Updated 20-Sep-2023
We can now contemplate the departure of the CEO, whom frankly I always thought was supposed to sell it to Google, as he did Feedburner. Not meeting expectations, what can we see as obvious failures?
More Jackass Attitudes
A prime example of the ongoing jackass behavior is how Twitter deals with third-party apps. How does it? By terminating access and not answering emails. Yes this is still ongoing, after years of so-called new Twitter. You got to clean out these executives who set this tone, as well as the underlings who enforce it.
Ad Platform that Sucks
The Ad Platform is a Frankenstein monster with not enough parts. Targeting is still constrained to what, about 9 countries? Why is that? Accounts are still limited to even fewer than that. And the prices are ridiculous. The big problem is too much complexity, not enough flexibility, and being incomplete. I'm sure the platform is working for some people, as there is revenue, but it is not a system that is helpful to a lot more people. Even the simple platform that is Yahoo Gemini is an order of magnitude easier to use (and indeed, it allows for geographical targets that are much more granular, even than Bing). Another key problem is this notion of engagement which granted Facebook creates the same kind of obfuscation. The reporting is very poor in this regard as there are lots of things that count as engagement and lots of things that count as clicks. Analytics are rudimentary and how people are interacting with the actual advertisements, as well as targeting limitations, makes the platform simply not very appealing.