Twitter is old media

Edd Dumbill writes that Twitter, as it strives to become a profitable company, is turning into an old media company.

Twitter’s bait-and-switch, now they’ve built their reach on the back of eager early adopters, is disappointing. It marks them as part of old, unenlightened, business, and consigns them to a far less remarkable place in the future economy than they otherwise might have had.

Michael Heilemann has a somewhat harsher take in his post on Amazon, Twitter, and Star Wars:

Some part of me can’t help but admire the purity of the clusterfuck that is Twitter’s continued downward trajectory from startup wunderkind to some sort of bland, wannabe ad-driven media company.

It’s incomplete, but I can’t help but draw comparisons between Twitter’s alienation of their original users and ecosystem to, because I am me, Star Wars.

Despite what George Lucas says, the continuing alterations to Star Wars have been driven by business reasoning, not some artistic auteur need to see the vision completed. And in both cases, the original fan base is the one getting run over, while the unwashed masses get to enjoy Jar Jar and Justin Bieber, respectively.

• Amazon
• Edd Dumbill
• Michael Heilemann
• Star Wars
• Twitter