Note: This discussion was moved to: http://inventblog.com/2009/04/my-thoughts-on-how-twitter-could-be-improved.html
I thought that I’d expand upon my earlier tweet (above) with a related “what I think Twitter needs”:
Twitter is a river with a waterfall. The base of the waterfall represents the present, the downstream river represents the past. All of your followers are standing at the base of the waterfall, watching your tweets (and everyone else’s tweets) float by. They can walk downstream to see some of the older tweets, but most don’t. They only see what is right in front of them. Sure, someone might pick up your tweet from downstream and throw it back to the waterfall (retweet), but most of the time, if a follower isn’t there…they miss what you said.
What percent of your followers do you think sees every tweet you make? 5%? 10%?
That, in my opinion, is the biggest defect Twitter has.
What if #1: What if you could anchor a tweet in the river (so the threaded conversation I mentioned above could take place)?
What if #2: What if you could tag some of your own tweets as something the REALLY want your followers to read AND it was really easy for users to see them. Sure, you could mark it as a “favorites,” but most people use that function to tag their personal favorites (of other people). Mine: http://twitter.com/favorites. Additionally, most Twitter users don’t even know that favorites exist (or that they have RSS feeds). Addressing this “what if” would instantaneously convert Twitter into an actual “microblogging platform” instead of a stream of consciousness.
Just a couple thoughts I had…
