Twitter Experienced Intense Backlash Over Alleged Changes Dylan Duarte February 8, 2016 News Over the weekend (and some of last weekend), the hashtag #RipTwitter dominated the social network of the same name. It all started when Buzzfeed reported that the service would be rolling out a new algorithm-based timeline, similar to what Facebook uses, as early as this week. The outcry was loud and fierce, until Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey denied the rumors in at an attempt to calm down the backlash. Dorsey claims that the changes coming to the social network will make it “more Twitter-y,” and “more, not less, live!” Changes are apparently coming, though, but he gave no ETA on the changes nor did he elaborate on what they would be. This all stems from Twitter’s stock dropping for three consecutive months. The company has been shuffling executives around behind the scenes in an effort to establish a more effective team that can revitalize the service. Dorsey claimed that it was never a plan to “reorder timelines next week,” but I think it’s possible that it was a plan and was simply scrapped in reaction to the ugly backlash. We do know that Twitter is experimenting with different timeline deployments. I’m not business-savvy, and I don’t mean to throw shade, but it’s baffling to me that a service as popular as Twitter can’t find an effective way to generate revenue. How about a premium service that does away with promoted tweets? Or allows for longer tweets? I’m not trying to cost anyone money, because I like free just as much as anyone else, but surely the people who spend so much time on Twitter would be perfectly willing to shell out a bit of money to continue using it? If you’re an active Twitter user who hates the idea of paying for the service, just keep in mind that the free service could change drastically as they experiment with different ways to make money. Maybe paying for the service is the most surefire way to keep it just how we like it. Share This With The World!
