Twitter 2017: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Twitter recently announced that it failed to increase it’s monthy user base in the second quarter of 2017. The US userbase actually declined from 70 million users to 68 users. When I think of interesting app ideas over the years I think of sharing imagery with the world (Instagram), video (YouTube), short form video (Snapchat, Vine), and even short form audio (Anchor), but extremely short form text (Twitter) never really appealed to me. Their saving grace, smart phone screen market share. The average person consumes their content through about 5 core apps. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat. This is why Twitter is still around. They desperatly need to figure out how to capitalize on this market share before it’s too late. Things have been turning south for Twitter recently between the Q2 loss of 112 million, to their decline in userbase. I’m not sure what the future holds, but it’s going to get interesting.

The Good:

1. News. Twitter is excellent for breaking news. When ever there is a major happening, I quickly check Twitter to get second by second, unfiltered perspective on the event. This is Twitter’s biggest strength and something they need to take seriously.
2. Customer service. Twitter is a good place for customer crisis intervention. Quickly tweeting a brand and receiving a timley response is a great feeling. Much better than calling a 1–800 number or sitting on a live chat for hours.
3. Hashtags. Using hashtags gives users the power of reaching their end consumer without a middle man.

The Bad:

1. Confusion. The platform is confusing to new members. New users tend to feel overwhelmed by the amount of content being posted. In addition, content is buried and forgotten extremely fast. People have to be ready to post 10–15 times per day. That’s quite a commitment.
2. Design. Twitter is currently caught in the middle of a sutble redesign. From changing the font, to the general look of the app. This sends mixed messages to the core userbase that has learned to love the platform for what it is.
3. Additional Features. Lack of innovation within the app. We have seen the evolution of Facebook, the integration of Instagram stories, Snapchat filters, YouTube live etc… What has Twitter done? Twitter moments? That isn’t really even anything to discuss. Twitter completely lacks the ability to add supplemental features around its core function. I don’t see this improving.

The Ugly:

1. Hostility. Twitter takes a close second to Reddit when it comes to internet hostility. Because of the quickly buried content, and the anonymity factor, the worst in people tends to come out.
2. Bots. I predict that about 15% of Twitter’s total userbase is bots. Automatic accounts with a goal of retweeting everything and anything.
3. Terrorists. Twitter has become one of the most used platforms of terrorists. They use it to recruit and spread propaganda. Twitter has taken recent steps to address this, but they haven’t done enough in my opinion.
4. Pay to Win. Premium accounts is something Twitter is currently testing. By paying a monthy fee of $99 users can have their accounts auto promoted. This is supposed to take the place of traditional ad placement. It is a snake in the grass. They are essentially masking a Twitter premium/business account without selling it as such. This is a huge mistake and it feels like a last second cash grab. I mean, they are losing millions of dollars (and users) per quarter.