> 2. Twitter Moments is trying to be everything but Twitter.
This is true, and I think it speaks to a deeper problem: nobody at Twitter really seems to understand exactly why the core product was successful, so they're afraid to evolve it out of fear that they'll somehow break the magic spell. When ancillary products like Moments are developed, though, the designers and developers feel freer to be bold, because there's no spell there to break. So when those products get bolted on to the side of the main product, they feel exactly like that -- bolted on.
Facebook has been much more fearless about changing their core product as their userbase has grown and changed -- remember when the News Feed was a controversial new thing? -- and as a result they can give their products a unified feeling that Twitter can't.
nobody at Twitter really has a feel for exactly why the core product was successful
My 2 cents...
When twitter launched, Facebook was still closed to the general public, personal "blogs" were popular but somewhat out of reach of the general public (setup complexity), and a lot of people realized that while they had things to say, those things weren't enough to fill a blog.
Twitter allowed people to converse publicly, put micro-blog style opinions out, and do it without needing to register any domains or customize a page (MySpace).
IMO, twitter primarily filled a time-sensitive gap that has now mostly been overtaken by aspects of Facebook, Linkedin, etc. Much of Twitter is kind of paparazzi-like, and if a company came along that really leveraged the celebrity and sports icon base Twitter would fade away to a bunch of "SEO and Marketing Experts" all tweeting pre-scheduled thinly-veiled promos at each other.
That might have been the spark that lit the fire but I believe that people who are NOT celebrities that tweet actively, do it to reach a broader audience and engage in conversation with others in their vertical. This is in stark contrast to the network you would have in Facebook which is much more intimate.
Twitter is the internets water-cooler conversation.
Facebook is the conversation you have at home with your family and friends.
Moments fails because is misunderstands that Twitter is a real-time network and that its users see little value in curation. Curation is much more than just throwing a title onto some semi-random tweets and calling it a product. My two cents: http://newslines.org/blog/a-momentary-lapse-of-reason/
However, to say that Facebook is fearless about innovation is off base. They have bolted on so many parts to the core social network that it has become a Frankenstein's monster. Whatever new idea comes along every six months they bolt something new on, until the whole thing is just a big mess of competing ideas. What is needed is a rework of the social network at its core.
That's a great point. It's almost as if they're trying something new for the sake of trying something new rather than taking the risk to make the bold change where it could actually matter: their core product.
This is true, and I think it speaks to a deeper problem: nobody at Twitter really seems to understand exactly why the core product was successful, so they're afraid to evolve it out of fear that they'll somehow break the magic spell. When ancillary products like Moments are developed, though, the designers and developers feel freer to be bold, because there's no spell there to break. So when those products get bolted on to the side of the main product, they feel exactly like that -- bolted on.
Facebook has been much more fearless about changing their core product as their userbase has grown and changed -- remember when the News Feed was a controversial new thing? -- and as a result they can give their products a unified feeling that Twitter can't.