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Comment by taytus | Hacker News Reader

"The whole world is watching Twitter. While we may not be currently meeting everyone’s growth expectations, there is one thing that continues to grow and outpace our peers: Twitter’s influence and impact."

https://medium.com/@jack/twitter-q416-earnings-call-4574b01e...

I honestly don't see how they are growing in influence and impact. I'd say that if it weren't for POTUS tweets, most people wouldn't even notice any change on Twitter's impact.

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I mean, that's exactly what they're talking about. You can't just exclude one of the most impactful topics of global discussion (US politics). The fact of the matter is Twitter has a tremendously disproportionate impact on US politics and US journalism, and by extension world affairs.

Let's say that for some reason POTUS decides to start using facebook instead. Then what? Yes, I'm not denying the impact of those tweets, all I'm saying is that is just only ONE user driving the impact.

Not just POTUS. You'd also need Congressmen/women, non-profits, journalists, etc.

Beyond POTUS, I've noticed a definite uptick in usage almost solely from politics. Lots more politicians engaging in this, and people realising they can talk politics through this medium.

I don't know how you take advantage of that to pay your bazillion engineers though

On the flip slide, politicians have been using Facebook increasingly (especially Facebook Live) for the same reasons, which isn't good for Twitter.

Facebook Live is not good for Twitter in terms of Periscope - Twitter's acquisition in 2015. Otherwise, Facebook still rules the roost for short real-time fast status updates.

Hey, it's not a zero sum game, right? More social media usage across the board, even if some goes to a competitor (and even then, I subscribe to Twitter != FB so I don't think it's an issue)

Uses medium.com instead of a tweet storm...

medium is a better tool for this type of communication. it was also founded by twitter cofounder ev williams.

speaks volumes about their hubris

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