Thoughts on Twitter turmoil, straight from my Livejournal
Say what one will about Myspace, Friendster, or even Xanga, but they never tried to become profitable by getting rid of and driving away the very people who kept them up and running.
Or, to put it in the way Russian-speakers would appreciate it, надо же умудриться так просрать.
Last night, I observed on Twitter that online platforms don’t die with the bang, but sort of fade away with the quiet whimper. There was not one particular day when Myspace was “over,” when AIM stopped being a chat client of choice. Even the English-speaking parts of Livejournal didn’t stop being the blogging platform of choice for creative and/or fannish type because of one thing - it was a series of events. Heck, it’s no longer as prominent in Russia, and that can be traced to Putin’s government’s decisions - but, again, that didn’t happen all at once. And Livejournal is still here, despite everything, which is why I didn’t use it as an example in the first paragraph.
Yesterday, I thought that all the lamentations of Twitter’s death were pretty premature, but the fact that we saw this kind of a massive “goodbye Twitter” reaction at all is a pretty remarkable moment in online history. And it’s not like Twitter’s future is secure - with all of the people that were fired or left on their own accord, there are legitimate concerns about errors and outages piling on and piling on until they reach critical mass. That, ladies and gentlefolk, would make Twitter less useful to users and to advertisers.
Here is the thing about social networks. Each one fills a unique niche that none of the other social networks can really replicate. Youtube is a video hosting/sharing site. Instagram is, for all of the TikTokafication it went through, a mobile phone photo sharing site. Flickr is a site for people who want to post photos that are taken with an actual camera and want to drop a bunch of photos all at once. Facebook is a life update sharing site. Livejournal is an interesting Australopithecus of online content posting, a blogging platform with social networking elements that most other sites expanded on and took in different directions (just to give the most obvious example, Livejournal friend feed walked so that social media feeds Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/etc could run). Snapchat is (was?) photos with filters and no censorship, I guess. I don’t even pretend to try to understand what TikTok is.
Twitter? Twitter is a big public AIM chatroom that anyone can join any time. It allows people to share short bursts of thought and self-expression, while also commenting and quoting anyone and everyone. It’s a site where world leaders are on the same level as an aspiring fan artists. On Facebook, you don’t interact with celebrities the way you interact with your friends. Stuff that gets shared doesn’t spread as quickly. It’s why journalists and activists love Twitter - where else can you approach anyone, reach out to anyone, quickly share bits and pieces of information and read updates in quick, easily digestible chunks? And, in the end of the day, it’s just a convenient way to chat with friends and strangers.
I am not saying that Twitter is going to be there forever. 10 years ago, I didn’t think anything would supplant Livejournal (let alone that it would be a site where the lack of a comments section was a feature rather than a bug), but here we are. I do think that there are more people and institutions invested in Twitter’s survival than there were in Livejournal’s survival back in 2012. It could well be that someone would buy it from Musk in the next coming months.
In the meantime, I do think that people will stick around, even while planning their exits, unless and until there is a viable replacement Which Mastodon, who has more in common with actual AIM chatrooms, in that your audience is limited to people in a particular room, is not.
Of course, one never knows. As with the Tumblr example above, Internet has a tendency to surprise us. Like, who knew that a Chinese karaoke clip generator would sway book sales and revive musical careers?
Now, if Livejournal actually outlasts Twitter… that would just be hilarious.
Bittersweet as hell, but hilarious.
Or, to put it in the way Russian-speakers would appreciate it, надо же умудриться так просрать.
Last night, I observed on Twitter that online platforms don’t die with the bang, but sort of fade away with the quiet whimper. There was not one particular day when Myspace was “over,” when AIM stopped being a chat client of choice. Even the English-speaking parts of Livejournal didn’t stop being the blogging platform of choice for creative and/or fannish type because of one thing - it was a series of events. Heck, it’s no longer as prominent in Russia, and that can be traced to Putin’s government’s decisions - but, again, that didn’t happen all at once. And Livejournal is still here, despite everything, which is why I didn’t use it as an example in the first paragraph.
Yesterday, I thought that all the lamentations of Twitter’s death were pretty premature, but the fact that we saw this kind of a massive “goodbye Twitter” reaction at all is a pretty remarkable moment in online history. And it’s not like Twitter’s future is secure - with all of the people that were fired or left on their own accord, there are legitimate concerns about errors and outages piling on and piling on until they reach critical mass. That, ladies and gentlefolk, would make Twitter less useful to users and to advertisers.
Here is the thing about social networks. Each one fills a unique niche that none of the other social networks can really replicate. Youtube is a video hosting/sharing site. Instagram is, for all of the TikTokafication it went through, a mobile phone photo sharing site. Flickr is a site for people who want to post photos that are taken with an actual camera and want to drop a bunch of photos all at once. Facebook is a life update sharing site. Livejournal is an interesting Australopithecus of online content posting, a blogging platform with social networking elements that most other sites expanded on and took in different directions (just to give the most obvious example, Livejournal friend feed walked so that social media feeds Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/etc could run). Snapchat is (was?) photos with filters and no censorship, I guess. I don’t even pretend to try to understand what TikTok is.
Twitter? Twitter is a big public AIM chatroom that anyone can join any time. It allows people to share short bursts of thought and self-expression, while also commenting and quoting anyone and everyone. It’s a site where world leaders are on the same level as an aspiring fan artists. On Facebook, you don’t interact with celebrities the way you interact with your friends. Stuff that gets shared doesn’t spread as quickly. It’s why journalists and activists love Twitter - where else can you approach anyone, reach out to anyone, quickly share bits and pieces of information and read updates in quick, easily digestible chunks? And, in the end of the day, it’s just a convenient way to chat with friends and strangers.
I am not saying that Twitter is going to be there forever. 10 years ago, I didn’t think anything would supplant Livejournal (let alone that it would be a site where the lack of a comments section was a feature rather than a bug), but here we are. I do think that there are more people and institutions invested in Twitter’s survival than there were in Livejournal’s survival back in 2012. It could well be that someone would buy it from Musk in the next coming months.
In the meantime, I do think that people will stick around, even while planning their exits, unless and until there is a viable replacement Which Mastodon, who has more in common with actual AIM chatrooms, in that your audience is limited to people in a particular room, is not.
Of course, one never knows. As with the Tumblr example above, Internet has a tendency to surprise us. Like, who knew that a Chinese karaoke clip generator would sway book sales and revive musical careers?
Now, if Livejournal actually outlasts Twitter… that would just be hilarious.
Bittersweet as hell, but hilarious.