Twitter, the popular microblogging site, hit perhaps its biggest roadbump yet with users on Tuesday, when it eliminated the feature of following the conversations of people you aren’t connected with (which it deemed a “Small Settings Update”). Instead of simply making a more user-friendly default mode, Twitter deleted the option altogether, deeply offending a core user base who used the feature to find new people and expand networks.
The reaction was swift and harsh from power users. The move, which comes after a softer backlash to “celebretization” of Twitter, is deeply wrongheaded. Twitter should learn from the rage against arbitrary Facebook changes, and MySpace’s failure to define itself, and quickly return to a user-centric model, not a clownish attention to growth over utility.
Photo by David Reece.
Adriel Hampton is a journalist, Gov 2.0 and new media strategist, public servant, and licensed private investigator. He is running for U.S. Congress in the 2009 special election for California’s 10th District.
CampaignAdvertisements.com: Digital Consulting & Ad Strategy. 
2 responses to “Twitter’s Clownish Attention to Growth Over Utility”
How does twitter or any site make changes from here on out? Have everyone “vote”? Make it into an open source? Spin a wheel? You can’t please everybody, but the minority uproar base (check the stats) seem opposed to a majority that doesn’t care, which is acceptance by lack of opposition. I don’t object to gaining armrest space when they remove a cupholder… if I don’t drink coffee in the car…
Tony, there’s a difference between making changes to a system the right way and what Twitter did here. Twitter made a MAJOR change overnight without ANY warning about what was happening or why. This change pretty much breaks the usefulness of Twitter for a LOT of people.
Change is good, but removing features that we have come to accept is NOT.