Dear Alt-Twitter Designers: It’s about the network!

I should note that blitzscaling is not the only approach we’re seeing right now. The other (and I would argue wiser) approach to managing dense network formation is through invitation-based mechanisms. Heighten the desire, the FOMO, make participating feel special. Actively nurture the network. When done well, this can get people to go deeper in th... See more

One thing that complicates people’s willingness to devote their energy to vibrancy is context collapse, a term that Alice Marwick and I coined long ago. When a social media site grows slow and steady, it starts out for each user as a coherent context. Things get dicy over time as people struggle to figure out how to navigate divergent networks. But... See more

The tl;dr? It all comes down to nurturing the network dynamics, not the technical features.