And just as important, it ads a layer of abstraction to Alphabet's P&L. "Google's" ad business has been declining but that gets obscured now under all these wonderful "startups" that Alphabet has "funded." It also allows Alphabet to fund and IPO everything new that they do - drones? That's a funding round and an IPO. Self-driving cars? That's a funding round and an IPO. Hmmm... Glass, a startup partially funded by Alphabet, is having a rough quarter due to adoption and its stockholders are getting hammered. Fortunately everyone who owns Alphabet stock still has the bounce from the Nexus 7's adoption by AT&T and T-mobile, which also partly covers Project Fi's anti-trust suit... Really, it's an acknowledgement that Google as a company had grown unwieldy and that they'd enjoy more tactical freedom by restructuring as an octopus. Now let's start a list of tech writers and investment pundits who totally fuck it up...
What's that they say about systems? As a system is exposed to challenges it responds to those challenges by becoming more complex. A system will continue to become more complex until it reaches a point at which its complexity prevents it from pursuing the most efficient, simple, or ideal solution. That is a paraphrase of a concept that has always intrigued me. Complex organizations eventually meet a challenge that their burden prevents them from being able to tackle. At that point they fail, fall, or at least fall apart - thereby simplifying.
When I came to that conclusion, it seemed simple and so obvious. Do you suppose it isn't to most?
I think that people don't think about things, sometimes, and so fail to reach what might seem like obvious conclusions because they haven't put conscious thought into an area. For instance I don't study complexity, so the first time I read about the concept, I found that very interesting. I had to think it through and read/mentally walk through one or two examples before I was able to "get" it. However now it seems like a given maxim. I know that if everyone in the world thought the way I did, the world would be a rather different place. So even though to me the way I think seems reasonable, easy, and right, I must conclude that it is not, or it is different enough from the way most people think that the world isn't the way that I'd think it would be. So generally when something seems like it should be common knowledge or a common conclusion but not many people seem to "know" it or "get" it, I am not usually too surprised. I am sure everyone knows or thinks some thing that they think should be clear or obvious to all, but it isn't. It is easy to think the answer is clear when you know what the answer is.
If so, I hope they get it cheap. I didn't understand Twitter before I decided to learn how to do SEO and social and shit, and now that I've learned it, I'm firmly of the opinion that Twitter is the most worthless piece of shit social network there has ever been. Aside from Whisper.
- Facebook - Linkedin - Shit, Gplus The problem with Twitter is that it's about 80% bots, has a die-off rate approaching 99% and is mostly used by marketers to talk to other marketers. It's the easiest thing in the world to have your Facebook post your tweets, your Twitter tweet your Facebook, your Facebook post your Instagram and your twitter to tweet your Instagram. there's no real reason to even bother with the network other than that you can add it as a stock plugin to your SEO deck and have an "also twitter" button for everything you do. Ryan Holiday pointed out that Twitter's crowning achievement was breaking the news that Osama bin Laden was dead seven minutes before CNN. Seven minutes. Beyond that, what is there, really, that needs to be tweeted?
Whenever I tell anyone that I think Facebook is still undervalued, they look at me like I'm crazy. Of course, I deleted my Facebook years ago, suspiciously coinciding with about the time my mom got one... But trends, man. Facebook is still picking up users all across the world as more and more people acquire internetses. Edit: and retention is through the roof, probably 85% of everyone that ever used Facebook still uses it.
After all, more people use facebook than use the Internet.
Heh, didn't even have to click the link. Yeah, people are dumb. More proof that you should design your user experience and interface to accommodate the lowest common denominator.
There's nothing that says Facebook has to stick around. That's why I think it's overvalued... yeah, they've got ad revenue, but their ads poison their network. They know their shit is invasive and unloved so they have to ride the balance between "shit that makes us money" and "shit that drives our userbase away." That means they're one good competitor from death, and always have been. Fortunately for them, Gplus failed.
From what I've seen Twitter is great for powerful, dynamic people to read in tiny bursts and write in tiny bursts, then get on with what they were doing; the character limit makes Twitter the success it is. It also makes it fail at being a meaningful communication platform, given that concepts must be expressed in a finite, tiny space. Much Twitter anger seems to stem from a fundamental failure of one party to fully explain thier position within the character limit. But given celebrities' small attention spans and/or demands on thier time, I don't see them moving to another social network unless it makes the experience faster and easier to consume still. This makes Twitter-in my mind-less of a place for normal people to socialise, and more of a stream-of-consciousness of celebrities - a one-way social network, and occasional personal messaging client.
It's also great for bitching at big companies. They usually track twitter very well and I have even been fast tracked through customer service once because I tweeted that my telecom company was crap. The standard procedure if to get the complains off the web as fast as possible ;) It's also a great outlet when I'm simply frustrated. I have like 30 followers so I feel like I can post whatever my current corporate frustrations are.
That's Twitter in a nutshell - "for when you're too lazy to use PRNewswire."
