[HN Gopher] Forget Twitter Threads; Write a Blog Post Instead
___________________________________________________________________
Forget Twitter Threads; Write a Blog Post Instead
Author : cyb_
Score : 258 points
Date : 2021-10-21 14:39 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (kevq.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (kevq.uk)
| jordanpg wrote:
| Many of the responses here are missing the real reason that
| Twitter is preferred: time. The amount of reading to do is vast,
| the number of minutes in the day are few.
|
| We can bemoan the extinction of blogs, long form journalism, etc.
| all day long but there is an information density problem that is
| going nowhere.
|
| Along the same lines, a lot of written material is a lot longer
| than it needs to be. Those insisting on prose might ponder the
| old maxim, "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter
| letter."
|
| Maybe there is a comfortable medium somewhere between Twitter and
| prose. I enjoy long form writing sometimes, but I much more often
| don't have the time to read it.
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| I am one of those loonie cave dwellers who want nothing to do
| with Twitter.
|
| I find it to be a horrible UX in almost all ways.
|
| The limit of how many characters you can type in a message nearly
| guarantees clickbait, sensationalism, and idiocy.
|
| Getting around this most fundamental part of Twitter, with
| "threads", is a painful experience for the reader. (In my
| opinion).
|
| If Twitter included proper support for it, it would be better.
| Each post on a thread would appear directly after each other and
| stripped of unnecessary repeated parts. Except now you have
| basically changed the main idea of Twitter and allow longer
| posts.
|
| I like posting things on my blog. I know I have only 3 readers,
| one of whom I pay but you get a chance to build content in your
| own silo and can be as long winded as you feel like.
|
| I would have no interest in HN if it was not for the thoughtful
| and high-quality long form discourse it has.
|
| If a story is a link to Twitter I just click right onto the
| discussion.
|
| I guess my blog is a barren wasteland and I might pull in 1
| reader from Twitter
|
| It is a horrible UX that makes it close to impossible to convey a
| story. (Unless its "This is my headline" click here
| czhu12 wrote:
| Isn't the whole point of doing this over twitter for the
| distribution, not the medium? How many people have blogs with 20k
| subscribers with the built in virality?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I _hate_ Twitter as a company and a social institution, but
|
| 1. "People will share a random Tweet from a thread" <- this is a
| feature. You can't easily address bits of a blog post unless the
| blog uses headers with easily accessible links that one can copy.
| Also, getting the broader context from a Tweet in a thread is
| pretty easy.
|
| 2. Blogging is hard. Not just creating a blog, but actually
| framing the content. Tweeting in a thread feels easier. There are
| rails. I can respond articulately here or on Twitter, but for
| whatever reason I always feel like my every attempt at blogging
| is miserable. I'm envious that the author of TFA finds it so
| natural, because it's something I'd _really like to be able to do
| well_. In the meanwhile, I have Twitter threads and HN comments.
| mathnmusic wrote:
| (1) is now solved with link to text fragments.
| baud147258 wrote:
| > You can't easily address bits of a blog post unless the blog
| uses headers
|
| you can by just quoting the part you want to address
| mrkramer wrote:
| >Forget Twitter Threads; Write a Blog Post Instead
|
| Exactly my thinking too.
| 243v34vb34 wrote:
| Disagree as an end users blogs are an inconsistent dump. I know
| what to expect from a twitter thread every single time. Its the
| same experience, no matter what.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Why not both?
|
| Write a blog-post, and have a brief summary + link on Twitter?
|
| ------
|
| The main benefits to the blog-post is that you get writings in
| exactly the format you want. Sure, Twitter does images and videos
| now, but there's still MathML, DotViz / Javascript graphs / etc.
| etc. that I can run on a blog that will never be allowed on
| Twitter. All possible with static-sites or low-dynamic sites (ex:
| low-CPU usage PHP).
|
| Lets say you're a Chess blogger. Would you really want to be
| making .png files (images) of chess positions and talking about
| them? Or would you rather have a FEN/PGN-interpreter in
| Javascript on a blog-post? (First one on my search engine:
| https://mliebelt.github.io/PgnViewerJS/examples.html#1102)
|
| No. You load up your favorite PGN-editor. You document the
| positions you think were interesting. You download the best PGN-
| interpreter you can find on Github onto your blog and let it rip.
|
| The main benefit of Twitter is that the audience is there. Have
| your toxic comments spew out over Twitter, but your content
| remains on your site specifically.
|
| ------------
|
| The reason why the HTML format is so powerful is because the
| writers can invent new formats specific to their communities
| (thanks to the magic of Javascript). Chess players have invented
| PGN to describe games. Tetris players have invented Fumen (a
| Javascript play-by-play of Tetris strategies). The Math community
| has LaTeX / MathML / MathJAX. Etc. etc.
| mikeryan wrote:
| From the stuff that gets pumped into my feed the purpose of
| most "threads" isn't so much about sharing information as
| building an audience and gaining followers. Heck a lot of them
| just rehash blog posts written by someone else.
|
| Anyway if gaining twitter followers is your real goal then
| taking them off platform isn't the way to do it.
| kevincox wrote:
| The post explicitly suggests that you can share it on twitter.
| It definitely isn't saying that you should _just_ post to the
| blog.
| dragontamer wrote:
| But I think its ignoring the main benefit of blogging
| platforms: which is machine-assistance of converting custom-
| text formats (ex: Chess PGNs) into well-presented documents
| of text + images.
|
| https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-weirdest-chess-
| openin...
|
| Twitter doesn't have Chess PGN viewers available. And even if
| Twitter did add ChessPGN viewers, they won't have the
| equivalent for your small, niche community.
| tjpnz wrote:
| And if you're going to write a blog post please publish it
| somewhere where I'm not forced to open it in a private
| tab/disable JavaScript/manipulate my user agent or whatever else
| is now necessary in order to not give my info to a reader hostile
| platform.
| patrec wrote:
| I'm surprised that no one mentioned that twitter at least
| qualifies as bad hypertext whereas the web (and thus blogs)
| don't.
|
| In particular twitter has (primitive) transclusions: by manually
| breaking up your writing into awkward <= 280 char chunks you
| basically allow other people to quote and comment or reply to
| them, recursively. Although tweets can and frequently do get
| deleted, that is the only form these transclusions break; they
| don't silently and unverifiably change content.
|
| The web has absolutely no facility for quotation and commenting
| or even for pointing at some particular content in a way that
| ensures any continuity of content between the time of link
| creation and perusual. It is thus an abysmally bad medium for any
| form of discussion.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| This. Twitter markup is so heavy I avoid clicking it for fear
| of my browser locking up.
|
| If I really really really want to read an interesting-sound
| thread, I open it with Nitter.
|
| Otherwise, I take a "medium is the message" approach to
| Twitter, and just assume I'm not missing much, just like with
| Medium or Reddit: If someone chooses Twitter as the medium,
| their message probably isn't worth my time either.
| skytreader wrote:
| > In particular twitter has (primitive) transclusions: by
| manually breaking up your writing into awkward <= 280 char
| chunks you basically allow other people to quote and comment or
| reply to them, recursively. Although tweets can and frequently
| do get deleted, that is the only form these transclusions
| break; they don't silently and unverifiably change content.
|
| Is what I'm doing right now not some kind of transclusion? It's
| even more primitive than Twitter. Plus you can delete or edit
| your comment but my reply retains context. Twitter would
| present it better, maybe structure it more semantically, but
| that's hardly a killer feature over traditional web text in my
| opinion. Maybe if you're a social researcher, sure, Twitter
| knocks your socks off. But otherwise, I think we can have a
| perfectly productive discussion in this manner no?
|
| I argue it's even better because the person who replies (i.e.,
| me in this instance) can break up the original text to reply to
| a specific point, include as much context as possible. Sure I
| can misquote you to benefit my argument but it's easy to call
| bad faith.
|
| (As for verifiability especially of who typed what, I wouldn't
| argue on that front. Online it's basically a huge game of he
| said, she said. You can add barriers to make falsification
| difficult but that won't stop a determined and well-resourced
| fascist regime or two. Again, just my 2c.)
| animanoir wrote:
| Blogs will be reborn, I'm sure.
| kfprt wrote:
| The problem with twitter threads isn't that they're broken up
| into chunks, it's still relatively easy to read. The problem is
| what a cancerous, user hostile, and bloated website twitter is
| that won't even let you open the pictures without logging in.
| Nitter or threader fix this but at the point you're switching to
| a different website, why not just make it a blog.
| [deleted]
| posharma wrote:
| Yes, thank you for writing this. Twitter threads are really
| annoying. A good well thought long form article is so much better
| from all points of view.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| The problem is that you can get more page views on Twitter for
| something that takes a day to write than you'd be able to get in
| an entire year of blogging full time.
| cangencer wrote:
| Threads are similar to slideshows - you can put a few bullet
| points that sound reasonably correct, but lacking in detail and
| context and you mostly forget about it after you read it, it's
| disposable.
|
| A long-form narrative that is convincing and made to last and
| read repeatedly is much harder to write.
| causi wrote:
| There _must_ be an automated tool for transforming twitter
| threads into blog posts and posting them.
| jasode wrote:
| _> Honestly, I don't get why people do it. For the likes? For the
| shares?_
|
| I suspect the author already knows the answer but dances around
| it because any low-effort search engine query[1] would point to
| several articles explaining why:
|
| - text that's directly on Twitter often has _higher engagement_
| than making people click external links[2]
|
| - most people don't want to set up a blog -- especially if it's
| _counterproductive_ to the 1st bullet point above
|
| Yes, if they write on a true blog website, the improved
| readability will score points with some folks such as the author
| of this essay. Since variations of his argument have been
| repeated with no noticeable decline in Twitter threads, I think
| it shows that "blog readers" are a non-priority to influential
| Twitter users.
|
| tldr: author lists the "true" reasons blogs are superior but
| completely misses the motivations for Twitter users to avoid
| blogs
|
| [1]
| https://www.google.com/search?q=why+do+people+post+twitter+t...
|
| [2] https://buffer.com/resources/twitter-thread-
| experiment#the-p...
| iKnowKungFoo wrote:
| There's a Twitter bot for that:
|
| https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp?lang=en
|
| From any tweet in the thread, mention us with a keyword "unroll"
|
| @threadreaderapp unroll
|
| And it converts the entire thread into a blog post on their site.
| jon-wood wrote:
| Please can you provide (and direct people to) some mechanism
| other than mentioning you in a reply to tweets? I'm now at the
| point where I've muted the term "unroll" because any thread
| with some traction is swamped by people requesting the unrolled
| option.
|
| Ideally, get bought by Twitter and added as a button in the UI.
| [deleted]
| cmckn wrote:
| One of the worst things about twitter is the flood of "unroll"
| bots in the replies for every single thread that gets any amount
| of attention. Personally, I don't find threads hard to navigate
| or consume, but clearly plenty of users would rather just read a
| blog post. I can't blame them, I miss blogging.
| ant6n wrote:
| And bloggers miss the readers...
| neals wrote:
| Except that my blog doesn't have followers and stuf...
| carabiner wrote:
| This seems to be a tech generational issue. Blogs are the .plan
| files of today. Just as John Carmack now tweets and has abandoned
| his .plan, Twitter is the medium for thought sharing,
| increasingly if they are very long.
| moyix wrote:
| I'm not going to try to debate the merits of Twitter threads vs
| blog posts, but I will note that I, like many others, have an
| abandoned blog [1] but manage to post plenty of Twitter threads.
| The activation energy needed is just way lower on Twitter, and
| (as an academic) if I need to write something much more serious
| it'll usually be a paper.
|
| If you want people to blog more and tweet less, you probably have
| to find a way to make it easier than firing off a tweet thread.
|
| Edit: Also, I have to say - if blogs are such an inherently
| superior readability experience, why is engagement so much higher
| for Twitter? Perhaps it's shallow engagement, but it seems like
| the height of nerd-think to say that a platform actively used by
| hundreds of millions is "unusable".
|
| [1] https://moyix.blogspot.com/
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I don't think your personal reading comfort is the focus of
| whoever is writing threads on Twitter. Blogs are long form
| content, with structure and chapters and long sentences. Twitter
| threads are a collection of short, abbreviated thoughts that
| center around a subject.
|
| These two rarely compete. I don't think I've ever seen a Twitter
| thread that would be better if it were a blog, and I don't think
| I've seen blogs that I'd rather see as a twitter thread.
|
| If you're a blogger or website designer then you have entirely
| different goals than the people writing threads on Twitter.
| People here moan all the time about things being a Twitter thread
| instead of a blog but nobody cares about what you prefer. Twitter
| threads are the result of someone on social media deciding to
| talk for a bit more than one post, not some predetermined article
| someone wants to write. There's no long draft being queued one by
| one, posts are told separately.
|
| Expecting people to set up a blog and link to it is like asking a
| friend who's telling you a story to stop and write the whole
| thing down because all of the unnecessary side details are
| distracting you. It's unnecessary, rude and if they went along
| it'd detract from the story being told. If you dislike the way
| content is brought out on Twitter, don't go to Twitter. You can
| block it in your Pihole, Adblocker, hosts file, you name it.
| Don't tell others how to tell their stories, that's not your call
| to make.
|
| I'd prefer more people I follow to be on open alternatives such
| as Mastodon, but I'm not going to write blogs about advicing
| people why Twitter is bad and Mastodon is better.
| derefr wrote:
| > Blogs are long form content, with structure and chapters and
| long sentences.
|
| They don't have to be. I read blog posts all the time that are
| three-to-ten paragraphs. Just someone reeling off about some
| particular thing that's on their mind, taking up exactly as
| much space as it takes, with no extra space for puffery. That's
| what the average text post on Facebook (not Facebook Pages)
| looks like. That's what the average text post on Tumblr looks
| like. Etc.
|
| The long articles that get posted to Medium et al and shared on
| HN are the _exception_ , not the rule. They're often not even
| "blog posts" per se, in any conventional sense; they're
| editorials or works of journalism, pieces by professional
| writers. Or they're single-page dives into a subject that go so
| deep that they could have been whole book. If it takes you
| multiple days to write, it's not a blog post.
|
| > Twitter threads are the result of someone on social media
| deciding to talk for a bit more than one post, not some
| predetermined article someone wants to write.
|
| I don't know about you, but personally, most of my own blog
| posts are the result of me starting to write an HN comment;
| realizing it's become _too long_ ; and then cutting the text
| out of the HN comment field and pasting it into my blog's post
| field, writing the rest of it, and hitting Post.
|
| In other words, for me at least, blog posts are _overgrown_
| comments, where they start to seem to hold value out-of-context
| (though I do usually link the thing I 'm replying to, because
| that's lazier than rewording the post to make it context-free.)
|
| And usually, once I post the post to my blog, I paste the link
| to the post back into the comment field I was originally typing
| in. It still serves as a reply to the parent comment. You just
| have to click through to look at it.
|
| Isn't this the original concept of Twitter? Microblogging,
| where Twitter acts as the index/"spine" of your blog, and
| external sites act as the meat on the bones?
|
| > Don't tell others how to tell their stories, that's not your
| call to make.
|
| Speech is communication. People talk/write/etc. because they
| want other people to listen to them, and take in what they're
| saying.
|
| As such, telling someone that their chosen medium sucks for
| communication, isn't a slight against them; it's feedback about
| how well their stories are doing at their goal of achieving
| effective communication.
|
| If a great band sets up an outdoor concert next to an open
| construction site with tons of workers using jackhammers, I
| imagine you'd have _feedback_ about that choice for them,
| wouldn 't you? It's certainly their choice... but if their goal
| is for people to be able to _hear the music_ , then there might
| be a few things they're not realizing.
| jasode wrote:
| _> Isn't this the original concept of Twitter? Microblogging,
| _
|
| Fyi based on books about Twitter history... Jack Dorsey's
| original concept of Twitter was inspired by AOL AIM _status
| messages_ and not blogging.
|
| _> Microblogging, where Twitter acts as the index/"spine" of
| your blog, and external sites act as the meat on the bones?_
|
| Arguably, another Twitter founder Ev Williams (who started
| Bloggr, Medium) was more into "thoughtful texts" and wanted
| Twitter to support that. However, when Twitter was a big hit
| at the 2007 Austin SWSX, it was the "silly" _status messages_
| that made Twitter viral.
| criddell wrote:
| > Isn't this the original concept of Twitter?
|
| I don't think it is. I believe the original concept of
| Twitter was basically group texts.
| kevq wrote:
| That's interesting because it just so happens that the example
| I gave in the post is actually a blog post and I think it works
| far better that way.
|
| Link if anyone is interested -
| https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/
| Arubis wrote:
| "Forget First Drafts; Write Perfect the First Time Instead" or
| "Forget The Way That Happens To Work For You; Write The Way You
| Failed To Do For Years Instead".
|
| Blog posts are probably more readable than Twitter threads; I
| won't argue that. But if using Twitter is the thing that gets you
| to get ideas out of your head and into the written word, it's a
| hell of a lot better than just thinking about that awesome blog
| post and then never writing it--and, as siblings have noted, the
| "dump into Twitter, revise into a blog post" flow is both common
| and totally reasonable.
| leephillips wrote:
| "it's a hell of a lot better"
|
| Better for whom? On the whole, it's worse. Worse for me. Worse
| for everyone.
|
| "than just thinking about that awesome blog post and then never
| writing it"
|
| No. Please think about it and never write it. That's the best
| outcome I can think of. Am I asking too much?
| Arubis wrote:
| Honestly? Yes, you are. The behavior of other folks that
| aren't on your payroll & aren't hurting you by isn't your
| domain; your option is simply to not read it. Or, more
| colloquially: they're not your b****.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Thinking by writing is a concept that PG talks about in his
| most recent essay, posted literally today.
|
| It's absolutely a thing, and to shun it is to shun an entire
| creative process.
| cindarin wrote:
| You certainly are.
| saadalem wrote:
| There are 2 points:
|
| 1- a big percentage of threads are just mediocre blog posts
|
| 2- what is good about twitter threads? they are written for
| humans. as opposed to articles and blog posts that are written
| for search engines.
| theHIDninja wrote:
| This is good advice given that Twitter should be violently shut
| down. It will make things significantly easier to archive.
| viksit wrote:
| Actually, I prefer to write a twitter thread first and then blog
| it. My 2c on this,
|
| - Yes the ux sucks but people are used to reading threads.
|
| - There are tools like thread reader app that unroll threads and
| store for future reference.
|
| - tools like Dewey help manage threads.
|
| - tools like chirr.app and typefully help create threads with
| nice heuristics that split your post into threads.
|
| - You get distribution and get to grow an audience.
|
| - specific tweets can be thought of as "highlights" that are
| retweeted vs liked
|
| - it's easier to link other peoples tweets and threads, as well
| as your own to build a knowledge graph of sorts
|
| - it forces you to think in small increments and build up your
| arguments in sequence. I've found it quite helpful in
| articulating thoughts.
|
| - lastly, by publishing it on twitter and inviting debate, your
| audience could get you to rethink povs and also add more of them
| to your thinking. when you finally write a post, not only are
| they more likely to retweet and get you seen wider -- they'll
| feel an aspect of contribution to it which helps cement your
| relationship with them.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Many of these "fixes" suggests that your reader have a Twitter
| account.
|
| People who use Twitter frequently assumes that most people use
| the platform, which isn't really true.
|
| Still, I can't fault people for posting longer Twitter threads.
| Even if setting up a blog is pretty easy, they already have a
| platform, however flawed it might be. Also few people want to
| set up a blog for a single story, especially when the target
| audience was originally other Twitter user.
| viksit wrote:
| Yeah i think in the spirit of "write every day" and "ship
| often", twitter allows you to go from single tweets to
| threads in an instant, vs a blog where you might agonize over
| whether it's ready to publish or not.
| ts330 wrote:
| the explosion of threads is because of twitter's algo...
|
| to view a thread, you have to interact with a tweet. this
| interaction drives metrics that results in the tweet showing up
| more frequently in the algo-feed. the multi-post nature of a
| thread means there are more opportunities to "like/retweet" -
| which also drive the algo-feed.
|
| all this increases follower count... and an audience (that's soon
| to be easily monetisable on twitter) is far more valuable than a
| blog... _unfortunately_
| mejutoco wrote:
| Indeed. The twitter algo seems so basic. Not a single week goes
| by without a cringey "html is a programming language" or "which
| is your favorite language, javascript or python" pushed to the
| top of my feed, with thousands of likes.
| that_guy_iain wrote:
| The thing is people write threads to write a twitter thread. It's
| to increase their following. A good twitter thread will get a
| twitter account a few hundred new followers. This is literally
| just them working to increase their audience. And most of the
| time they're increasing their audience to sell stuff.
| design-of-homes wrote:
| I agree that Twitter is a poor medium for writing. But Twitter
| gives you an audience (and retweets).
|
| A recent discussion on Hacker News on Medium had a number of
| posters say that without a presence on Medium they would not have
| found exposure for their writing [1].
|
| If the platform gives you an audience, you can't underestimate
| that appeal for authors of any topic.
|
| I started writing a blog on a niche topic in 2007 and continued
| writing fairly regularly until 2013. Why did I stop? Simply
| because hardly anyone was reading the blog!
|
| At first, I convinced myself I was writing for myself and an
| audience was not important. But over time, I came to realise
| that, although the size of the audience was not important to me,
| the interest and engagement of readers did matter (especially for
| a blog with a very niche topic). Hardly any readers commented on
| my blog posts (which was important to me).
|
| Today, there are lots of blogs - mostly corporate blogs writing
| about their products, or single author bloggers trying to
| establish their "personal brand". The writing style is often
| inflated, formal, corporate-sounding: in short, simply bland.
| What's gone is the more personal voice of an author - more common
| when personal blogging was more prevalent. I think the heyday of
| personal blogging is mostly over. And that's a shame.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28493431
| realusername wrote:
| I also hesitated to write on medium or not. On the upside you
| get so much exposure but on the downside the platform itself is
| pretty crappy and it's not really "your own place". For now I
| continue on my personal blog but I recognise the advantage of
| Medium.
| bachmeier wrote:
| > But Twitter gives you an audience (and retweets).
|
| It only gives you an audience and retweets if you already have
| an audience and they retweet you. If I posted a Twitter thread,
| it would be nothing but crickets. It's _extremely_ difficult to
| build up a Twitter following of 10,000 that are willing to
| interact with you and retweet your stuff in 2021 unless lots of
| people know you outside of Twitter. For the most part, the days
| of Twitter interaction are over. These days, it 's mostly about
| self-promotion and existing brands.
| macintux wrote:
| How much harder is it to build an audience for a blog?
|
| All it takes is one retweet to give you a massive engagement
| boost, so you don't even need an audience to have an impact
| on Twitter.
| bachmeier wrote:
| I'm not saying anything about building an audience for a
| blog, only that Twitter is useless for nearly everyone. The
| massive engagement boost from one retweet is meaningless in
| terms of building an audience or having an impact outside
| of that tweet. A blog can get indexed by Google and bring
| in folks ten years from now. Tweets, in contrast, have a
| lifetime of a few hours and then they disappear into the
| ether. I'd much rather have a post hit the front page of HN
| than get 50 retweets (which would be in the extreme right
| tail of all tweets).
| mraza007 wrote:
| I agree with your comments, In blogging its your own like
| you own the content plus its for the long term.
| AndrewStephens wrote:
| > I agree that Twitter is a poor medium for writing. But
| Twitter gives you an audience (and retweets).
|
| Does it though? I have a blog and occasionally tweet. My blog
| gets about 30 hits on an average day, mainly through search
| engines.
|
| If I tweet, I get maybe 20 impressions. And those impressions
| are all that I get, nobody goes back and reads 6 month old
| tweets and there is no way to search for them.
| kevq wrote:
| > I think the heyday of personal blogging is mostly over.
|
| Couldn't agree more, and I also agree that it's a real shame.
| tlackemann wrote:
| From a UX standpoint, for the writer, threads a great way to spin
| off thoughts without caring about the long-format.
|
| Maybe there's an opportunity for existing blogging platforms to
| pick up this cue. Provide an app or experience that makes
| punching in a bunch of thoughts quick and easy then publish it as
| one post.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Twitter gives you engagement, interaction and feedback in a way
| blog posts don't. I still dream of someday figuring out how to
| get such engagement. I feel like I'm suffocating and it's hurting
| my writing. I need engagement to know what to write about and I'm
| not really getting the kind of engagement I need.
|
| If you are socially plugged in at work or something and somehow
| magically know what the pulse of some segment of society is, good
| for you. Different strokes for different folks.
|
| For some people, Twitter is how they take that pulse. Why rain on
| their parade?
| ljf wrote:
| Posted this before (and it is a bad analogy I am sure) but I find
| moaning that something is in twitter is akin to moaning that
| someone told a story in a pub.
|
| Pubs are noisy, and busy, and distracting, and I don't like them,
| and they aren't great for kids at night...
|
| But it doesn't matter - the person was there, their friends were
| there, they had a story they wanted to tell and they told it in a
| way they enjoyed.
|
| End of. Great if someone videoed it so others who don't like pubs
| could see it too, but mainly that doesn't happen. Just accept
| that some people like different things than you, and if it
| bothers you - take their content and blog about it, critique it
| and share it. But don't tell the story teller to change -
| especially if you want them to head somewhere where their friends
| are not... The point of a good story is to entertain an audience,
| wherever they may be.
| epivosism wrote:
| I think this is a good analogy. But isn't it possible that some
| people really do not know that they _should_ go on youtube and
| record their stories? It seems like the argument is trying to a
| priori settle the question of whether you should apply "Voice
| or exit" [1]
|
| 1 https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty
| kevq wrote:
| (Writer of the post here)
|
| I really like this analogy as it gives a different perspective.
| Thanks for that.
|
| In fairness to me though, I never told anyone to change - I
| simply gave my opinion then questioned why people find it
| useful and get value from it.
| ricketycricket wrote:
| > In fairness to me though, I never told anyone to change - I
| simply gave my opinion then questioned why people find it
| useful and get value from it.
|
| Though, in fairness to ljf, your tl;dr at the top says
| "Please stop; write a blog post instead."
| [deleted]
| dcow wrote:
| Threads hack the algorithm by driving up interaction, though.
| It'd be like if you were in a pub with millions of other people
| and instead of being able to talk to anyone the owner started
| recommending people to talk to based on little submissions by
| enterprising _CEO of Me_ s.
|
| _Hi welcome to Jack's. Drinks? What? No, but see that group of
| people over there... that dude (he /him) has quite the story to
| tell about the pitfalls of using css transforms when rendering
| responsive content on a certain older version of webkit. And
| see that group over to the left... that person (they/them) is
| real angry about something I have no idea what but other people
| are listening so you better head over. Oh and please walk
| through the queue... mind my little sign spinners if their
| wares interest you do entertain their incredible offers. Off
| you go!_
|
| I think Discord (and possibly still IRC) is the digital pub.
| MBCook wrote:
| I really don't think any normal person is posting threads on
| Twitter because it's algorithmically advantageous to them.
| cheschire wrote:
| I wonder how many _normal_ people are on twitter in the
| first place. I typically wait for news aggregators to share
| the thread with me. I don 't need to drink from a firehose
| when a cup of water is all I need.
| derefr wrote:
| Most actively-posting accounts on Twitter are not "normal
| people", but rather either corporate PR brand ambassadors,
| or the same sorts of social climbers who write blog posts
| on LinkedIn. Of course they do what's algorithmically
| advantageous. That's why they're bothering to post to
| Twitter in the first place, instead of/in addition to the
| six other social networks they maintain a presence on.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| I'm not sure most _normal_ people are posting on Twitter,
| by that definition. It 's a social network with global
| visibility of everything - you become an "influencer" the
| moment your account experiences even a modicum of success.
| kixiQu wrote:
| I like being able to respond to specific bits of what people
| have to say. While it has the distraction and noisy downside
| of a conversation occurring linearly in time, to me, that
| ability makes it better than a linear conversation in that
| way. Discord is now getting that with threads, though.
| swlkr wrote:
| A lot of twitter users don't follow links, that might be part of
| it too.
| dnissley wrote:
| At least on my corner of twitter, threads gained huge popularity
| after a spontaneous event ran by @vgr (of ribbonfarm, premium
| mediocre, and gervais principle fame) at the end of 2019 called
| threadapalooza. It's now being turned into a yearly affair. The
| history is relayed in this thread:
|
| https://twitter.com/threadapalooza/status/130981614713549209...
| alkonaut wrote:
| Really _really_ few bits of content deserve a blog post. Most
| written content is ephemeral and uninteresting two weeks from
| now. It 's perfect to be buried in Twitter never to be seen
| again. There is certainly content that deserves better layout,
| better archiving and so on. But most written content on twitter
| isn't like that (at least in my feed). Also, having to leave
| Twitter and click a browser link is usually to disruptive for me
| when scrolling twitter. Information that doesn't come on the
| spoon loses my attention to the information in the next tweet.
| gompertz wrote:
| Strongly agree - a blog post usually gets padded with tons of
| filler for SEO; and is prepended with 3 paragraphs of some
| "backstory" from the author's life as to why XYZ is now
| relevant or useful.
|
| Twitter forces succinct and disposable thoughts.
|
| Similarly, I would sooner read Twitter the rest of my life than
| ever touch another business book which are all glued together
| compilations of blog posts and/or the author's re-hash of
| research of 100+ academic papers. I mean, it's sort of
| understandable things have went this way; any original business
| thought of substantial merit has already been written about
| probably pre-1995. Twitter is good for catching the few little
| new age nuggets without re-reading 300 page books of the same
| drivel.
| advrs wrote:
| > As someone who has only really started using Twitter in the
| last few months
|
| Seems like a little bit of a self-report right off the bad. The
| OP is not very familiar with Twitter and the ecosystem and user
| behaviors of the platform, and is coming with (admittedly biased)
| perspective as a blogger.
|
| For example:
|
| > someone that I follow re-tweeted Tweet number 47 in this
| ridiculously long thread.
|
| This is actually highlighting one of the _benefits_ of Twitter
| threads as a text - chunkable content. Blog posts are great for a
| long narrative that requires full context of the intro
| /supporting/conclusion, but Twitter threads excel in areas where
| the content is more a series statements/points that can stand
| alone. Think more like "bullet points" of a topic rather than a
| longer-form narrative.
|
| But then, the OP transitions into the quick assumption that the
| problem is the difficulty in setting up a blog, which is a big
| assumption that I think misses the actual benefits of this format
| vs. traditional blogging.
| kevq wrote:
| (OP here)I'm very familiar with Twitter, as I've been using it
| for quite a long time, I just came back to it a few months ago.
|
| Probably should have been more accurate in the post, sorry
| about that.
| martin8412 wrote:
| I'll take Twitter threads over YouTube every single time.. I
| don't want to spend 10+ minutes listening to some guy explain
| something that should take less than two minutes, but they have
| to prolong it to get that ad revenue
| vangelis wrote:
| Did another @foone thread make the first page?
| gunnarmorling wrote:
| I find creating a Twitter thread has a lower barrier of entry in
| comparison to writing a blog post. Sometimes I have contents
| which I'd like to get out, but then I can't motivate myself to
| write a full post (where I'd also want to explore the topic in
| more depth to achieve a certain level of quality). Doing a quick
| thread is a nice way out then.
|
| For instance, in this case [1] I felt it's not worth spending the
| energy and time on a post, but it was still an interesting bit to
| share. Plus, tweet threads allow for their own kind of fun
| experiments like this one [2], which you couldn't reproduce with
| a blog post. I.e. both have their place in my opinion.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/gunnarmorling/status/1271745125920759808
| [2] https://twitter.com/nipafx/status/1438022721066123266
| mig39 wrote:
| > For example, this thread is 50 Tweets long. Fifty. Tweets.
| Long!
|
| You should check out the blog post instead, then.
|
| https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/
|
| It's weird to use Doctorow as an example for someone who should
| blog instead of use Twitter.
| kevq wrote:
| Is it though? Posting the entire thing to a blog, then
| reposting the entire thing to Twitter over a sprawl of 50
| tweets seems even more ridiculous to me.
| antasvara wrote:
| Threads are definitely a worse experience. However, I think
| you're overestimating the ability of one's audience to transfer
| to another platform. It's hard enough to get someone to read
| something _on Twitter,_ let alone get them to click through to
| another site.
|
| Threads capitalize on the momentum of writing a good tweet,
| without losing a reader by making them go to another site.
| mrkramer wrote:
| That's why Twitter should've bought Medium and integrate it
| with Twitter. And then Twitter could've offered you to convert
| and transfer Twitter threads to Medium blog posts. Think of it
| as Facebook/Instagram interoperability.
|
| As usual Twitter was slow and without vision and then Substack
| emerged.
| blendergeek wrote:
| Twitter did buy Vine and Periscope. I don't think their
| problem is just "not buying other companies".
| mrkramer wrote:
| Twitter is mismanaged and lacks vision. Vine, Periscope and
| Medium if further developed and integrated good could've
| made Twitter 10 times larger just like Instagram and
| YouTube made Facebook and Google worth at least $100bn
| more.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| To quote Mark Zuckerberg (allegedly), on Twitter:
| "They're like a clown car that fell into a goldmine".
| empiko wrote:
| Do you really need a reader that is too lazy to click on your
| article? And from the reader point of view, I assume that
| whatever is written in twitter threads is not really that
| important, since the authors could not be bothered with writing
| in a proper and discoverable form.
| highstep wrote:
| is it laziness or just unwillingness to suffer the pain that
| comes from loading a modern day website monstrosity (cookie
| popup, newsletter popup, autoplay video, moving content,
| accidentally ad clicks)
| antasvara wrote:
| Is this your personal view, or is it one that you're
| confident a lot of people share? I know plenty of writers on
| Twitter that have blogs and still write threads; this
| indicates that there's at least some benefit to capturing
| readers in that way.
|
| I love blog posts and prefer them to threads. However, it
| being a thread won't prevent me from reading content from
| intelligent people on the internet.
|
| You're missing out on some great insight by not reading
| something based purely on formatting. If I read someone's
| blog, I don't immediately assume that their Twitter threads
| are useless. Maybe their blog is for long-form content and
| the topic they want to discuss is shorter.
| noaheverett wrote:
| I understand both sides, if you have an audience on Twitter and
| want to quickly throw out a thread, it works for quick feedback,
| but at the expense of readability. If the thread is just a few
| Tweets long it isn't too bad, but beyond that it's hard to read.
|
| Shameless plug: I launched Glue this year which succinctly put
| _is like Twitter and Medium had a baby_ [1]. Glue has your
| standard microblogging features, but you can "expand" into a
| full blog post if you want [2]. I specifically wanted to tackle
| the melding of a microblogging timeline, long form writing
| (blogs) and the ability to use your own domain if you wish.
|
| [1] https://glue.im/noah
|
| [2] https://glue.im/noah/the-story-of-twitpic
| dcow wrote:
| Neat! Signed up.
| decentralizeme wrote:
| Gotta disagree with the title.. A twitter thread forces the
| author to condense key points thoroughly and present it in a way
| where fluff talk has no place due to character limitations. Even
| if it just consists of links, I prefer consuming good threads
| rather than poorly structured & fluff-stuffed blog posts.
| kevq wrote:
| When a Twitter thread is 50 tweets long, there's just as much
| "fluff" as a regular blog post. Plus, the example I use in the
| post is actually a blog post, so just reposted to a mahoosive
| Twitter thread.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Get back to me when your blog post has the same engagement level
| as my Twitter thread.
| Zababa wrote:
| > Using the example above, I became aware of it because someone
| that I follow re-tweeted Tweet number 47 in this ridiculously
| long thread. Because it was a random Tweet in a very long thread,
| I (and I imagine most other people reading the tweet) had
| absolutely no context as to what the whole saga was about.
|
| How is that different from taking a screenshot or posting an
| extract of a blog post, with a link to it?
|
| > I've some really interesting threads on Twitter that are full
| of useful information, but as a consumer of that content, it's a
| nightmare to follow. Content creators should make content as
| simple to consume as possible.
|
| If you're already on twitter, reading a thread is easier than
| going to a blog and reading it.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| Does anyone know how OPs blog is hosted? It looks nice.
| giglamesh wrote:
| Not sure if this is a serious question or not, but OP tells us
| in the /about page. To quote: This site is
| built upon WordPress. I use a custom child theme that calls the
| excellent GeneratePress Pro theme. I have a lifetime
| subscription to GeneratePress, and it's worth every penny.
| The font I use on this site is Fira Sans Condensed, which is
| (in my opinion) a beautiful sans-serif font, created by
| Mozilla.`
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| Woops, I missed that! Thanks for pointing it out. I notice
| that his site is part of the 512kb club. I'm surprised such a
| nice site is so slim!
| kevq wrote:
| OP here. I actually founded the 512kb club.
|
| Thanks for the kind words about the site - there's still
| more I want to do to optimise further, like get rid of
| bloody Jquery for a start!
|
| Having said that, half a MB is a lot of data. You can do a
| lot with it.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Maybe this person should subscribe to Cory Doctorow's blog then.
|
| Cory Doctorow published a blog post
| https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all...
| with the same content of the thread cited in the article.
|
| A case of "get off my lawn" ?
| kapral18 wrote:
| Funny how my experience is the complete opposite. I perceive
| twitter threads as a superior format of consuming reading
| content.
|
| - it's chunked, which forces the writer to formulate more
| structured thought nuggets and keep the reader engaged
|
| - it allows you to share specific portion of the content that you
| like instead of sharing a blog that people ignore because they
| never read past the intro
|
| - instead of bashing publishing on twitter threads, I think we
| should focus on developing tools that allow to convert and
| reshare your (I don't mean your but you get the idea) long read
| blog that nobody reads into twitter threads
|
| I have never skipped a thread on twitter. The longer the better
| and more engaging.
|
| I strongly believe that format is superior to most other reading
| formats and it aligns really well with our biological focus
| rhythms
| cletus wrote:
| No format can get me to shut the window and move on faster than a
| Twitter "thread".
|
| Just put it in a Twitlonger and tweet that post. It's literally
| that simple.
|
| I honestly cannot fathom why anyone thought it was a good idea to
| tie several tweets into a sequence as a format.
|
| My reaction to Part 2s on Tiktok is almost, but not quite, as
| visceral.
| ms123 wrote:
| Two places to set up simple/minimal blogs
|
| - https://bearblog.dev/
|
| - https://smol.pub/ (shameless plug)
| dsizzle wrote:
| <Why not both? meme>
|
| There is something to be said for threads that provide a few
| "bullet points" of the article.
|
| I would agree with the author when the threads get crazy long, or
| if the tweets don't encapsulate a single point.
| bachmeier wrote:
| > <Why not both? meme>
|
| > There is something to be said for threads that provide a few
| "bullet points" of the article.
|
| You're right, but those sentences are two fairly different
| animals. Tweeting the main points and linking to a blog post is
| great. Putting a blog post into a Twitter thread is awful.
| g5095 wrote:
| "I've tried posting a couple of Twitter threads myself, but both
| times I did it I found it awkward and confusing. Honestly, I
| don't get why people do it. For the likes? For the shares?"
|
| This seems quite disingenuous, you clearly 'get why people do it'
| you just iterated the reasons you tried it yourself ;p
| alpb wrote:
| I am gonna go ahead and make a claim that Twitter will outlive
| 95% of the personal websites that Hacker News readers will set up
| and host.
|
| Most of us developers don't have a good habit of blogging and we
| aren't good writers either. Twitter gives you a long-lasting
| platform to briefly express opinions without much boilerplate and
| structure, and still get the message across.
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