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Twitter is struggling. It has for a while. The company is still having a hard time growing its user base and keeping new users around.
Even for those of us who live and die on Twitter, engaging people and having constructive conversations is a challenge.
So we asked the Twitter community to come up with their own solutions to Twitter’s problems. We received over 200 responses and we’ve condensed them down to some of the ones Twitter could actually do, and some cool ideas it should actually do.
So — @Jack — if you’re listening, take a look at these and maybe we can keep this platform we love going for a while longer.
Offer a subscription version. Could this be a way to save Twitter’s shrinking business?
Invite-only paid tier? Gives citations, additional formats, and promotion.
— Hank Green (@hankgreen) October 26, 2017
Add a paid tier that removes ads and gives access to Verified-only features
— Dylan Staley (@dstaley) October 27, 2017
Charge nominal annual fee $99 for ability to see tweets 5 minutes before everyone else
— therealkn42 (@therealkn42) October 26, 2017
More live video, and make it easier to find. We also want to know how Twitter’s live videos are actually doing. Would more diverse options help keep people around?
Include more soccer and musical events to their Live offerings
— dansamoah (@dansamoah) October 26, 2017
Triple down on "live" through streaming and integration.
— Luis Antonio Perez (@NorthsideLou) October 26, 2017
Ban Bots and find better way to report them. By far and away this was the most popular response to fixing Twitter.
Just identify and block bots. How hard can this be?
— AL (@DesignAlisa) October 27, 2017
Turn off bot integration.
— Ian Hill (@ianhillmedia) October 26, 2017
Add "Suspected Bot" pic.twitter.com/4QqH6KET1Y
— Amy Rovin (@MomRovin) October 27, 2017
Or would simply labeling them help?
Would like to see suspected bots labeled. This might be even more useful than getting rid of them completely.
— Ameer (@Coolbeit) October 27, 2017
Editing tweets. We’ve wanted this for a while too. Or maybe allow at least 30 seconds where you can edit.
Short-window tweet editing (5 minutes?) to fix typos without having to do the copy/delete old/paste into new/edit/send thing
— Gary Collard (@LakerGMC) October 26, 2017
An option to fix tweet typos once (perhaps with an edit history so people can see the original tweet if they care).
— Kristina Wong (@kristina_wong) October 27, 2017
Allow a tweet 30 seconds to be spelled / grammar checked
— Rolling_Podium (@Rolling_Podium) October 27, 2017
EDIT TWETES TO FIX SPILLING
— Dan Ilić (@danilic) October 26, 2017
Full-time CEO. Jack Dorsey is still splitting his time between Square and Twitter.
A full-time CEO
— Matthew (@NerdM6) October 26, 2017
Getting rid of Jack and shaking up the PMs/Managers would effect change. The output from their product groups is ridiculous.
— candygrabber (@angelcolberg) October 27, 2017
Verify users.
To reply to tweets, identity verification is required. No public interaction allowed by anonymous users.
— M Lawry (@MD4urMIND) October 27, 2017
Allow average people the ability to confirm their account.
— Anu (@jobuna) October 27, 2017
Limit what counts as a character and add more design options for tweets.
@/mentions and links should only count as 1 character
— Hillary for Prison (@HRC4Prison) October 27, 2017
Text format options like bold/italics/underline
Adding more visual options for a RT.
allow images or video in RT replies
— The Amazing Polly (@99freemind) October 27, 2017
Find a way to end harassment. This is an ongoing problem at Twitter and arguably one of its biggest challenges.
@Twitter Eliminate bots. Fix broken & inconsistent application of ToCs. Put a stop to harassement and hate speech.
— Sara Mariani (@saramariani) October 26, 2017
Ban all bots, Naz1s, harassers. https://t.co/iS9Rpc8Tnp
— Greg Pak (@gregpak) October 27, 2017
View a tweet or video while scrolling. Facebook made this change as well.
Lightweight multi-tasking concept. Keep a tweet or video open while simultaneously able to still scroll through the feed.
— Scott Barrow (@scottwbarrow) October 27, 2017
Add reputation-based mentions. This might go against what some other users were suggesting about not prioritizing anyone, but I get the idea.
There should be some sort of reputation system that factors in to what replies and mentions you see (configurable)
— alexhutnik (@alexhutnik) October 26, 2017
Improve discoverability. This could be Snapchat’s problem, too. How do you find the worthwhile accounts to follow, especially if you’re a new user?
A better way to discover interesting accounts and getting rid of bots.
— Daniel Duque (@DanielFDuque) October 26, 2017
Custom filters for users to find and sort followers and topics
— Patrick (@CredibleLA) October 26, 2017
Make it easier to load old tweets
— Dirk (@RealDirkDeal) October 27, 2017
Change the company’s perception of Twitter’s leadership.
Be a good corporate citizen
— Jennifer Grygiel (@jmgrygiel) October 26, 2017
We approve this suggestion: Read before you tweet.
Also finding a way 2 make people click on a link before they can react to a tweet. Too many peeps retweet a clickbaity headline w/o reading.
— Kristina Wong (@kristina_wong) October 27, 2017
This would probably free up a lot of good usernames, too.
Reconfirm unused accounts - delete if not used.
— Lady Bree (@lady_bree) October 27, 2017
Delete accounts that post more tweets per minute than is humanly possible.
Change the policy where Twitter allows certain tweets to stay because of their “newsworthiness.”
change the "newsworthiness" aspect of their rules for twitter.
— Adam Morris (@brainysmurf) October 27, 2017
Change the algorithm. A lot of people asked for Twitter to go back to chronological tweets. While Twitter already has this as an option (go here to fix it) it may need to promote this more often.
Timeline based on when tweets were posted. Not this nonsense feed we have now
— Tyler Hodges (@tylerhodges) October 27, 2017
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
