How I fell in love with Twitter App.

During early 2000’s I started my career as a Software Engineer at IBM. Almost around the same time our technology enabled industry started to explode in one way or another. India was at the cusp of this change, and thanks to IT services we had access to at least 20-30% of that information change happening across the corners of this world, especially United States. Some of the noted changes during this time was Struts Framework giving way to Spring & Hibernate, start of blogging culture in India (thanks to blogger.com). Growth of Gmail, I used to be a YahooMail & HotMail person looks like I have forgotten their passwords now :)

In this change, what I observed was that, we were overloaded with information. Mostly, everything that I wanted to know or need to know came in full blown web pages and had to read through entire page to make a summary for myself. Mostly, these information got managed via quite a bit of bookmarking, and then google reader, delicious and similar tools started popping up to help users manage their interests that are spread across multiple web links.

Around this time I moved to United Kingdom to study at LSE (in 2008), by then Facebook had already started taking a bit of my time.It was during my time at LSE that I started realising the power of Information and Communication technologies. During this time, I spend significant amount of time on internet studying various aspects of it - including but not limited to resistance to change, internet addiction, economics of networks etc. It is here, that I got addicted to the beauty of Twitter. What did twitter solve for me that, I am engaged to it for the last 7 years or so?

As a user, I wanted a platform

  1. for blast short concise words about my thoughts.
  2. to follow people of my interest and their thoughts.
  3. to aggregate my interests.
  4. which is well designed, so that it takes minimum effort to achieve the above needs.
  5. which understands me and grows with me.
  6. which recommends good and valuable information with me.

Now, the question arises did you really like it when it was in its initial stages? The answer is No. Twitter did not have a good user interface, and refreshing browser everytime to look at tweets was no fun. You know, I am talking about time a when Android & iOS phones were not so popular and was damn expensive to buy.I used twitter a lot via browser. The smarphone phenomenon was yet to start and around Nov,2008 Apple launched iPhone3Gs and I stood in queue to get my first smartphone. Let me tell you the feeling was awesome, UI/UX, gestures etc. literally took my breath away and so did it clear my bank balance for sometime. I was a student then on meagre budget.

I wasn’t much of an App user until 2010, the only apps I used was WhatsApp or Facebook. Around 2010, while working with EDI in UK, I ended up consulting with top institutions like WorldBank, SALDRU,ILRI etc. For all these customers the challenge was how will they improve their CAPI (computer assisted personal interview), we were doing this with UMPC’s at that point of time.Only samsung was the major player in this market developing cute handheld computer miniatures with windows running on them.

But, then I feel world never realized that Android was about to change the game around 2010-11. I got my first taste of Android from a book written by Reto Meier during this time and we were closely observing the launch of Tablets (iPad & Nexus & Notion Ink from India). Although, I left EDI in April,2011 to join my family back in India. I kept playing with simulators and my phone remained iPhone until July,2011 when I bought my first android phone a Samsung Duos with Android 2.3 as a test device.

I worked with an enterprise focussed company and people did not believe that Digital era has begun. I continued my journey with Android ditching my iPhone on the way. The apps galore on Android was fun to install and test out. I used TweetDeck initially for all my twitter interactions from android phone. But, somewhere along the way, I moved to original app from Twitter. Me and my colleague used to talk about digital marketing, how facebook is changing the way marketing is done etc.

I took a break from work during Jul,2012 - Dec,2012 because I really wanted to be part of upcoming startup culture.I tried dabbling with few things, trying to set up a mobile development shop etc. Nothing, played out well - so I moved to Bangalore silicon valley of India to see if I could help a fledgling company to grow. I got this opportunity at ABOVE and had a fantastic 2 years of awesome learning experience.My twitter life continued, noticed few startups like Frrole coming up twitter analysis. Social / Sentiment analysis was exploding. I my self played with the twitter SDK and APIs a bit, but did not pursue anything further.

What I noticed in the 7 years was an ecosystem getting developed and users around that growing with it. In india twitterati was primarily hard code programmers with exposure to western world. Initially in 2012-13, I did not see much buzz around it. Today, Twitter experts are there in companies to help them viral market products or offerings and engage with users in the roles that fills Digital Marketing suites (Facebook Marketing professionals, Twitter Guys, Google Adwords ruling the roost in startup world). The explosion of this mass following could be attributed to the flourishing startup eco-system in Bangalore and India in general.

Now that I have praised enough about this, what are the points that irritate me?

  1. I do not like the app install adverts that come up in my twitter feeds, wish I had at least switch it off or remind me after a year feature knobs.
  2. I think the message or inbox feature is crap and useless - its like the quote of “Jamie Zawinski” Every program attempts to grow until it can read mail.
  3. Highlights is a feature which is completely hidden, I am not sure why its even there.
  4. I do not like lists feature too - coz its not a shopping or a todo list app. I do not want to create a list of people or groups. I would rather follow them and get updates if I really like them and their thoughts.
  5. While recommendation engine does a pretty good job, it can act creepy at times. May be the marketers eats up the algorithm to send me odd stuff.

Twitter has awesome design & user experience , I would give twitter team good marks in this department. They must have spent significant amount to time and money to achieve this. I love their logo and color combinations.Its not jarring on the eyes and is very modern and retro.

With all these points, I would like to conclude my story of falling in love with Twitter app.