[gabriele]

They needed to really hire non SF based techno geeks and advisors

Twitter should be led by someone who is strong in PR. PR is where Twitter has excelled most. I believe neither Jack Dorsey nor Dick Costolo are even known outside of the tech industry, how can they manage a PR product if people barely knows them? Even Scooble would be a better fit than Jack Dorsey. If I were Twitter I'd put in charge some well known public figure with connections in the media and movies industries.

[toyg]

So you're basically saying Twitter should be the next Yahoo!. That didn't work out so well for them. Besides, media people are the ones who actually like Twitter as it is now: top-down broadcasts in a controlled environment with ads and analytics.

If I were Twitter I would poach Amazon executives and make them flog the company into shape: lean, dogfooding, pushing out services to the tech community, and letting new paradigms emerge before co-opting them.

[gabriele]

To my knowledge, Yahoo! has always been led by some tech geek from the Valley, too.

[toyg]

Yeah but it basically lived on contracts from traditional media and ad companies, which they proactively courted. When those markets tanked, so did Yahoo.

[gabriele]

I think Twitter is in a different position because Yahoo! has never build a bi-directional connection between producers and consumers. Obviously, that's not limited to media and ads companies. Any kind of industry is investing in PR.

I believe Twitter could succeed as a PR company but will probably fail as a tech company.