How Twitter could still blow it and fade away into social network oblivion
For one ominous weekend last month, it seemed like Twitter's vast, argumentative community all agreed on one thing, for once.
Twitter was doomed.
The damning hashtag #RIPTwitter stayed firmly lodged at the top of the social network's list of trending topics in reaction to a report that Twitter planned to inch closer to Facebook by overhauling its signature news feed with an algorithm.
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Soon after, the algorithm was announced and turned out to be more modest than feared. At least for now. The trending topic and the outrage that fueled it died down. But the tenuous relationship between Twitter and its users remained.
Ten years ago this week, Twitter launched with the bold mission of connecting the world to important news and life updates in real-time. Now, Twitter often serves as a platform to connect millions of people with real-time news and updates about Twitter's many perceived failings.
If the central question of Twitter's first decade was how to build a real-time news platform that hundreds of millions of people would want to use, the key question of the next ten years will be deciding just how much it can push the users it has with new features intended to satiate investor appetite for growth before the community breaks apart.
How uncertain is Twitter's future? During what was supposed to be a celebratory interview on The Today Show about the upcoming anniversary, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was actually asked if he thought the social network would exist in five years. (Spoiler alert: He said yes.)
It would be nearly unprecedented for a social network of Twitter's size -- currently hovering around 300 million active users -- to peter out, according to David Garcia, a researcher who has studied the fall of social networks. "My knowledge of the largest collapse so far is Friendster," he says. "It reached 120 million user accounts."
But that doesn't mean the idea of Twitter fading away is out of the question.
The worst case scenario, according to those in the industry who have watched their own social sites struggle or fade from prominence, is that Twitter drives away loyal users with unwanted new features to lure people who just really don't want to tweet, while one or more competitors gradually emerge as viable alternatives.
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If you change it, they will not come
"Communities are fickle," says Owen Byrne, with just a touch of understatement.
A year and a half before Twitter launched, Byrne, a developer from Canada, built the original version of Digg's website.
Six years later, he watched as users of the social news service revolted against new features by spamming the homepage (not unlike the #RIPTwitter episode) and flocked to rival Reddit.
The lesson Byrne learned: "If a critical mass of people, especially power users, feel that they're being disempowered (i.e. they're being treated like a product rather than a community), then they start looking at alternatives."
In recent months, that sense of disempowerment has been palpable on Twitter.
Desperate to reinvigorate its stalled user growth and find its way back to Wall Street's good graces after a brutal few months, Twitter has committed itself to re-thinking all of the fundamentals it once held dear -- ditching a purely reverse chronological feed; expanding beyond the trademark 140 character limit (now thankfully rejected); placing video ads in your face at the top of the news feed.
Each change only seems to deflate morale among the existing user base, which has its own list of pressing demands for what Twitter should improve.
That list usually starts with an edit button and better tools to deal with rampant harassment on the platform.
"A key mistake in my experience is to make fundamental changes in all the users at the same time," says Garcia, the researcher. "The probability that there are cascades of users leaving is higher."
Protecting Twitter's communities
Too many changes -- or too few new features and fixes to address demands of existing users -- could undermine Twitter's ability to preserve its most vibrant sub-communities and attract new ones.
Black Twitter. Media Twitter. Bieber Twitter. Finance Twitter. Comedy Twitter. Basketball Twitter. Conservative Twitter. Weird Twitter. DC Twitter. Twitter After Dark.
The list of Twitter subcultures is nearly endless.
"If they get the balance wrong it's not like there'll be a mass exodus," says Erik Martin, VP of member engagement at WeWork and the former general manager of Reddit, where he dealt with community uprisings. "New energetic subcultures will just coalesce and form and grow large elsewhere."
Without a steady flow of new and exciting communities, Twitter would be like a social network without any beating heart.
Forget the character limits and ability to send group DMs. A key factor for thriving communities will be Twitter's ability to curb harassment -- or at least show continued to attempts to try.
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"The most important thing is that users feel like the platform hears them, gets the problem and is working on solutions," says Martin. "If they feel like they're being ignored or feel like there's no progress, you go from having them help address the problems to just leaving."
The threat of a "power user" exodus
Already, a small but notable collection of influential "power users" have abandoned Twitter, citing some of these issues.
For comedian Louis CK, it was the feeling that Twitter was little more than a shameless promotional tool with a conversation that moved too fast to be truly meaningful.
Stephen Fry, the English actor, explained the decision to delete his account this year even more bluntly: "Let us grieve at what twitter has become. A stalking ground for the sanctimoniously self-righteous who love to second-guess, to leap to conclusions and be offended."
Then there's Julieanne Smolinski, a popular writer who stopped tweeting because she was being harassed and felt Twitter did nothing to stop it.
As Sean Parker, the cofounder of Napster and first president of Facebook, said in a recent interview, "I don’t think Twitter would’ve existed had it not been for its relationship with celebrity and media."
If the number of power users stepping back from the social network were to accelerate, it could eliminate Twitter's ace in the hole.
No exit
The same industry watchers who question Twitter's business today nonetheless tend to doubt users will ever flee in droves for a simple reason: where else would they go?
"They will stick with it," Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner, told Mashable in an earlier interview. "There aren't a lot of alternatives."
The thinking is that Twitter remains the only social network for real-time news and updates from friends, associates and strangers throughout the day.
Even as we write this, however, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat continue to ramp up their new curation -- not to mention the many messaging applications like Line, which also serve as a platform for publishers.
Will these services ever fully replicate the unique serendipity, both meaningful and frivolous, of Twitter moments like the one below? Maybe not.
But as these rivals get better and better at fostering communities, delivering relevant news in close to real-time and building up followings, it could tip the scales for millions of disenchanted users who just want a basic platform to connect and know what's happening in the world.
Tread carefully, Twitter. The next decade may be even tougher than the first one.
BONUS: Baby chicks celebrate 10 years of Twitter
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Seth Fiegerman was a Senior Business Reporter at Mashable, where he covered startups, marketing and the latest consumer tech trends. He joined Mashable in August 2012 and is based in New York.Before joining Mashable, Seth covered all things Apple as a reporter at Silicon Alley Insider, the tech section of Business Insider. He has also worked as a staff writer at TheStreet.com and as an editor at Playboy Magazine. His work has appeared in Newsweek, NPR, Kiplinger, Portfolio and The Huffington Post.Seth received his Bachelor of Arts from New York University, where he majored in journalism and philosophy.In his spare time, Seth enjoys bike riding around Brooklyn and writing really bad folk songs.
