Twitter Is Moving Fast
Facebook meanwhile, is going backwards.
I have been thinking about changing this newsletter around for a few weeks this summer, and recently took the last two weeks as a vacation to decide where the next step is. I still want to keep the Gen Z touch, but I feel that touch comes from me just typing on this keyboard. You’re actively seeing how a Gen Z’er thinks and how I view products and startups in the current enviroment.
Anyways, I recently have become obsessed with believing in the future of innovation. Whether it be a cool startup with an amazing vision, a company that has a bright future (maybe twitter), or something else. We will see where this goes, I literally thought about this change 30 minutes ago on my run.
Now, let me talk about what is exciting. Twitter.
Let’s break down this essay.
Speed of Innovation
Twitter’s Greatest Asset and Biggest Barrier
The Metaverse
Conclusion
The Speed Of Innovation
See what I did there? I made it so twitter’s arrow is seemingly off of the screen, good one right?
As a Gen Z kid, I have been on all these platforms since they launched. Each one has gone through different stages of experimentation throughout their lifetimes, and each stage has their special place. For example, when Snapchat experimented with stories, it was a home run. When Instagram started videos, it was revolutionary. Oh, I almost forgot to point out, Facebook’s arrow is going backwards. Why? Well in the years that I have used them, I have basically only seen them copy other platforms new features.
Twitter’s speed of innovation seems to have come from a rapid experimentation standpoint. When you are a startup trying to find product market fit, this is normal. You experiment with a bunch of new features and ideas to see what fits with your audience. What is interesting is seeing how twitter is quickly experimenting and iterating based on feedback. We saw this happen recently—
Fleets, the twitter version of stories, was scrapped just after a few months of being released on the app. It also looks like they replaced where fleets were with another recent experiment, Twitter Spaces, which seems to be one of the go-to audio places for the internet nowadays.
These are just two of the recent experiments that Twitter made. Others include, font redesign, lists, audio tweets, restricting comments, and revamping verification. Jack Dorsey has also taken steps to help build out a decentralized social media effort called “bluesky”. More on that later.
Twitter’s Greatest Asset and Biggest Barrier
Your community on twitter is endless. Twitter in my opinion, is the best tool on the internet to build your personal brand. By simply tweeting well thought out ideas and commentary, you can gain a massive following and grow you community. The power of this community pushes you toward new projects, new ideas, or even a new job. I’ve gotten a consulting job by simply tweeting my thoughts to a Gen Z tweet in the comments. It was probably a 3 sentence tweet that landed me work. Tell me that isn’t incredible?
Now, everyone’s community differs slightly. For me, I thrive in the venture capital and startup space, someone else may thrive in the political space, while another may love the sports world. The venture capital and startup space is special. Everyone is consistently noticing new trends and technology and tweeting about it. For example, 35% of my feed this week was about NFT’s. I like this because I think it shows I’ve curated a great community for myself that has similar interests. In my space I have also seen investors and founders get to know each other over a thread, I have seen new networks made in front of my eyes (Gen Z Vc’s), and I have personally received amazing opportunities from just DM’ing a founder. I have often said that Twitter has been a better tool for me than Linkedin when it comes to networking within my industry.
Once you realized the power of Twitter, you just have to figure out your way of harnessing it. You can tweet your craziest ideas, try to connect with new people, or build a community. It isn’t easy though, finding your path on Twitter comes from a lot of experimentation and tests. Once you hit the nail on the head though, run with it. My priorities on Twitter are always changing. Sometimes I want to tweet good thoughts, and sometimes I want to just communicate with others. For example, back earlier this year when I was working on my second startup, my priority for Twitter was connecting with investors. I dm’d 40 investors to pitch them about our seed round. My conversion rate on getting responses was roughly 40% and ended up pitching half of those. I would argue that my experiences may be unique because I think the startup and VC community on Twitter is one of the highest value and highest engaging communities, but at the same time I have a friend who has similar experiences in the sports media sector.
The Barrier
While your community is likely the best asset in Twitter, it is also the biggest barrier. When you’re new to Twitter it is very hard to get started and know who to follow and who to engage with. I experienced this first hand with a friend of mine.
I had been telling my friend how amazing Twitter is, so he asked “how do I get started?”, and I didn’t really know what to say. I started on Twitter heavily in February of 2020, and I just started following people. If they tweet something interesting, I followed. If one of my followers tagged someone else, I followed them. There was no real strategy to finding your community, you just find it after being active on the platform for a few months, and that was the best advice I could give.
And after a few months of being active on the platform you slowly reached the top of the mountain. Funny thing is, you never truly reach the top. Your interests are always expanding and your community is always changing, there is a constant iteration that you have to keep up with. This is good though, having the same community can get boring and you want it to be constantly changing.
I think Twitter even notices this problem; that is why lists and topics has become more prevalent on the platform in the recent year or two. Lists serve as a place for new users to discover hundred of similar users in their desired community. Example, I found a fintwit list that had 600 members and followed roughly half of them.
So next time when a friend asks me how to begin using Twitter, my advice is to just start and stay as active as possible.
The Metaverse
The metaverse is likely one of the most exciting developments in the history of the internet. For those who are a little confused by the metaverse, like I used to be, the simplest way I would describe it is; your life, but online.
Wall Street Journal goes a little more in depth with their definition: “The metaverse concept, rooted in science-fiction novels such as “Snow Crash” and “Ready Player One,” encompasses an extensive online world transcending individual tech platforms, where people exist in immersive, shared virtual spaces. Through avatars, people would be able to try on items available in stores or attend concerts with friends, just as they would offline”.
Now this doesn’t mean life will live online, it just means that you can have meaningful experiences online just like you could in the real world. For example, the game Zed Run depicts this perfectly. You buy a digital horse, enter it onto the platform, and then just start racing it. The experience is just like the one you would have if you bought a real horse. You have to look at what distance is best for the horse, who the parents are, and what the breeding opportunities are.
Anyways, many believe Twitter has a great opportunity to enter the social atmosphere of the metaverse through a decentralized social media network. We are seeing Twitter being used in this sense through NFT’s. Whenever someone has bought an NFT recently, whether it be a Cryptopunk, Bored Ape, or Sollama, they are featuring it as their profile photo. As Packy M put it, “it has become something of a status”.
The easy v1 of this could be Twitter releasing NFT’s of their logo with different colors and designs. A v2 of this could be clubs where you need proof of membership through an NFT. Beyond this the possibilities are endless. I emphasized NFTs in v1 and v2 because in the metaverse NFTs provide proof of ownership and have endless routes in which they could be utilized.
Twitter is already looking down this route with their recent effort “bluesky’, a decentralized social network. They recent just hired a lead for this project and I am guessing we will hear more about it in upcoming earnings calls.
Conclusion
I have been on Twitter for over a year and a half now and by no means have became an expert at the topic, but I have learned a ton while staying active. The power of the internet can truly be harnessed on this platform if you are able to find your community and find your niche. To help you find this niche and get over the original barrier, Twitter is constantly innovating and experimenting to make the UI/UX better.
I think Jack has driven both Square and Twitter to the edge with innovation and is always staying on top of relevant trends. I personally am a large believer in the cryptocurrency and metaverse space, and I know Jack is a big believer and bitcoin and DeFi. Those projects aren’t too far off…
Backing up a little bit, I love companies who are constantly innovating. Innovation is the key to our society and how great companies get built. From a startup’s early days they are constantly innovating at the goal to go public, so when you go public, why would you stop innovating? Jack has shown time and time again that he can lead companies to be constantly innovating in the direction of new technology and new trends.
I am very excited for the future of this company and can’t wait to see where it goes.
Cheers,
Tom
Disclosure: I hold a position in TWTR, SQ, ETH, and BTC. All opinions are my own and do not reflect those of my employers.