There's a new Jack in Town
The future may be musky but Twitter can surely find a way out
Hey everyone 👋 — I’m Avirath. I learn a lot from reading S1 teardowns, company analysis reviews, IPO previews. I wanted to share this knowledge with my readers - that’s the motive behind this newsletter.
This article discusses what changes I’d like to see with Twitter’s buyout by Musk. These views are from the experiences I’ve had coupled with what I’ve read on the Internet.
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Join the fun on Twitter.
When I was allowed to join social media back in 2013, I was quick to make an account on Facebook and Instagram. Even though Instagram was made much after Twitter, Twitter just felt like the one toy you had but never played too much with. A few years later when I was researching “bias in media communications” for my English paper, I thought Twitter was a platform only for the aristocratic few who were politically opinionated or big Brady fans(the Eagles had historically defeated the Patriots then). It was only after coming to college that I joined Twitter properly after seeing the Tech Twitter hype.
This, in a nutshell, is the reason why Twitter probably thrives as a community for web3 aficionados, maddening sports moments, or zealous creators curating top threads and should remain that way. Let me explain what I mean more deeply. Like Packy McCormick explains in If We Ruled the Tweets, Twitter has tried too hard to be Facebook while it’s always been a mix of Discord and Roblox.
Ben Thompson in his article Back to the Future of Twitter captures the difference between using Instagram/FB and Twitter. Instagram is an escape from reality; it’s a step into a world of leisure. It’s where you connect with followers or friends by clicking through their stories and liking their posts. On Twitter, you’ll have friends as followers in addition to a community of memers, stock analysts, Parag Agarwal parody accounts, crypto bros, and more. The members of these followers are connected to other similar members in a similar manner forming a community. These are people you want to unite and talk in length with. This is where it’s more Discord.
Secondly, a report from Pew Research shows that the top 10% of tweeters produce 80% of the tweets on Twitter. Their median number of tweets per month is around 138 compared to 2 that the rest of the 90% produce while the median number of accounts followed is 456 compared to 74. Looping in my first point, the 10% of top tweeters produce content such as useful threads, podcasts, Substack publications, and more around which a community forms. In ‘Empower. Don’t Just Create’, I went into detail about how platform businesses such as Roblox have strong fundamentals and prospects for the future by providing powerful tools that enable members to create their own custom products or features. Roblox does this by providing game creators Roblox Studio, a custom platform that allows developers and creators to make digital experiences and assets for the Roblox gaming network. This is where Twitter should try to be more Roblox - provide power tools to its users and build as a tool/subscription business not an advertising heavy one.
What Twitter Should Do?
If I were to enact some changes to Twitter, these are a few of the things I’d implement to hopefully increase usage and revenues. These are the main concepts I’d like to have implemented:
Open up to Third-Party Services and Curation Networks
Powerful Subscriptions
Involve Users
Open up to Third-Party Services and Curation Networks
Before understanding how Twitter could open up to third-party services, it is important to understand Twitter’s architecture. Ben Thompson states that Twitter is a huge compilation of microservices and APIs and not a simple product. These services include a user service (for listing a user’s timeline), a graph service (for tracking your network), a posting service (for posting new tweets), a profile service (for user profiles), a timeline service (for presenting your timeline) and probably several others. What is most important to understand is that Twitter’s social graph exists separate from its user interfaces which means Twitter can use its social graphs in a variety of applications.
In his, If We Ruled the Tweets, Packy McCormick states how opening up the microservices and APIs would allow clients to build customized algorithms and threads for a variety of subjects. Packy also writes about how Every’s Nathan Baschez states that opening up Twitter’s algorithm can create a marketplace for people to choose from their favorite kinds of tweet threads. Think if you could have the range to filter and sort through cringe Trump tweets to something as scientific as bio-hacking. Rather than an ML algorithm spitting out tweets based on interest, this can be under the supervision of experienced people in different fields.
Another important thing this will do is promote curation networks within Twitter. I’ve noticed that a few of my friends and famous Twitterati compile lists of resources or threads for their followers.
Above are examples of people who compile resources for two different use cases in the same vertical. It just goes to show the amount of information and resources that already exist on Twitter and how much more useful it’d become if it could be accessed and filtered in a more straightforward manner. Further, this could be a big step in removing spam or bot speech from Twitter. People curating/creating threads and algorithms will be careful to have minimal to zero spam on their feeds which can be useful to improve the user experience on the platform. Creating a marketplace can also help top creators and curators charge a premium for their version of feeds similar to what Twitter aimed to do with Super Follows perhaps.
In this NY Times article, Elon has also hinted at having a payments feature in the new Twitter experience. This does kind of feels like Musk wanting to create a mini-ecosystem of apps within Twitter - something for creators, something for payments, something for crypto-bros. Though, there can be several off-ramps he can create from his multitude of experiences he has had, I think Twitter should focus on improving the foundational product first.
Powerful Subscriptions
When Twitter released Twitter Blue last year, it was a step in the right direction but just that it was a cluster of features such as a reader mode, organizable Bookmark folders, setting up NFTs as hexagonal profile pictures, undoing tweets, and more. The features, in my opinion, seemed like a minor add-on to the Twitter experience and don’t seem like powerful tools that would enhance the activity or interaction of current Twitter users.
For creators
Like Ben Thompson states, Twitter is a place where users come to read, learn, understand and build. Twitter has become a hub for top podcasters and newsletter authors to distribute content and Twitter should leverage its popularity in this segment to become the place for people to build user-led subscription businesses. There are a few things it can do to improve this experience.
Twitter’s purchase of Revue was a clear intention play that they want to head in this direction but having tried Revue, the product experience is really inferior compared to Substack. A deal with Substack to plug into their social graph can prove very useful.
Twitter’s display of long-form media content is not the best. Further, most of the time when I see podcasters tweet about their podcast, it’s an external link to Spotify or a different hosting platform. Something I like about Instagram’s product thinking is it does not redirect people to external sites by allowing them to click links on captions. Twitter can follow suit and aim to have a better experience to listen to podcasts or conversations on their platform.
An exciting startup that I took note of last year was Beacons. It’s a sort of a home for creators to direct users to their various ventures. A lot of Twitter users have clunky bios that list out Substack, Spotify, Instagram, and other links. Rather than that, Twitter can allow creators to treat their profile pages as sort of their social homes leading to more traffic being generated on Twitter and for the specific user.
Offering these tools in form of subscriptions with different amounts and qualities of tools for different prices can create a strong subscription economy around which Twitter can strengthen its creator economy. Musk has apparently promised to have around 104 million subscribers for a mysterious X by 2028 according to this article. Though I may be completely wrong about this being the ‘X’ product, Musk may plan to launch something which has a combination of the above features.
For Users
Dror Poleg, a reputed Twitter bro, provided the following recommendations for how Twitter could improve its basic user experience.
If the above ideas are implemented in addition to Twitter Blue, it could create a brilliant additional revenue stream for Twitter. Getting verified helps get a person’s skin in the game which further motivates them to add value. Like Packy says, marketers could tap into verified identities to use them to market products rather than start off individually.
Long-term Tokenisation
A popular opinion that’s been floating about in the last few days is the fact that Twitter could function as an open-sourced web3 protocol. The mechanics and the economics of this couldn’t be written any better by Balaji Srinivasan here. Balaji states that the biggest reason Musk launched a bid to buy Twitter was to promote free and open speech. However, this sentiment can go against the American political scenario where Musk’s plans can be thwarted by the government. Balaji offers his opinion that Musk could solve this by making Twitter a global decentralised platform.
The best way to do what Balaji says is to create a virtual token or coin. A decentralised Twitter, if it becomes as valuable as Ethereum, would have a market valuation of around $250B. If divided to the 217M Twitter users, it would amount to around $1150. Considering 82% of Twitter’s DAU(daily active users) are outside America, it would get their skin in the game to actively participate in the working of Twitter.
Here are a few ways how doing the above can help in terms of governance and working of Twitter:
Making use of power users: The following is a picture of the stakes that Twitter’s board members have in Twitter. Clearly, the people who apparently make the most important decisions have very less skin in the game for the amount of value they should be apparently putting in. Creating a DAO/protocol with a token backing it would allow the power users I’d previously mentioned shape the proceedings of the social media in the sense that they’d hold some power in votings and proposals because of the influence and social value they would have created on the platform. Most importantly, they’d represent the average user’s wants/needs more fairly than a board can. Further, the power users to accumulate or hold a greater amount of the coins or tokens for their influence awarding them monetarily too. Twitter, as a powerhouse of thoughts/opinions, becomes well maintained and diverse because power users wouldn’t risk losing popularity.
Come for the token, Stay for the game: Providing a token with a considerable stable value like that of Twitter would incentivise top creators/curators and the general masses to flock to Twitter for the potential to earn money by posting likeable content. Packy McCormick talks about how surfing/posting/consuming content online is a part of the “Great Online Game”. Twitter’s tokens would create the perfect in-game money for the online game.
Free Speech: The most important change a DAO/protocol would bring about is the regulation of free speech. Centralised platforms cut out users based on the jursidiction of a few people. Decentralised protocols would need a majority to take such decisions protecting the interest of free speech. This would help base Twitter as the forum for major political opinions without bias.
Something to note with this is that this is a long term strategy. In the short term, Musk would be tasked with turning around the business numbers of Twitter. As a platform, Twitter would really benefit if it had people like Packy or Dror on board as power users. As a decentralised protocol, they’d be able to create better feedback loops which would prevent another sad situation like they’re in now.
I did write about how I joined Twitter late but it is my favourite platform to actually enjoy people for what they are. There’s learning, there’s fun, there’s jokes. All it needs is a bit of charisma, motivation and action. Who better to add it than a guy who named his boring company THE BORING COMPANY.
If you have any feedback or suggestions, do loop it in the comments section. I’ll be sure to take a look at it and even reach out to discuss if possible. You can reach me at avirathtibrewala@gmail.com for any other queries or discussions.