Month: August 2013

Earlier this week Twitter rolled out a new conversation feature. You can read all about it on their blog here. 

I love this feature. Here’s what I saw in my timeline today as one example amongst many

Yes, conversations have been a challenge on Twitter. I would see the original tweet but then I would sometimes miss the replies. Or I would see the replies and not see the original tweet.

Now I get it all if I follow both of these fine folks (which I do!). 

And I don’t see tweets in the stream from folks I don’t follow.

Wonderful.

But here is the really cool part. They added this connective tissue to the tweets without corrupting the atomic unit of the tweet. The thing with Twitter which is so unique is every post, or tweet, is of the same importance with any other tweet. 

Compare that with Facebook comments. 

On Facebook the main post is the headline. The comments to a FB status post is subordinate to the main post. It’s a hierarchy based system. “Most important” followed by “less important”.

As a result you can’t hit my FB profile and see all of the comments I’ve left on other friends post.

FB has this notion your posts have different weight or value. 

Another example, I recently joined this Leica user group on FB. I thought it would be an interesting way to join a community I should care about. 

But I can’t figure out for the life of me where my posts live. I’ve shared a number of photographs in this group. Where are my photos? 

FB isn’t the only service that does this. Its true with Instagram, Flickr, Google Plus, Youtube, and the list goes on. There is the headline post and then subordinate posts.

I suppose Twitter could have introduced comments to tweets as some have suggested over the years just like the status quo.

I’m so glad they didn’t. That would have messed up one of the most unique and special qualities about the service.

You can see every single tweet on your profile page. Here are all of mine in their 140 character glory. Each tweet has the same value and I’m over the moon about that. 

After a long stretch of sunshine it rained pretty good here on Nantucket yesterday.

But by 5pm the rain stopped and everyone went outside. The sky was still a bit grey but the weather was mild. There were huge puddle everywhere. It felt great to get outside again.

We walked into town for dinner. My wife Lauren and my daughter Ellie both happened to be wearing white pants.

On the way, Lauren asked Ellie how she would feel if a car came along and splashed water and mud on her white pants from those massive puddles on the streets.

“I would just laugh”, replied Ellie.

I love that girl.