Linked List: February 22, 2015

Sunday, 22 February 2015

‘So, Let the Learning Continue’ ★: Martin Scorsese-narrated iPad ad, airing during tonight’s Academy Awards.
Meet the Tweet-Deleters ★: Speaking of Twitter, Kevin Roose reports on an interesting sub-culture:

Like most media workers, Matthew Lazin-Ryder, a Vancouver-based producer with CBC Radio, spends a fair amount of time on Twitter. When he tweets, his messages are seen by some percentage of his 3,470 followers. They retweet, favorite, write pithy replies. And then, a week later, his tweets disappear.

Lazin-Ryder is one of a number of Twitter users who are using homegrown methods to make their tweets self-destruct. He says that having his tweets disappear automatically makes Twitter feel more conversational and casual, and less like a professional pressure-cooker.
Twitter’s Dilemma ★: Good piece by Matthew Panzarino on where Twitter is and where it’s going:

At times (quite a bit) the way that Twitter has chosen to roll out features and products has felt schizophrenic. And that’s no wonder, really, as the company now serves two masters. Its users and its shareholders. And while those interests may sometimes align, there is no question which is the more important to please for a public company. This has led to rocky times when it comes to external, and even internal, perceptions of Twitter’s directional confidence. […]

And I’m also not convinced that the market understands, or will ever understand, the reason that Twitter exists. This puts Twitter’s leadership, including its product team, in the unfortunate position of having to continue to perform product prestidigitation to serve both masters.