We, Twitter, are making it easier than ever to complain about Twitter on Twitter
Over the past decade, Twitter has evolved as a service based on the way our users tweet. By simply observing our users, Twitter has added the Hashtag, the Like button, and the Quote tweet.
Today, we are continuing in this tradition of user-suggested innovations. Following the unrest over Tuesday’s product announcement, it’s become clear what feature Twitter users really, deeply crave: more and better ways to complain about Twitter.
While Twitter wasn’t originally designed as a social network on which you exclusively complain about the service itself, that is what it’s become. And so today, we are announcing a new suite of features that will greatly improve the experience of complaining about Twitter on Twitter.
We are totally committed to transforming Twitter into a cranky self-referential message board, and we think you’re going to love complaining about these new features. Here’s what you can to expect to hate:
- Founder Reply All: We know that you want your petty complaints to be viewed by as many powerful people as possible. That’s why we’re adding a “Founder Reply All” button, which will automatically address your grievances to Twitter founders Jack Dorsey, Ev Williams, Biz Stone, and (why not?) Noah Glass. And just for good measure, we’ll tag one random airline’s customer service account, too.
- Typos: From now on, every product announcement from Twitter will include at least one egregious typo, just so that you know we’re not trying. Lampoon our carelessness—every time!
- More Frequent Meaningless Updates: The most important issues facing Twitter are the harassment and threats that many women and public figures face on the service. That’s why we’re going to increase the frequency with which we deal with every other problem. In June, get ready for the launch of Twitter Stickers; in July, we’ll roll out a way to add your personal phone number to your Twitter profile; in August, we’ll announce a partnership with Soylent. Think we’re about to make it easier to report abuse? Think again: We’re introducing Bitcoin payments in Direct Messages.
- Complaint Templates: Too lazy to formulate an original objection to a new Twitter feature? Our new Complaint Templates will do it for you. Push a button and we’ll tweet out some custom text (“Delete your account”; “Bleh, if true”; “How about an ‘Edit Tweets’ button?”) plus a link to our most recent blog post.
- Facebook’s Stock Price: Just in case you forget how badly we’re blowing it, we’ll be including Facebook’s stock chart on the sidebar of Twitter.com. Take a screenshot and try a Founder Reply All!
- Push Notification Tweets: Want to complain really loudly? Send your tweet as a push notification (“a push-tweet”) to all of your followers, regardless of whether they’ve muted you.
- Unpredictable Website Crashes: The only thing worse than using Twitter is not being able to use Twitter. Our servers will be tanking far more often in the coming months, giving you plenty to gripe about as the service slowly comes back online.
- Comic Sans: Use an Android phone? Screw you. The app is in Comic Sans now.
You can expect to start groaning about these features within the next two weeks. (For our Power Complainers, these features will not reach Tweetdeck for at least 3 years.) And this isn’t the end of our work: Nothing inspires our team more than dreaming up new features for our users to complain about.
As always, if you have any feedback about these changes, please: Complain about Twitter on Twitter. That’s why we invented it.