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Trump ends blog after 29 days, infuriated by measly readership

41 points| molecule | 4 years ago |washingtonpost.com

27 comments

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CurtHagenlocher|4 years ago

So basically he was deplatformed yet again by Big Tech -- this time by Google when they killed Reader in 2013?

tinus_hn|4 years ago

I don’t understand this. He’s got a massive audience. How hard is it to build a Twitter clone where he can blast his messages to all his followers?

jfengel|4 years ago

Building it is easy. Getting people to subscribe to it (creating an account, downloading an app, etc) is really, really, really hard. So is getting them to check it often enough to not forget about it.

Social networks are natural monopolies. You go where your friends already are. Once there, you tend to stay there, rather than going through the whole process again on some other site.

In this case he appears to have half-assed it. It's not impossible that his following was devoted enough to jump through those hoops. He'd have needed a catchy app and a constant stream of content to make it engaging. Maybe a whole Twitter clone ecosystem might have done it, but that comes with a ton of headaches. (Even the free-est speech platform doesn't like being overrun with spammers, for example.)

Instead, he seems to have counted on his notoriety to do all of the work, and that was surely not going to cut it.

youeseh|4 years ago

His followers may not have been the goal of Tweeting. They can be reached out to directly via email.

Twitter allowed him to reach reporters who read, spread, and amplified whatever he tweeted.

a3n|4 years ago

Their story at the moment is that the blog was a side piece. They're supposedly building an actual social network.

I suppose Mike Lindell can help with that. He has recent relevant experience.

empressplay|4 years ago

I guess he learned how tough it is to get people to read your blog...

ksaj|4 years ago

This is a clear sign. If you get thousands of responses on Twitter, and no interest whatsoever on your personal platform, your only value to those who used to engage is the spectacle you created in that other environment. Nobody cared about what Trump was saying - they only cared about the excitement in the responses.

Twenty year old blog technology with no social aspect (and fake upvote buttons) is hardly spectacular. It's not the game changer he promised.

the_only_law|4 years ago

I kept hearing about this blog he started, but had absolutely no idea where it lived. I think I once tried to Google it, but the results were all news articles about the blog and I didn’t care to try to look any further.

povik|4 years ago

Does anyone have a link perhaps to an archived mirror?

rchaud|4 years ago

Trump realizing what the rest of the blogosphere figured out a decade ago. The audience has been surrendered to Twitter and FB, and they aren't coming back.

readonthegoapp|4 years ago

Is it too snarky to suggest his fans don't read?

They can, but they're just not interested

I'd guess same is true of fans of every politician

Just moreso with trump

The medium is the message

You can't reproduce the hatred and clown show asthetic with long blobs of text

You need tv

Twitter

Anything inherently devoid of the possibility of meaningful conversation, thinking, thoughtfulness, etc.

otterley|4 years ago

And nothing of value was lost.

jiofih|4 years ago

Maybe his readership was impaired by a paywall

paxys|4 years ago

[deleted]

detaro|4 years ago

"long-form" is not exactly how I would describe that.

krapp|4 years ago

That's a shame.

DrBenCarson|4 years ago

I absolutely detest Trump and fully supported his removal from any and all platforms run by private companies much earlier than it happened, HOWEVER this is yet another indicator that our world runs through monopolies.

They're holding back everything, including shareholders. Break. Them. Up.

krapp|4 years ago

>HOWEVER this is yet another indicator that our world runs through monopolies.

It indicates nothing of the sort. His site was on the public web, freely accessible to anyone with a browser. It was being shared on social media. There were no "monopolies" holding him back, rather, he's no longer politically relevant, so his garbage content isn't worth covering, and his base has all but lost interest in him.