Commentary

Dorsey: What's Wrong With Twitter?

It’s time to play everyone’s favorite game: Fix Twitter!

From what many perceive to be its unclear purpose to its raging troll infestation, the social giant seems to be forever burdened by design issues. Over the years, management has made various attempts to fix these problems -- but never to the satisfaction of a mass audience. 

Appealing directly to Twitter’s community, CEO Jack Dorsey is presently asking for suggestions. “What's the most important thing you want to see Twitter improve or create in 2017?” the second-time CEO tweeted on Thursday.

Though unlikely to solve Twitter’s bigger troubles, many users say they want the power to edit tweets after they’ve been tweeted.   Dorsey seems to subscribe to such a feature. “A form of edit is [definitely] needed,” he tweeted.

But implementing an edit feature is no easy fix, he noted. 

“Edit mistakes quickly or edit anytime?” he tweeted. “Big [difference] in implementation. Latter requires change log as we're [often] the public record.”

He is basically saying that an edit feature would essentially allow people -- public or otherwise -- to rewrite history. In a show of support, some of Twitter’s biggest backers are chiming in.

In a long blog post, Anil Dash -- presently CEO of software-maker Fog Creek -- just laid out a 5-point plan for repairing the platform.

Dash is advising Dorsey to demonstrate he can consistently ship new features; directly handle abuse (i.e., trolls); stop using “meaningless” metrics; provide specific tools for different types of users; and “decide if you give a damn about developers or not.”

Despite its best efforts -- which included bringing back Dorsey as CEO last year -- Twitter continues to struggle.

The company just lost its longtime Chief Technology Officer, Adam Messinger. Josh McFarland, VP of product at Twitter, also exited.

The departures came just weeks after Twitter’s COO Adam Bain gave notice -- and less than a month after the resignation of Adam Sharp, head of news, government and elections.

Recently, data emerged showing ad agencies are increasingly bypassing the platform in favor other social networks -- especially Instagram.

Research firm eMarketer recently released a forecast suggesting Snapchat will overtake Twitter in terms of domestic users before the end of the year. More broadly, Twitter has seen few successes since its IPO in 2013. Rather than right its ship, Dorsey has seen Twitter’s stock sink since his return last October.

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