Alternatives to Twitter

About five years ago, I moved most of my blogging from here to microblogging on Twitter.

In part that was from the shut down of Google Reader. In part I was finally giving in on the trend against long form blogging. So this blog has been pretty quiet for years.

The recent decline of Twitter has me looking for and trying alternatives.

One surprise I found is that Google News and TechMeme feel worth using more often. Both are surprisingly effective alternatives to social media. I am finding they have most of the value without much of the unpleasantness, although missing the contact with close friends.

I was also surprised to find I liked LinkedIn as a substitute for Twitter. I find most of the interactions to be fairly good there, though again missing some close friends.

So far, I have more mixed feelings about using Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram, Post, or going back to blogging as alternatives. Anyone have anything else they like? Or differing experiences?

Quoted in the Washington Post

I'm quoted in the Washington Post today in an article titled "It’s not your imagination: Shopping on Amazon has gotten worse."

I'm talking about how Amazon used to help (but no longer) for finding and discovering what you want to buy, saying, "The store radically changes based on customer interests, showing programming titles to a software engineer and baby toys to a new mother."

The reporter, Geoffrey Fowler, goes on to say, "This is probably how most of us imagine Amazon still works. But today advertisers are driving the experience ... The Amazon we experience today is pretty much the opposite of how Amazon used to work."

The article is critical of all the ads on Amazon now, which makes the shopping experience terrible. I think it is very hard to find things on Amazon nowadays. This happened for a well-known reason. Increasing ad load -- which is the number of ads on a web page -- will usually increase short-term revenue, but it hurts retention, ad performance, and long-term revenue. As the Washington Post reporter describes, all the ads cause people to go elsewhere when they need to shop, and that has long-term costs for Amazon.

Experimentation and metrics

Since the early days of the Web, I've been a fan of A/B testing for promoting innovation and ideas. But A/B testing is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used well or used poorly.

A/B testing observes human behavior, which is messy and complicated. Closer to behavioral economics, the metrics represent partial information and observations. From very limited data, we need to say why humans do the crazy things they do and predict what will happen next.

When used well, A/B testing helps innovation. But A/B testing should not subjugate, binding teams to do nothing unless a key metric is passed. Rather it should be used to gain partial information about expected short and long-term costs and benefits.

For misinformation, disinformation, scams, and the impact of advertising, A/B tests get some data on short-term effects, but little on long-term benefits. Ultimately there will be an investment decision about whether to pay the expected short-term costs for the hoped for long-term benefits.

A/B testing is a powerful tool for bottom-up innovation. But it is only a tool and can be used badly. A/B data should be used to inform debate, not halt debate. And I think it should always be helping to find a way to say yes to new ideas.