{"id":1760,"date":"2016-11-22T01:41:59","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T01:41:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/why-now-more-than-ever-we-need-a-twitter-that-works.html"},"modified":"2016-11-22T01:41:59","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T01:41:59","slug":"why-now-more-than-ever-we-need-a-twitter-that-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/why-now-more-than-ever-we-need-a-twitter-that-works.html","title":{"rendered":"Why now, more than ever, we need a Twitter that works"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

We just witnessed, to paraphrase John Oliver, the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election Dumpster Fire F**ktacular<\/a>. Much of it took place on social media, and much is being written of late about how Facebook and Twitter have changed virtually everything that we\u2019ve come to see as a normal part of an election cycle: the consumption of daily news and facts (or non-facts).<\/p>\n

Remember 2012, when we called it the \u201cTwitter Election\u201d<\/a> due to Obama\u2019s skill in exploiting the fledgling platform? It seems almost quaint now. 2016 will be remembered as the election where the power of Twitter was revealed in full as a platform that can enable an individual with little formal organization to bypass media institutions and speak directly to a populace all the way to the presidency.<\/p>\n

On Sunday\u2019s\u00a060 Minutes <\/em>interview<\/a>, Trump could hardly contain his self-satisfaction regarding how well Twitter and Facebook had served him.<\/p>\n

Why was exploiting Twitter such an advantage for Trump? Because Twitter is an unusually powerful media platform, providing an unprecedented ability to reach anyone in the world, with far less friction than ever before.<\/p>\n

That ability points to a deep responsibility for Twitter and Facebook, among others, to acknowledge their roles as arbiters of information that can have historical implications. And it\u2019s possible Twitter and Facebook aren\u2019t up to the task \u2014 there is a need for a responsible social network, and if they can\u2019t do it, someone else has to.<\/p>\n

\"twitter-eats-newspaper2\"<\/p>\n

The power of smush<\/h2>\n

Consider how much has changed in nine short years. Until 2007, if you wanted to build an audience and sell your ideas to millions of viewers, you needed to raise money to build a cable network or a printing office, hire a sales force to sell ads or hire a bunch of Columbia journalism or USC film grads to produce content. You needed to buy cameras and pay business affairs people and all manner of other things.<\/p>\n

Not anymore.<\/p>\n

Twitter has given anyone and everyone a direct voice to the world by smushing together three things that in traditional media have been mostly separate: distribution,<\/em> or a platform to connect the world (formerly Comcast or Dish; today the completely commoditized mobile phone and internet); application<\/em> (formerly the 30-minute video-on-a-screen-plus-ads model; today the pixels that comprise an app like Twitter or Facebook); and content<\/em> (formerly Rachel Maddow\u2019s show; today tweets and Facebook posts).<\/p>\n

The implications of this are profound. First, Twitter owns its own distribution. Because it\u2019s a network, every new user makes the platform that much more essential, whether you\u2019re one of the Monthly Active Users that Twitter is so often maligned for not adding fast enough \u2014 or whether you\u2019re one of the hundreds of millions of people who are consuming news elsewhere about what\u2019s happening on Twitter. Traditional media amplification of Twitter content doesn\u2019t get Wall Street excited, but it nonetheless solidifies Twitter\u2019s place in the world. Prior purveyors of the pipes to consumers (like cable companies) had neither the leverage nor the capabilities to play the role of content arbiter with subscribers.<\/p>\n