1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Peak Twitter

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Twirling Time, Feb 11, 2016.

  1. Twirling Time

    Twirling Time Well-Known Member

    For the first time, the number of accounts on Twitter worldwide did not increase from quarter to quarter. In fact, it lost 2 million users and the stock took a bath overnight, although it looks like it's bounced back.

    Twitter is losing customers and its stock is falling
     
  2. TigerVols

    TigerVols Well-Known Member

    I work in Twitter for a living...so I can say with some authority that the parts of Twitter that are not fraudulent, are a mess.
     
  3. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    There's simply not room enough for Facebook and Twitter in this world. Once Facebook became a real news feed, Twitter's days were numbered. I think there's a thread around here where we speculate about how long Twitter will exist.

    It was trading at nearly $53 less than a year ago. As of right now, it's under $15.
     
  4. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    In October 2013, I started a thread about the Twitter IPO. It only got one response, but here was my post:

     
  5. SFIND

    SFIND Well-Known Member

    Yes there is, as long as Twitter embraces what is and quits trying to be an equal to Facebook.
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    OK, but what is unique about it that it should embrace at this point? Are you talking about the introduction of a relevance algorithm as a mis-step?
     
  7. TyWebb

    TyWebb Well-Known Member

    It's interesting to me that SFNID and Dick are making it sound like Facebook is superior to Twitter, or at least that is how I'm reading it. From everything I've read or heard from parents with teenagers, Facebook was on the decline because it was the social media that "old people used." The younger generation, those who have had social media most of their lives, seem to be on everything but Facebook. I know this isn't a concrete measure of how viable a social media program is, but it would certainly suggest that in 10-15 years, Facebook could fade into irrelevancy.

    Now I've never had a Twitter account, and I got off of Facebook a few years ago, so I can't honestly say why one is better than the other. What makes Facebook better, at least in your opinion? Dick mentioned that it has become a real news feed. How is that different from Twitter if you are mainly following news sources?
     
  8. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Because Facebook is one-stop shopping. You get a news feed and your friend's wedding photos. It also is simply a beneficiary of inertia. Facebook did it first, so it has this infrastructure and brand loyalty in place. Twitter will always be playing catch-up.

    Your point about young people not using it is well-taken, and we'll have to wait and see whether it's something that people grow into, like politics and salad. Does it become indispensable once people reach a certain age where they scatter, geographically? We'll see.
     
  9. TyWebb

    TyWebb Well-Known Member

    And to your point about there not being enough room for Twitter and Facebook, I have to assume the complete fracturing of the social media market is a large part of why Twitter is treading water and maybe why Facebook seems more firmly planted. At first, it was just Facebook. Then Twitter came along and grabbed those exhausted by Facebook. Now there is Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Vine, Google Plus, something called YikYak and probably a half dozen others that I've never heard of. It feels like every other week, someone is saying "You've never heard of [new social media]?!?!" to me.

    Like you said, Facebook is the originator, so it is going to have a foothold for awhile. But now there are a dozen other options that do better the individual parts of everything Twitter wants to do - video, photos, person-to-person sharing, anonymous snark. It's like they are picking Twitter apart piece by piece and saying "We can do just this part better," leaving nothing for Twitter to truly be the go-to place for anything.

    But what will happen to all of our clever hashtags?

    (Admittedly, as someone on zero social media, I'm still fascinated by how it has permeated and completely disrupted our culture.)
     
  10. Flip Wilson

    Flip Wilson Well-Known Member


    I keep hearing that the kids are dropping off of Facebook because all of us old folks are on it. But, every semester, I ask my college students, usually freshmen and sophomores, if they're Facebook users, and about 90 percent say they are.
     
  11. TyWebb

    TyWebb Well-Known Member

    That's interesting. I wonder how much of a difference there is in your students between kids who are actually active users and just kids who just have a Facebook account because it is almost weird not to have one. Facebook has brilliantly made itself as ubiquitous online as having a debit card in a mall. You almost need an account to do a lot of things. Every time I want to sign up for something, the first option is to sign up with a Facebook account.
     
  12. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    If "the kids" never friended an "old person," how would "the kids" know any old people were on Facebook?

    The company you're keeping on Facebook is by and large the company you have chosen to keep.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page