Why Auto-Expanded Images + Vines on Twitter is Bad News

This week Twitter rolled out a major change to the tweet stream:  auto-expanded photos and vines in users main feeds.  Now instead of having to click to expand the Twitter card to view some rich media content, a 437x218 px thumbnail will be clearly visible directly below the respective linking tweet.  The tweet stream change rolled out across web, iPhone and Android all at once.

While at first this might not seem like a big deal, auto-expanded content could have an immediately negative effect on user behavior:

1. Auto-expanded images break the democracy of content in your tweet stream.
   Instead of scanning all content equally, users' eyes won't be able to avoid skipping to the next image. And instead of engaging with the most interesting content in their stream, users will be drawn to the most visually stimulating.  With Twitter prioritizing rich media over text, conversation and link sharing no longer has equal standing.  In other words, Twitter is on its way to becoming another Facebook or Instagram, instead of the maintaining its status as the world's quickest and most robust news feed.
   
   The effects of images in the tweet stream may not be immediately evident when everyone is just getting adjusted, but consider Facebook.  While much has been made over the years of Twitter's 140 character limit, the optimal post on Facebook is actually 80 characters or less.  With Facebook's emphasis on photo + video in the news feed, written text (even a minimal 140 characters text) can't compete for attention.  Is this what Twitter wants for its future?
   
   The auto expanded images and videos are also accompanied by now immediately visible reply + retweet + favorite buttons.  The buttons makes the tweet stream feel much busier and slower to scan than ever before.  This is most notable on the desktop, where as many as twenty or more buttons in repeating rows of four now clutter the page above the fold.


2. Brands were just given a back door to banner advertising on the homepage.
   Brands invest a great deal of time, energy and money in building communities on Twitter and communicating with their followers on a regular basis.  Planning for auto-expanded images + vines will become an immediate best practice for brands that want to maximize message exposure and engagement. Many brands also have more human and capital resources to invest in creating imagery to accompany every post, which contributes to the uneven playing field in the tweet stream.
   
   This reality will be even more apparent when brand tweets are paired with Twitter's paid promoted tweets platform.  Promoted tweets are published "above the fold" in the first few tweet placements.  Promoting a tweet with an auto-expanded image will allow brands to serve up a prominent visual banner ad on the homepage of Twitter for the first time ever.
   
   It's important to note that while brands will (and should) take advantage of the new Twitter format, high quality + high value content will still be critically important.  This is reinforced in two ways: users being able to easily unfollow brands that clutter their tweet stream with noise, and Twitter's auction model that factors a brand's quality score into the cost of advertising.


3. Two links and minimal text per post becomes the norm.  
   Since including images in posts will be required to attract viewers, images will now be included in posts even when the goal is to share a link to an article.  This is immediately becoming the standard for publishers, who are pairing image links with article links to draw attention to their articles.  Because Twitter requires 22 characters per link to wrap the link in their URL shortener, two links eats up 45 characters (including a space in-between) before any copy is even written.
   
   It's worth noting, as well, that the new auto-expanded images appears to break article preview Twitter cards.  So when publishers pair images with their article links to maximize attention in the tweet stream, they're prioritizing the new form of banner ad over the valuable content + context they were providing to their readers upfront, before the click.
   
   


4. Twitter images + Vine videos get preferential treatment. 
   Ever since Instagram pulled support for Twitter cards, images that were uploaded directly to Twitter have been more visible on the platform than photos shared from their competitor.  However, while the Twitter cards imbalance was Instagram's choice, the new auto-expanded images feature now gives Twitter's own image format a distinct advantage over any other image hosting service.
   
   Now users can expect to see plenty of Instagram photos (and images created using other tools) downloaded and re-uploaded natively directly to Twitter's image platform.  Popular API hacking tool IFTTT already has a recipe for automating the process of porting a photo from Instagram over to Twitter images.  This will create fragmentation in engagement around the same content, duplicated across platforms.
   
   This home court advantage will likely help boost Vine's success, as well, which is critical as Instagram begins to roll out its own advertising format.  Branded video on Instagram, with its :15 second time limit, is expected to be incredibly popular with advertisers looking to bring video spots to the 150 million strong Instagram audience.  Auto-expanded vines paired with paid promoted tweets will be a powerful tool for Twitter to combat Instagram's new offering.

With Twitter's IPO just around the corner, auto-expanded Twitter images + vines may just be one of many big changes coming to the platform.  For the health of the platform and its long term potential, Twitter must think through the impact all of its design decisions will have on user behavior.  It also needs to evaluate clearly which values Twitter wants its platform to stand for.  Choices like auto-expanded rich media may seem small at first, but they could do more to disrupt the democracy + dialogue the platform has been known for than any other changes Twitter has made to date.

POV on Twitter's API Announcement

Below is a draft of a POV on Twitter's API changes that I wrote as part of my work for SS+K.  It's being published here post-dated as reference.

The big news in the tech industry this week was Twitter's long-expected announcement of changes to their API (the tools 3rd party applications use to plug-in to Twitter).  Twitter announced that the company would no longer support carte-blanch use of their API by 3rd parties.  Instead,Twitter is enforcing everything from design guidelines to build principles.  Their stated purpose is to focus any regular Twitter user engagement (think: the usual things consumers do on Twitter, e.g., read, reply, retweet messages) all happening on official Twitter 1st party applications.  Their demand (disguised as a request) is that 3rd parties focus on building applications that provide an inherently different functionality, especially enterprise-oriented capabilities, such as measurement and media integration.  

While Twitter is clearly within their rights to place rules on 3rd parties who want to integrate with their product, the move is being seen as incredibly controversial because Twitter's success as a platform was largely a result of the types of 3rd party developed innovations that Twitteris planning on forcing out or shutting down.  In fact, Twitter Search, Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for Android, Twitter eMail summaries and Twitterfor Chrome are all functionalities built by 3rd party companies and purchased by Twitter.  In many cases, theses applications were built to give users experience that they wanted or needed, but Twitter didn't have the bandwidth to provide.  In many ways, 3rd parties carried Twitterthrough the dark period where Twitter was often broken and unreliable.  By restricting 3rd parties, Twitter is not only turning its back on the community that helped build it, but also potentially stifling the type of future innovation that could take the platform to new heights.

Twitter's argument for these decisions is mainly two-fold:

1. Consumers need to have a consistent experience and reliable expectations when engaging with tweets.  The company believesTwitter content needs to be uniformly designed and packaged with all of its functionality so users everywhere recognize the content asTwitter and know exactly how they can interact with it (i.e., always be able to reply or retweet).
2. Twitter needs to be capable of earning enough revenue to support itself, and the way to do that is to make sure users are spending their regular tweeting and reading time on a standard Twitter platform that Twitter itself can monetize, through their standard promoted tweets, trends and search products.

Ultimately these changes complete Twitter's transition from communication company to media company.  Like Google with its move towards universal search and rich media snippets, Twitter is bringing more content inline into its feed through their new "Twitter Cards" format, trying to maximize the time-spent and eyeballs on its own domain.  It may not be the vision Twitter's original power users and developer community envisioned for the company, but it's clearly the direction it feels is necessary for its optimal future.  The outcome will be a more refined and uniform experience that helps Twitter grow its mainstream audience, but loses some of its advocates and puts it more directly in competition with news and entertainment media companies than ever before.

While much of the outcome of the new API rules remains to be seen, expect a few implications for brands as we head into 2013:

• Custom brand products that pull in and display tweets, including Facebook tab applications or website plug-ins, will need to be updated to fit the new display guidelines.  This reduces the ability to customize the look and feel, but will likely increase user engagement.
• Since Twitter Cards (inline content previews) will start to be featured abundantly across the Twitter ecosystem, brands will want to include links to supported 3rd party content in their tweets to maximize engagement potential.
• Since the future of existing 3rd party reading clients is up in the air, companies like Flipboard will likely start to iterate in directions away from Twitter content.  Brands need to consider where they invest in media and partnership dollars if they are investing in any of these environments.

We will be watching the Twitter ecosystem + platform developments carefully, and provide further guidance on the implications, directions and opportunities as they become clear.  Please let us know if you have any questions.

Facebook & Google Racing to Establish In-Store Mobile Connections

A few months ago Google sent out QR code stickers for local businesses to put in their windows. If a passer-by snaps a picture of the QR code with their phone they're brought directly to the business's Google Places page where they can read reviews and learn more about the store. It would actually make more sense for stores to put the QR codes in other places, like on their delivery menus or on print ads, since when shoppers are at the store window they can just walk right in and experience the business first hand.

Well rather than be left out of the storefront window Facebook has now answered by shipping their own stickers that advertise a store's Facebook URL and the ability to "like" (formerly "fan") the brand's Facebook page via text message. As it lies now, Facebook's value proposition seems more significant. If a consumer is interested in the brand after browsing the physical destination, it's a great time get them to join the business's social network to kick off a lasting relationship. Google's Places page (at least right now) doesn't offer much to someone who's already been to the store.

It actually makes complete sense for Twitter to get in this game as well. I already see stores advertising on their signs to "follow" their Twitter feed, but that actually isn't so quick in a mobile client. Most people don't know you can just text "follow [twitter handle]" to 40404 to follow a profile immediately, but Twitter could definitely help stores advertise this.

Has anyone seen the Google QR or Facebook stickers in a local store? Which brands do you think make the most sense for in-store promotion? What type of offerings would you like to see as a product of the merging of web presence and physical presence through mobile moving forward?

Foursquare Will Be a Big Deal, Trust Me

I don't think I've hyped anything in a while, so here I go: That Foursquare thing I've been talking about? It's going to be big. And this isn't like Twitter, where I'm asking you to take my word for it. Foursquare is taking the best attributes of mobile, social networking, and gaming and rolling them into one, and it's making it all really easy at the same time. But the real reason it's going to be big? Using Foursquare is going to be loaded with incentives. Not only does it help you find your friends, but it also tells you what's great to eat at a new restaurant, what's cool nearby, and starting now offers discounts at places you could go to next (seeing the screens above when I checked in to Foursquare yesterday made it clear ot me that Foursquare is going to be a big deal). Foursquare takes social media and lays it out onto the physical world in a simple and valuable way.

Let's look at why Foursquare is so addictive and potentially incredibly valuable:

• Foursquare is basically status updates, but it tells your local social graph something useful - where you are and what you're doing that they could be doing too
• Foursquare i actually mostly worth while from your phone, which is much more accessible more often than your home computer
• Foursquare lets you add and review 1-line tips for locations such as what food to get or when to arrive so it isn't too busy, which while not as thorough as Yelp is much easier to contribute to and browse for suggestions
  
• Foursquare is now letting restaurants add deals for players, so when someone checks in to a nearby location they are served a "deal" that they could take advantage of if they visit another place after
  
• Foursquare is an oddly addictive game, showing you where you rank in points weekly, where points are generated from visiting places, adding places no one has been to, and completing challenges that unlock badges (like visiting 3 bars with photo booths in them)

Mobile social networking has been a buzzword for about 5 years, but nothing has picked up. It just didn't seem simple enough or valuable enough for people to want to use it. But gaming, reviews, and discounts are 3 things that people really enjoy, and with Foursquare making it really easy for everyone involved it's only a matter of time before it's huge.

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Where are you Living and Learning Online?

Lately I've been somewhat overwhelmed with how many place there are to consume content now online. On a given day I make my way to Google Reader, Twitter, Friendfeed, Tumblr, Facebook, and Yammer all just to read content. Some of it is news, some of it is editorial, some of it is friend content (pictures, videos, etc), some of it is recommended links, etc. And, yeah, there is a lot of overlapping content in all of those places, but there is also a great deal that is unique to the environment. There are hyper-users (I'm one) who post content everywhere, and I'll probably be reading their stuff several times on each stop, but a lot of people have their spot and they stick to it. Also, more interestingly, each place has its own culture and voice. Jump over to Tumblr, for example, and it's mostly people sharing interesting pictures and music a few times a day. Friendfeed, on the other hand, is all about comments and conversation.

I usually find something great in each community that I wouldn't have found anywhere else every time I visit, so I can't stop.

The other half of it is also interesting. I syndicate my blog, my Google Reader items, and my Flickr photos all over the place, and I share some links in each of these communities. But for my specific group of friends, most of the time when I share content the only place I see a reaction/response (comments) is on Facebook. On the other hand, most articles I write here or at UsableClicks receive a majority of their traffic leads from Twitter.

So where are you spending time, where are you getting your information, where are you experiencing true community?

Why I Use Twitter, and Some of It's Uses Beyond the Status Update

Recently a bunch of friends of mine started pushing me to explain why I use Twitter, and to clarify how exactly it isn't a waste of time. They saw it as a watered down status update that is enough as it is on facebook. Below is my response, which I'm calling "Why I use Twitter, and Some of It's Uses Beyond the Status Update"

Its hard to easily understand Twitter without investing time with it. Twitter at its core is an information platform; twitter.com itself has little do to with what it can be or what it will become. Its essentially a decentralized communication system that is designed to pull in short messaging via many methods and allow the information to flow in just as flexible a manor. It can be communicated with via SMS, IM, RSS, web, or desktop application. In its simplest form it appears as a giant status feed, but its simplicity means that endless amounts of information will be pushed in and the power will come from pulling it out.

Things I have done with Twitter:

• By using Twitter as a routing system I was able to text message Noor in India without incurring any fees. Sure you can email but she spent much less time on a computer there than she did on the phone, so texting was key to us keeping in touch.
  
• By using Twitter I've participated in ad-hoc discussions with conference attendees around particular subjects at marketing conferences. Twitter made this possible even though people didn't know each other because we were all able to post messages, append them with hash tags (a name for short codes in tech prefixed with a # sign), and pull out feeds of any relevant posts via search or RSS. We even sometimes collaboratively take notes on presentations by using hash tags.
  
• By using Twitter I have looked up feedback and reviews on netbook computers for Dannie, restaurants for myself, and more. 
  
• I've also had discussions with people I've never met about products, news stories, and more by searching the public feed and messaging people I know have had personal experiences with those things.
  
• I was able to follow live play-by-play of the 2008 baseball home run derby while we were all at ConeyIsland.
  
• I learned about a major California earthquake last year 25 minutes before CNN broke the story on the web by following an alert of fast rising keywords on the Twitter feed.
  
• I use Twitter to route messages to my blog, facebook, and other social locations all at once. Some of you may not feel the need to do that but I actively participate in many social web environments so scale is necessary.
  
• I use Twitter to pass content to work message boards again by using hash tags. I can also use this method to update my to-do list, save pictures and text to word documents for storage, and much more.
  
• I can learn about when the dessert truck or waffle truck move locations, when GMail is having service issues, when the NASA mars rover has a discovery, and more - all as soon as it happens.
  
• I get CNN breaking news alerts, tech news alerts, even new york restaurant review alerts all in one easy to digest stream however I want it.
  
• I can have discussions with entrepreneurs and marketing directors that I would never have access to.
  
• I watched the election debates on CurrentTV spliced with filtered feeds of people's reactions and input to the candidates as they spoke.
  

This is still just a small sample of what you can do with twitter - it gets a lot more complex. The communication platform is leveraged now by thousands of companies, and over 10 million people or contributing information. Some of it useless but a lot of it is valuable. People contribute because they want there to be valuable content in the information pool - just like they do with yelp, or digg, or YouTube, or the tons of how to sites, etc. just like Bruce pointed out, you can post to twitter for the some reasons you can post to yelp, or anywhere. To get something out of it though you have to spend time and want to discover. You have to add a hundred or two people or companies that actually use twitter, not five friends who signed up once. You have to do searches for information, you have to post content so people want to engage you, you have to message other people and start conversation. I post normal life updates, but I also write mini reviews, post links to interesting content, post images, take notes on conferences, and more. you may have to use phone or desktop apps that make it easier to do all this. If you don't want to put in time, and you don't want to contribute, and you don't want to discover, then it probably isn't for you yet. You can go to CNN.com for your news (though I read today that people who follow the CNN twitter feed read twice as many articles a day on average than the people who go right to the website because they get more updates about new content and they are people who want to discover and consume more), and communicate with smaller circles of people. Eventually either facebook will finish ripping off the twitter features (its already started) or a product you like will come along and integrate twitter in a way that it works for you. But the point is - twitter isn't simple or stupid - and it will probably change communication and/or media consumption for all of us, in ways we don't even realize, if it hasn't already.

The New York City Food Trucks are all Over Twitter

You can follow several of the popular New York City food trucks on twitter - keep up on where they're parked, what their specials are, even receive coupon codes for free stuff (like toppings on your waffles):

The Waffle and Dinges Truck 

The Treats Truck 

The Rickshaw Dumpling Truck 

You can also follow Midtown Lunch, though they haven't made any updates yet.

Any other good New York City finds for Twitter?

Why aren't facebook users obsessed with Twitter yet?

Every time someone asks me about Twitter I wonder how come more people aren't interested in using it. Facebook has obviously blown up - everyone of every age is on it, and using it often, whether they claim to like it or not. People love to write on each others walls, update their statuses, and comment to each other about both. So in that case, why don't people start using twitter? Aside from the fact that through twitter you can update your Facebook status, it's essentially a combined Facebook wall and Facebook status, but through texting via a cell phone, which almost everyone I know is also obsessed with. It takes many of the things that people do on Facebook and makes them faster- your friend updates his status, and you know immediately. And if that status is "out at a particular bar" then you might find you're in the area and make your way over when it matters, not when it's too late three hours later. Your friend writes on your wall and you know immediately, and you can respond just as fast. So if Twitter in it's most basic form combines many of the things that people I know love, how come no one is using twitter?

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking - maybe it's because all we really care about on Facebook are the pictures.

international communication or keeping in touch with friends abroad

I have friends in India (indefinitely), Barcelona (recently), and Korea (temporarily) - but lately I'm noticing more and more web applications make it easier and easier for me to stay connected and feel like my friends are part of my life and my day.

I am using Twitter to route text messages to India and receive them back just as quickly. It costs no more than a usual text message.

The other night I used AOL IM to include Bruce in a game of Scategories while he sat at an apartment in Korea. It was rudimentary but it brought him into a game with 6 of his friends back at my apartment on New York.

A few of us used Skype to hold a conference call for the fraternity Housing Corporation while we were in Barcelona talking to undergrads back in Boston.

This isn't even getting into how simple it is to email, facebook, and more. I remember back in high school when a close friend went to France for the summer and it took 3 weeks to get a letter to her - now I communicate with friends in several different ways throughout the day and it's completely seemless.

Watch the World of Photos and Texts

If you want to be a global voyeur, check out twittervision and flickrvision - sit back and watch the latest twitter posts and flickr uploads from around the world in real time.  Might be particularly interesting if a globally impacting event takes place.

Technorati Tags: twittervision , flickrvision , twitter , flickr , sms , real time

Twitter and RSS Beat CNN to the Punch Alerting Me About the California Earthquake

At 11:05 PM EST an earthquake of 5.6 magnitude hit Northern California; as of yet there is no major damage or injury to report.

By 11:17 PM EST there were reports that Twitter was lighting up with first hand documentary about the earthquake.

By 11:24 PM EST I received my first alert via a blog posting noting how much activity was on Twitter about the earthquake.

At 11:53 PM EST CNN published their first mention of the earthquake - 48 minutes after the event, at least 36 minutes after the Twitter community was heavily documenting, and 29 minutes after Google Reader had the chance to index blog articles that had already been written.

Social journal journalism, first hand / mass / personal documentary, leveraging incredibly strong social media tools, is continually showing its strength, its significance, and why it needs to be adopted sooner than later into the mainstream media, as well as through public consumption.

Technorati Tags: twitter , cnn , rss , google reader , social journalism , mainstream news , social media