Spectrum Of Networks

Twitter finally rolled out Digits for Web. It took a long time, and requires your users to have already logged into Digits with one of the native libraries on a mobile app. Very disappointing. Rather than provide what developers need, Twitter is doing what will help Twitter short term. While Digits will provide value, not having an open web interface just guts 80% of the opportunity.

On Pinterest you can follow users if you want, but you can also follow individual "boards" (their collections). This means you can see only the pins that interest you meanwhile ignoring all the other collections that user is creating. This truly is an interest graph (and why advertising on Pinterest can be precisely targeted).

October 2010: Launch on iPhone December 2010: 1 million users June 2011: 5 million users September 2011: 10 million users April 3rd, 2012: 30 million registered accounts on iPhone, launches on Android April 4th, 2012: Instagram sees 1 million Android signups in the first 24 hours April 9th, 2012: Instagram hits 5 million Android users, is acquired by Facebook April 30th, 2012: 50 million users February 2013: 100 million users September 2013: 150 million users March 2014: 200 million users December 2014: 300 million users

With people no longer wanting to share everything with everyone on social networks, mobile messaging apps have become the ideal place for both one-to-one and group conversations.

It’s interesting to note that during my very brief tenure, reddit added more users than Hacker News has in total.

As for whether or not parody accounts capable of manipulating all of Twitter are ultimately a good thing for social media, Orr wasn’t too certain.

we are building personalized propaganda engines that feed users content which makes them feel good and throws away the uncomfortable bits.

Twitter has become the hate speech wing of the free speech party. The limited tools available - blocking, muting, going private - do not match well with these floods. Twitter's abuse reporting form takes far longer than a tweet, and is explicitly ignored if friends try to help.

And even if Ello fails to make money, if it isn’t able to successfully execute on the freemium model it has talked about (and many sites don’t), you are still currency in the form of promotion for Ello’s founders. You’re a line on their resume that gets them that next job, or that next seed money for that next startup: Founder, Ello, 200,000 users (hey look, that’s you!). “If Ello was serious about their 'manifesto' they'd be non-profit,” Adams told me. But Ello’s founders have to sell something, whether it’s to VCs or companies. And that something is always going to be you. You might decide that being that kind of currency—the kind that promotes investment, hiring and promotion of this companies and these people—is fine with you. It might be preferable to the Facebook model of tracking your every move and selling that information to advertisers. But you are still the product. Being the product isn't inherently a bad thing, either. In many cases, users are willing to be the product in exchange for some service they want, and that's totally fine. The premise that turning your users into a product as inherently evil (which is what Ello's manifesto is arguing) ignores the reality of what people are comfortable with. Ello's manifesto seems to miss what the true issues with Facebook are. Building the anti-Facebook social network doesn't necessarily have to mean building a social network that claims to do the opposite of everything Facebook does.

This entire site feels like it was designed in a bubble by graphic designers with no feeling for interaction design or what people want out of a social network. The fact that it originates from a private project is apparent in its incomprehensible interface that it assumes you understand.

Your social network is owned by advertisers. Every post you share, every friend you make and every link you follow is tracked, recorded and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold. We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership. We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce and manipulate — but a place to connect, create and celebrate life. You are not a product.

But if there’s one thing we’ve learned from messaging apps, particularly in Asia, it’s that messaging can be a launching pad for all sorts of commercial products. It’s also a great way of attracting new users — a non-user who receives a message from a friend will receive a link to check it out on Pinterest.