I am personally okay with change. Twitter definitely has room for improvement. But there was rumor a few weeks back of a new algorithm that influences what Twitter users will see, and a near state of panic broke out. Would Twitter change the very elements that make the platform so unique and loved by its user base?

The short answer per CEO @Jack was ‘maybe.’  We’ve seen wrong turns on the technology highway before. Could Twitter have been poised for a mistake?

Now of course, the rumor has turned real. But this time around, I think I see some goodness. The “firehose” that Twitter users love to hate can be daunting for newbies, so we need help & tools for content curation and aggregation. Those first 20 tweets someone tries are often their last. I’ve been on Twitter for 7 years. I’m 32k tweets in. Maybe it’s time for us old-timers to provide some feedback. Most in our graduating class remember the fail whale, when the service was down or slow for long, awkward intervals. We survived those frontier days. So recent rants and jeers of an unappreciated customer base ring true for us, though perhaps more as an echo of a story that reminds us what’s been achieved.

We needed to let off some steam, with #RIPtwitter and worse.

How to Fix Twitter. Now, what I propose is providing Twitter some design input. Maybe their algorithm for providing focus based on our past tweets/connections can actually be used in a way that could solve some long-standing problems. And to me, those hashtags are key.

Here are some thoughts:

Let’s try to facilitate some discussion around change under the hashtag #algorithm .. in hopes we can bring some method to the madness. It’s too soon for #RIPtwitter .. but no doubt it is time for #twitterchange ..

Meantime, here we stand, throwing small rocks (not stones) at the windows of Twitter corporate, in hopes someone is listening.

I’m sure other companies from Facebook to Google and down the list would love to swoop in after a Twitter meltdown, scurrying to divide up the spoils, i,e., our future time and content. But some of us have spent many years working to make Twitter the unique and powerful social platform that it is.

Why not pivot, and make it better? Would love your thoughts, here or online.

Chris in Charlotte, NC aka @sourcepov