{"id":5523,"date":"2016-03-01T17:02:51","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T17:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/\/?p=5523"},"modified":"2016-02-18T17:05:42","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T17:05:42","slug":"linked-is-it-too-late-to-go-back-to-the-twitter-that-might-have-been","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2016\/03\/01\/linked-is-it-too-late-to-go-back-to-the-twitter-that-might-have-been\/","title":{"rendered":"LInked: &#8220;Is It Too Late to Go Back to the Twitter That Might Have Been?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/fortune.com\/2016\/02\/12\/twitter-future\/\">via Fortune<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>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\u2014the messaging service that has brought social communication to hundreds of major corporations and could be worth almost $3 billion based on its last financing.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I wish I had screen-shot all of @Jack\u2019s blog posts from back in the day back when he had a blog. When Dom &amp; I were working on \u201c140 Characters\u201d 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\u2019s short-SMS code where you could send some commands like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Follow AdamChandler<\/li>\n<li>@AdamChandler Hi<\/li>\n<li>DM AdamChandler Hi<\/li>\n<li>Unfollow AdamChandler<\/li>\n<li>Mute AdamChandler<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You receive notifications from people you follow as they tweet and you can reply to them directly, privately, etc. Retweet was just \u201cRT\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2009\/08\/31\/twitter-pro-personal-business\/\">As I wrote in 2009:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>That old question of monetizing the service continues to come up so I\u2019d like to say that I\u2019m fully prepared to pay for Twitter even if it means that I have to trick them into thinking I\u2019m 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\u2019s slated to be released by the end of 2009\u2026.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I still like that list a lot and Twitter hasn\u2019t become inclusive, it\u2019s become exclusionary choosing to replace TwitPic and own TweetDeck and tighten the API calls limit and inject ads into our feeds.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s fun to think about what Twitter could have been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"via Fortune: In a nutshell, Twitter could have been a little like email, or the SMS messaging system.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2016-03-17T01:57:56Z","apple_news_api_id":"c1cebb9c-1732-4be1-9119-a13fcdcd75bb","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2016-03-17T01:57:56Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Awc67nBcyS-GRGaE_zc11uw","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-linked","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-1r5","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6754,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2017\/04\/09\/linked-now-on-twitter-140-characters-for-your-replies\/","url_meta":{"origin":5523,"position":0},"title":"Linked: &#8220;Now on Twitter: 140 characters for your replies&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 9, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"via Twitter Blog: Remember how we told you we were working on ways to let you to express more with 140 characters? Since then, we\u2019ve introduced two updates, and today we\u2019re rolling out another. Now, when you reply to someone or a group, those @usernames won\u2019t count toward your Tweet\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4240,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2014\/09\/05\/linked-community-services\/","url_meta":{"origin":5523,"position":1},"title":"Linked: Community Services","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"September 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"via Waffle & Brent Simmons: Eventually, communities moved from BBSes and newsgroups to forums, email, chats and instant messaging. But at some point, it became \u201csocial media\u201d, and forms of media turned into products. And this isn\u2019t just Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, it goes as far back as del.icio.us, Flickr\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7315,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2018\/01\/25\/linked-twitter-is-working-on-a-snapchat-style-video-sharing-tool\/","url_meta":{"origin":5523,"position":2},"title":"Linked: &#8220;Twitter Is Working on a Snapchat-Style Video Sharing Tool&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"via Bloomberg Tech: I truly feel for Jack Dorsey at Twitter. Yes, he's made millions in stock and salary but his dream for Twitter was a global communications system inspired by the routes and movements of bike messengers. Where anyone with SMS could share with everyone in the world without\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3243,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/10\/17\/how-i-ditched-sms-and-how-you-can-do-it-to-or-how-to-save-20-a-month-for-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":5523,"position":3},"title":"\u2605 How I ditched SMS and how you can do it too or how to save $20 a month for life","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"October 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Texting is still the easiest and most common way to communicate with friends and family. Texting is not only a \"first world\" technology. You can find text messaging in every country with a mobile phone infrastructure. In fact, one of the killer features of Twitter is SMS. You can tweet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Testing Phones","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2706\/4516576824_270ea7a83a_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2706\/4516576824_270ea7a83a_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2706\/4516576824_270ea7a83a_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4335,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2014\/11\/13\/more-evidence-that-twitter-is-screwed\/","url_meta":{"origin":5523,"position":4},"title":"More Evidence that Twitter is Screwed","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"November 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u2026or phrased better, they have no idea what they\u2019re doing over there. I can\u2019t tell if this is just a minor blip in \u201cthrow things at the wall and see what sticks\u201d or if Twitter is trying really hard to show investors, \u201cwe have many outlets ideas to bring in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7317,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2018\/01\/25\/gimme-back-my-gchat\/","url_meta":{"origin":5523,"position":5},"title":"Linked: Gimme Back My Gchat","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Gimme Back My Gchat: These days, we all use several chat products. iMessage here. Facebook Messenger there. Telegram at times. Slack at work. WhatsApp. Snapchat. Confide. Signal. Line. Kik. GroupMe. Tango. Skype. The list goes on. And that\u2019s not to mention the chat functionality within apps like Instagram. And even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}