In a nutshell, Twitter could have been a little like email, or the SMS messaging system. And it probably could have become a little like what Slack is now—the messaging service that has brought social communication to hundreds of major corporations and could be worth almost $3 billion based on its last financing.
I wish I had screen-shot all of @Jack’s blog posts from back in the day back when he had a blog. When Dom & I were working on “140 Characters” planning, Jack was still in this mode of Twitter being a utility, not a service that can be joined and left easily but a utility like email, power, or a cell phone bill where going without it would be unthinkable. The core of this was 40404, Twitter’s short-SMS code where you could send some commands like:
- Follow AdamChandler
- @AdamChandler Hi
- DM AdamChandler Hi
- Unfollow AdamChandler
- Mute AdamChandler
You receive notifications from people you follow as they tweet and you can reply to them directly, privately, etc. Retweet was just “RT” typed manually. Anyone in the world with SMS (there are billions) could join Twitter and join a global conversation, a PA system for our world. SMS is robust, cheap, works even in national disasters where mobile networks are choking and has a very low barrier of entry.
Jack wanted to save the world by democratizing communication and putting everyone on the same wavelength. The web interface, the hearts, the ads, the algorithms and all of the things like Twitter Lists and a Retweet button, all of that came later. I would have preferred Twitter remained small and focused and simple.
That old question of monetizing the service continues to come up so I’d like to say that I’m fully prepared to pay for Twitter even if it means that I have to trick them into thinking I’m a business. In my opinion, pro features intended for businesses will still be useful to us normal users. Here is a list of feature requests I personally want with Twitter Pro that’s slated to be released by the end of 2009….
I still like that list a lot and Twitter hasn’t become inclusive, it’s become exclusionary choosing to replace TwitPic and own TweetDeck and tighten the API calls limit and inject ads into our feeds.
It’s fun to think about what Twitter could have been.