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Part 4 – A Little Birdy Told Me Twitter Is Lost

Ariel Aarenau
Dec 15, 2022 (published February 16, 2023) · 5 min read
I write this post amidst ongoing chaos at Twitter HQ (Conger et al., 2022). It is November 21, 2022, and a few dozen more Twitter employees have flown away from the nest (Mac et al., 2022). Elon Musk is the company’s “Chief Twit” (Kehnscherper, 2022), and his latest decision to reinstate former President Trump’s Twitter account has the world chirping (Jurecic, 2022). Since Musk’s ownership, Twitter has shed 60% of its employees between layoffs and attrition (Newton & Schiffer, 2022), cut 80% of its contractors (Capoot & Kolodny, 2022), and experienced a humiliating Twitter Blue product reconfiguration. The app has had a tumultuous few weeks since Musk closed his acquisition of Twitter on October 27, 2022.
While it has not been smooth sailing under Musk’s leadership, his ownership has put Twitter users through a stress test that has brought an interesting outcome. Many users feel the end is near for the social media platform, and naturally have taken to the app to express their admiration for the service, reminisce about the good old days, and mourn its possible loss (Romano, 2022). It seems as though this crisis brought on by Musk’s turbulent ownership has left users recalling why they joined the app in the first place.

The last few years have been particularly challenging for the company and its users as Twitter faced issues with content moderation such as being charged with amplifying hate speech (O’Neil, 2021). There have also been numerous reports of bots plaguing the platform’s userbase with spam (Frenkel, 2022). As well, there have been several product launches, reliably half-baked and largely disconnected from the platform’s roots. A great example is Fleets, which – ironically in line with its purpose – became ephemeral, with Twitter discontinuing the feature after less than a year (Collins, 2021).

As of late, Twitter has been in a sensitive, temperamental, and vulnerable state. Over the last few years, everyone – ranging from your average user to thought leaders like NYU Stern School of Business professor Scott Galloway and podcaster Kara Swisher – has put a spotlight on Twitter’s underperformance (Galloway & Swisher, 2020). Galloway, in particular, has been critical of Dorsey’s tenure as CEO and the need for change; he even showed willingness to earn a seat on the company’s board through an activist investment movement in 2019 (Galloway, 2022). Finally, consensus boiled over into change: Jack Dorsey, the company’s founder, announced his departure in 2021 and the appointment of Parag Agarwal as CEO (BBC, 2021). Agarwal’s tenure was largely overshadowed by Musk who announced his initial interest in buying the platform just five months after assuming the role (Nieva, 2022).

Dorsey founded the company in 2006 after a “daylong brainstorming session” when he was an employee at Odeo (Slattery, 2011). Dorsey’s initial idea for Twitter was using SMS to communicate with a group and update them on your status (hence the 140-character limit). Twitter has of course evolved since then, with its largest change taking place in 2018 when it upped the character limit to 280 (Meyer, 2019). However, its other evolutions have been infrequent and mostly unremarkable (Conger, 2021). This is largely because they have been unrelated to the platform’s roots.

The success of Twitter can be attributed to three elements: the constraints of a character limit, its emphasis on text-based communication leading to friction-free storytelling, and its focus on the interest graph.

1) As I have noted in previous posts, constraints drive creativity and are often the social media platform’s core differentiator.

2) Twitter’s roots in text-based communication afford users a form of friction-free storytelling that is otherwise hard to find (Gerwitz, 2022). Posting on Twitter is effortless. When benchmarking it against the market of successful social media companies, Twitter requires the least amount of effort. There is no pressure to post the perfect image like with Instagram nor is there a need to film/be featured in a video like with TikTok. The character limit relieves the stressors of grammar, punctuation, and prose often found in longer writing. This ease of use is one reason why public figures ranging from athletes to politicians have taken a liking to the platform, providing straight from the source communications otherwise curated by their media team on other social media platforms.

3) Finally, while Facebook and Instagram have a social graph component, Twitter has an interest graph. An interest graph is an “online representation of the various interests of different individuals,” which, in the case of Twitter, can be easily connected with in the form of interacting and/or following (Nakayashiki, 2022). Twitter’s interest graph gives users a place “to connect with the passions and pursuits that they find meaningful” (Twitter Business, n.d.).

Even though Twitter has made numerous mistakes along the way, such as failing to bring innovations that leverage their beloved features (instead opting to launch unoriginal, unrelated, and poorly designed features), the platform’s roots and core feature remain something special. Many high-profile users like Galloway and Swisher have noted this over the years, with Mr. Musk being the latest and most action oriented user. Musk has the opportunity to restore and refocus Twitter on what made it special to begin with. He has the opportunity to bring new features that leverage its unique storytelling affordances. Musk was smart enough to realize Twitter’s potential. The jury is still out though on whether he has identified the something that makes it special, whether he has the management skills required to pull it out of years of nothingness, or whether he will foolishly strive to make it everything. Based on Musk’s most recent Tweet “Twitter 2.0: The Everything Platform,” it appears the bird has already left the nest (Thomson Reuters, 2022).

Ariel Aarenau is in his final year of the Bachelor of Media Production and Design program at Carleton University where he is also minoring in Business. The fusion of digital media, design thinking, and innovative business technologies combines both his strengths and passions. He currently works at Deloitte as a Business Analyst focusing on digital strategy, innovation, and transformation advisory projects. Prior to joining Deloitte, Ariel held roles in Multimedia Services at the House of Commons of Canada, Marketing and Business Development for Deloitte Israel, and the Digitally Assisted Storytelling division of Carleton Immersive Media Studio.

References

BBC. (2021, November 30). Parag Agrawal: India celebrates new Twitter CEO. BBC News. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-59472676

Capoot, A., & Kolodny, L. (2022, November 13). Twitter cuts a large number of contract workers without giving internal teams a heads up. CNBC. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/13/twitter-suddenly-cuts-large-number-of-contract-workers.html

Collins, T. (2021, August 3). We hardly knew you: Twitter’s disappearing tweets feature fleets is gone for good. USA Today. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/07/14/twitter-fleets-ending-snapchat-rival/7964177002/

Conger, K. (2021, February 25). Twitter shakes off the cobwebs with new product plans. The New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/technology/twitter-product-plans.html

Conger, K., Isaac, M., Mac, R., & Hsu, T. (2022, November 11). Two weeks of chaos: Inside Elon musk’s takeover of Twitter. The New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/11/technology/elon-musk-twitter-takeover.html

Frenkel, S. (2022, July 9). What are spam bots and why they’re an issue in Elon Musk’s twitter deal. The New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/09/technology/elon-musk-twitter-spam-bots.html

Galloway, S. (2022, April 8). @elon. No Mercy / No Malice. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.profgalloway.com/elon/

Galloway, S. & Swisher, K. [Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway]. (2020, March 10). Pivot Podcast #88: Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss Twitter’s new board, COVID-19 and more [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/biSYtObInlw

Gerwitz, D. (2022, November 10). Why I’m not deleting twitter (yet). ZDNET. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-im-not-deleting-twitter-yet/

Jurecic, Q. (2022, November 20). Trump’s terrifically stupid return to Twitter. The Atlantic. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/elon-musk-donald-trump-twitter/672195/

Kehnscherper, L. (2022, October 30). Musk says he’s chief twit, ‘no idea’ who Twitter’s CEO is. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-30/musk-says-he-s-chief-twit-no-idea-who-twitter-s-ceo-is

Mac, R., Isaac, M., & Browning, K. (2022, November 18). Elon Musk’s Twitter teeters on the edge after another 1,200 leave. The New York Times. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twitter-workers-quit.html

Meyer, J. (2019, June 18). History of twitter: Facts and what’s happening now. TheStreet. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.thestreet.com/technology/history-of-twitter-facts-what-s-happening-in-2019-14995056

Nakayashiki, K. (2022, January 7). Letting the interest graph guide you. Medium. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://medium.com/@kazuki_sf_/letting-the-interest-graph-guide-you-faf5e30c178a

Newton, C., & Schiffer, Z. (2022, November 21). Trump is restored to Twitter. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.platformer.news/p/trump-is-restored-to-twitter

Nieva, R. (2022, October 30). Twitter’s fired CEO Parag Agrawal was never going to please everybody – now it’s Elon Musk’s turn. Forbes. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2022/10/28/twitter-parag-agrawal-elon-musk/?sh=2d033ae75a44

O’Neil, C. (2021, February 19). Facebook and Twitter content moderation is failing. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-02-19/facebook-and-twitter-content-moderation-is-failing

Romano, A. (2022, November 22). The weird sorrow of losing Twitter. Vox. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.vox.com/culture/2022/11/22/23466381/leaving-twitter-saying-goodbye-social-media

Slattery, B. (2011, March 22). 5 memorable Twitter moments as service turns five: It business. Business Advantage Through Technology. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://www.itbusiness.ca/news/5-memorable-twitter-moments-as-service-turns-five/14438

Thomson Reuters. (2022, November 27). Twitter CEO Musk says user signups at all-time high, touts features of “Everything app”. Reuters. Retrieved November 27, 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitter-ceo-musk-says-user-signups-all-time-high-touts-features-everything-app-2022-11-27/

Twitter. (n.d.). Interest and follower look-alikes targeting. Twitter Business. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://business.twitter.com/en/help/campaign-setup/campaign-targeting/interest-and-follower-targeting.html

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