complains from people who are actually being harassed on Twitter. If we implement even half of those, we should be good.

    Also, we'll probably just charge money for accounts and such. No advertisers. We will serve the users, not corporations.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • AndrewAndrew
    I'll need to find another news aggregator when Twitter fails.
  • CremlianCremlian
    Fark.com :-p

    (also for social media just use the facebook :-p)
  • NaozaNaoza
    Andrew said:

    I'll need to find another news aggregator when Twitter fails.

    I've had good luck with doubling down on rss using inoreader
  • NaozaNaoza
    Apreche said:

    Naoza said:

    Apreche said:

    Rym said:

    Twitter's stock is down, they're laying people off, and I notice in the last several weeks that they appear to have nearly doubled their ad push inventory.

    Bad times ahead.

    Let's make a Twitter clone that solves the troll problem.
    I propose a solution where Scott either personally verifies you're not a troll or hires and fires the people who check.
    Also, we'll probably just charge money for accounts and such. No advertisers. We will serve the users, not corporations.
    Seems like a good way to have twitter be nothing by PR/Community managers. And even still you're left with the same problem still gotta get eyeballs on each paying customer for trollness.
  • SuperPichuSuperPichu
    Charging for accounts may help to quell the troll problem a bit as well, less repeat offenders. If you might get banned are you going to risk your account.
  • AndrewAndrew
    Cremlian said:

    Fark.com :-p

    (also for social media just use the facebook :-p)

    Twitter is uniquely designed for rapid dissemination of primary source journalism and news reports. Requires a heavy amount of personal editing and verification but nothing comes close to that type of news feed.
  • RymRym
    Commercial brands and corporations have to pay a lot to have accounts. They can tweet/interact, but they can't buy ads. All accounts that aren't subject to these fees must be people, jokes/parodies, noncommercial entities, or exceptions personally granted by the board.
  • SuperPichuSuperPichu
    Rym said:

    Commercial brands and corporations have to pay a lot to have accounts. They can tweet/interact, but they can't buy ads. All accounts that aren't subject to these fees must be people, jokes/parodies, noncommercial entities, or exceptions personally granted by the board.

    That doesn't seem like it would scale very well.
  • RymRym
    That scales pretty easily. I bet users would be more than happy to report any brand that didn't have the "verified brand account" on it. If no one noticed, then it's completely useless to the "brand" and thus I don't care.

    Most companies would probably want to pay to get the "official" badge. If a real major company wasn't paying and got caught, we'd exort backfrees from them if they wanted to go straight, or else they'd lose their account, their followers, and be banned. Enough profit incentive to have a small team managing it full time.
  • AprecheApreche
    Ideas:

    Don't let any corporation make an account. Only actual individual human beings. Verify their identities when you create their account. Obviously still let people be anonymous to the rest of the world, just not to us. Deny accounts to known bad actors.

    Require 2FA for all accounts to prevent abuse, account sharing, account theft/loss.

    Levy real money fines against people who are bad. Send collection agents for real if they don't pay.

    You will not be notified of @mentions from accounts that are really new. Accounts will need to earn some good standing before their mentions are actually sent to real people and make their phones go *ding*.

    Users can block other users for real. If you block someone, they are blocked for real. They can't see your shit, and you can't see them ever.

    Individual posts can be set to public or followers only No longer have to choose between your entire account being locked or not.

    Better support for when an actual conversation starts happening.
  • RymRym
    I would let corps have them (see how many do customer support via twitter), but they gotta pay.
  • AprecheApreche
    Rym said:

    I would let corps have them (see how many do customer support via twitter), but they gotta pay.

    Maybe give them a different kind of account.

    I'm worried about charging them money. If corporations give you money, they are now customers. If they are customers, they make demands and you have to service them. I want to service real humans only and show corporations my New York fingers. If we serve corporations, we're just Twitter.

    Like a political campaign, we will only serve the people if most of our money comes from the people.
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