Is the Twitter #fixreplies incident a scaling issue?

Wednesday, May 13. 2009

Is the Twitter #fixreplies incident a scaling issue?

Many people in the Twitterverse are incensed today (see #fixreplies here), because Twitter has removed the ability for you to see what your friends are saying to others. Twitter claims it's to enhance service:

Based on usage patterns and feedback, we've learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it's a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don't follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today's update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

Actually, it's very desirable - or has been so far - because it allows you to find interesting people serendipitously. Also, it was not a default but you had to turn it on as an opt-in, so the suspicion is that this change has little to do with what users want or find desirable - TechCrunch:

In the months since Twitter has grown in mainstream appeal, and especially since it made its debut on Oprah, some of Twitter’s early adopters have expressed fear over a change in the service. With a growing number of celebrities and media presences (not to mention spammers), they worry that the service will lose its tight-knit feel. Before tonight I never paid much attention to this train of thought - after all, on Twitter, I can just follow the people I care about and ignore those I don’t. But it’s clear that Twitter is concerned with appealing to a more mainstream audience, and if that takes making a very simple service even more simple, then by golly, that’s what they’re going to do.

The Twitter argument does not make sense, why disable a feature that you have to turn on anyway, and claim it is undesirable?

A thought I had was there could be another driver, in that this feature drives more transactions so loads up the network, and with the explosion of new people coming on it may be driving a new set of scaling problems.

Update 12 hours later - ha - Twitter have admitted it is a scaling issue - us big back-end infrastructure guys know our stuff, you know

)

It seems that there is a defining moment in every growing social network's life, its "Friendster Moment" if you like, when it first shafts its Old Guard members in order to gain some benefit for its new joiners.

Update - Kathryn Corrick notes that a lot of the to and fro of the Digital Britain online debate on Twitter that then led to the Unconference, and the consequent interactions, could not have happened without this feature.

Posted by Alan Patrick in Microblogging / Unified Messaging at 12:04 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

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I don't think it's a scalability issue, but it's certainly a massive storm in a teacup. As commenters have pointed out, as of last May, less than 2% of Twitter users had it turned on:

http://blog.twitter.com/2008/05/how-replies-work-on-twitter-and-how.html

Given Twitter's growth since then the percentage will be even smaller - the vast majority of new users never touch that option.

Ev actually stated at that time that his preference was to just take that feature out:

"But my preference is to take out the setting altogether and just make it work like the default. That way, it works the same for everyone. (If you have strong opinions on this, leave a comment.)"

In the comments, there were a few people who said that they would prefer to keep the "all @'s" option (notably, there were many more people who said "gosh, I didn't know that was how it worked")

Ev then asked:

"One quick note for all the people who really like the "all @ replies" setting because it helps you discover new people: What if discovering new people on Twitter wasn't so hard? It seems like there could be much more efficient ways to do that."

So, from all this we can conclude two things:

1. This has been brewing for a year in Ev's head, and he's finally decided the time is right to do it.
2. It's not a scalability issue. If it were, Ev would have mentioned that it drained resources then. And, as so few users use it anyway, it's unlikely.

It seems to me that it's just Ev wanting to make Twitter (the site) work consistently for all users, and introduce proper tools for doing stuff (like discovery) rather than discouraging little-known, counterintuitive hacks.

#1 Ian Betteridge (Homepage) on 2009-05-13 13:15 (Reply)

After the way that twitter dealt with the IM scaling problems (turning off IM), I'd be inclined to say that yes, it is a scaling thing. It's clearly something that's been on their radar for a while, and with the recent explosion in user numbers, I think that twitter are trying to reclaim server cycles from anywhere they can.

#2 MatStace (Homepage) on 2009-05-13 13:33 (Reply)

But Mat, don't forget that for new users, this option is off by default. And judging by the number of people who didn't even know it was an option in the comments to Ev's post last year, I can't see many people opting into it since then.

#3 Ian Betteridge (Homepage) on 2009-05-13 13:36 (Reply)

Ian, it's the fact that this option is off by default, and used by such a low number of people, that makes me think that the replies thing is a scaling problem.

An example - Stephen Fry, with roughly 500K followers. Assuming that the number of twitter users using the "all @ replies" option is now down to 1%, this is still an additional 5K messages that twitter needs to process, every time Mr Fry tweets.

The fact that not many people use this option has given twitter the option to say that it's an "undesirable" option, and unilaterally turn it off.

For me, twitter was no good until I discovered this option, and have found the vast majority of people I follow through this method. I wonder how many of my followers found me via one of their friends replying to me?

Can you imagine if real life was like this? You'd be a party, and when your friend spoke to one of their friends that you don't know, everything went silent.

Now that's a pretty poor party.

#3.1 MatStace (Homepage) on 2009-05-13 13:45 (Reply)

I think if it was a scaling/resources issue, they'd say that - after all, that's what they did with IM iirc.

#3.1.1 Ian Betteridge (Homepage) on 2009-05-13 14:03 (Reply)

@Ian it may be for "only 2%" but it annoys them - me - a lot. I follow Matt McAlister; I follow Mike Butcher. I want to see who they're talking to: those could be important people to know. But if they discuss, I'm cut out of the conversation.

That's stupid, to me: kills the network stone dead. It becomes a solipsistic network where you only know the people you know, and don't go any further.

Mike B's just retweeted someone commenting that it's "awfully quiet.. like email!" It is. It's crap.

Have you considered the possibility that that 2% might have been the leading edge - that after a while, people want to move out of their cosy little group, and see more of what's going on?

If you're following a celeb - sure, seeing all @s is rubbish. Cure: don't follow celebs. Twitter, with all replies, democratises in that sense - brings you to a level where you link in manageable networks. This is just crap. It's the worst thing, bar none, that Twitter has done in the whole time I've been on it.

They might have server issues? They should scale, and get working on that business model. Buying Tweetshirt might be a plan.

#4 Charles (Homepage) on 2009-05-13 13:40 (Reply)

Let's not jump to the assumption that it's a scaling issue. Charles, you're a journalist - call them up and ask them outright. Isn't that what journalists do?

If you want to know what Mike is talking about/to, set up a search: you use TweetDeck, it will take you a minute tops.

#4.1 Ian Betteridge (Homepage) on 2009-05-13 14:10 (Reply)

I am a journalist but I have other things to do right now. I don't use Tweetdeck any more. To follow all the responses of all the people I follow I'd need hundreds of saved searches in whichever app - so that's not useful. (Plus it would hammer Twitter's API much harder than just including all the things that get said.)

Again, though, the point is: some people liked it, a lot. Why not leave them even the option?

#4.1.1 Charles (Homepage) on 2009-05-13 19:28 (Reply)

I wondered if possibly they'd had a look at their churn rate stats and found that a disproportionate number of quitters ticked that box. Certainly the option was never that well explained - when I switched it on first it was on a whim and I kept it when I found how useful it was for finding new people.

But I think a scaling issue is more likely. Why else do something that benefits nobody? And they've figured the 1-2% of people who do use it are small enough that their crossness may not matter in the long run.

(And as has been pointed out, efficiency in discovery isn't the point - serendipity is)

#5 Tom Ewing (Homepage) on 2009-05-13 14:01 (Reply)

Blimey - go offline for a few hours and pandemonium breaks out

Despite's Ian's well reasned arguments I'll stick to scaling hypothesis a bit longer as I still don't understand why they'd do this if it was no big deal scale-wise.

The only other explanation I can think of is that some of the new Sleb mega-users (or more likely their PR agencies) don't like the back-chat-channel, it gets in the way of their broadcast-o-rama but I can't see why Twitter would cater to a tiny minority like that

#6 alan p on 2009-05-13 16:19 (Reply)

I don't really get your reference to the back-chat channel. After all, you don't think for one second they actually read their followers @'s, or anyone else's?

#6.1 Ian Betteridge (Homepage) on 2009-05-13 16:32 (Reply)

Good god no, of course they don't read the fanmail - no, my thought was it may get in the way of the analytical engines (or sully the manual analysis more like) they use to optimise twt broadcasting etc.

Its a weak case but its the only one I can think of, shooting yourself in the foot for pennies tomorrow doesn't make sense to me, and the fact they haven't just rescinded given the hue and cry makes me think there is an operational issue.

#7 alan p on 2009-05-13 16:49 (Reply)

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