Ask HN: Is Twitter failing?

[ziodave]

While being one of the first users of Twitter (my numeric ID is 11278) and followed it all along the way, today I look at the list of my un/followers and I find many that follow me just for a couple of days in order to get some visibility.

Like Henry's Tavern on 1st Avenue, Seattle, followed me and then unfollowed me. What for? I've never been in Seattle, I basically live on the other side of the globe.

And this happens constantly, people that follow looking for followers and then unfollow without any sort of shared interest or connection.

It feels like I am walking along a crowded boulevard and people try to sell me any kind of stuff along the way, most of it totally unrelated to me.

And the voices of people I was interested in fade away...

What is the Twitter promise and is it succeeding to deliver it?

[thecupisblue]

>And this happens constantly, people that follow looking for followers and then unfollow without any sort of shared interest or connection.

These are mostly bots and automated tools. It's like that in every social network ever.

>What is the Twitter promise and is it succeeding to deliver it?

To bring you short snippets, news and opinions on topics that interest you, in real time (or as close as it gets).

I believe they deliver on that promise, but the bigger problem here is that they're being compared to facebook, while being nothing alike facebook with a completely different user base. This causes trouble in their user growth.

[cyberandy]

While profoundly true to some extent that Twitter is failing in creating a proper interaction space for advertisers (and this is becoming increasingly annoying for its genuine users) I also suspect Google, Facebook and the others are nourishing the blame on Twitter a) to keep their own advertising value as high as possible b) to acquire TWTR at the lowest price.

[jordsmi]

This isn't a twitter specific thing. It happens on every form of website that has follow and unfollow features(I do it on alot of my instagram accounts). It is the easiest way to gain a follower base for a very low cost.

[ballaa]

Good question. Sadly, I don't think Twitter knows the answer anymore.