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Twitter Built a Messaging App But Never Released It (buzzfeed.com)

Posted by msmash on from the interesting-moves dept.

Twitter spent more than a year building a stand-alone instant messaging app that never ended up seeing the light of day. The product -- which provided a single interface for tweets and instant messages -- was built by Twitter's Indian engineering team at its office in Bengaluru, reports BuzzFeed News. The company shelved the app when it shut down its engineering center in the country in September, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to BuzzFeed News. The app was envisioned as a tool to ease new users on to Twitter's flagship platform. It did this by allowing users to subscribe to groups based around topics such as news, politics, and sports. The people within the groups could chat among themselves, and subscribe to additional accounts, pulling their tweets into the conversation. This kind of functionality is already available in Slack channels, and was tested in Facebook's now-defunct Rooms app (which itself may be making a comeback, if recent reports are to be believed).

31 comments

  1. Written in India? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The probably couldn't make it work at all.

    1. Re:Written in India? by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Funny

      The probably couldn't make it work at all.

      Oh it worked...the problem was, no one could understand what was being said....

      ;)

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    2. Re:Written in India? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, duh. They didn't shut down their boiler room, er, "engineering center" over there because it was pumping out quality.

    3. Re:Written in India? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The probably couldn't make it work at all.

      Oh it worked...the problem was, no one could understand what was being said....

      ;)

      You're both right of course. The programming was terrible, and the developers kept asking others to revert, do the needful, and the same.

    4. Re:Written in India? by Provocateur · · Score: 1

      somebody in the back raised his hand and said, Oh you mean like chat?

      --
      WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
    5. Re:Written in India? by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's nothing quite like a good chat session.

      --
      "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
    6. Re:Written in India? by DrXym · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That would explain why they shut the group down. It'd be interesting to know the reasons why but my own experience of supervising a team in India is that culture, language and staff retention are serious problems. Whatever you think you're saving by paying less you could more than lose in terms of productivity and code quality.

    7. Re:Written in India? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you were making jokes about Muslims you'd face the full wrath of the social justice crowd.

      Interesting how some people, like Chinese and Indians, are fair game for ridicule, while ridiculing others, like Muslims and blacks, will get you harassed off the internet.

      Hurray for equality.

    8. Re: Written in India? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Muslims and blacks as you call them, tend to get violent at any small perceived threat, whether real or not.

      Unless you're somehow unaware of all the shootings and bombings from muslims across the world, or in the US the recent amount of homicides of police officers.

    9. Re:Written in India? by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      If you were making jokes about Muslims you'd face the full wrath of the social justice crowd.

      Ok...these two muslims walked into a bar, and ...............*BOOM*

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    10. Re:Written in India? by I4ko · · Score: 2

      Also "senior" in India does in no way relate to person's abilities, it just means they have been with the company for more than 1 year. They can continue to produce garbage as they did in their first year. Even "principal" is given based on years and not on actual abilities.

    11. Re:Written in India? by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      Because this is not ridicule against Indians as such but against the non-educated will-work-for-pennies Indians that western companies tends to hire. There are for sure a lot of smart and competent Indians out there, not a single one works in India for a shit salary however.

    12. Re:Written in India? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are two types of ridicule.

      Interesting how some people, like Chinese and Indians, are fair game for ridicule......

      Those are instances where the ridicule is a confession of the worthiness of their achievements, which is acceptable.

      ......while ridiculing others, like Muslims and blacks, will get you harassed off the internet.

      Those are instances where the ridicule is due to bad blood.

      While all jokes should be acceptable, at least know why some earn a laugh and others a smirk.

    13. Re:Written in India? by DrXym · · Score: 1
      The people I worked with came and went in months. Apparently a lot of multinationals were opening big support centres in Bangalore so they basically hopped around from place to place trying to get work visas and suchlike.

      Aside from that I really couldn't stand the total passivity of the people I worked with. Every email / call was "How do I fix this problem?" rather than "I found a problem but I have this solution I want to run by you", or "FYI I found a problem but I fixed it". It was like they couldn't think for themselves or were afraid to. They wouldn't even push back on my suggestions. I hated every minute of dealing with them. The company clearly did too because they ended up selling the entire operation to Infosys.

  2. The future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ....was built by Twitter's Indian engineering team at its office in Bengaluru.

    That's the future folks. Ideas and marketing here in the US. Design and engineering work in India. And when they get too expensive, there are billions more to be exploited.

    So kids, if you want a future, make sure to pick wealthy parents -- like Trump did.

    1. Re:The future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      ....was built by Twitter's Indian engineering team at its office in Bengaluru.

      That's the future folks. Ideas and marketing here in the US. Design and engineering work in India. And when they get too expensive, there are billions more to be exploited.

      So kids, if you want a future, make sure to pick wealthy parents -- like Trump did.

      Or marry the right man - like Hillary! did.

  3. The had a little common sense by I4ko · · Score: 1

    Something unheard of, but it looks like the marketing drones had a little common sense (or too much guilty consciousness to ignore) and didn't want anyone else to suffer from something developed in "Bengalaru".

    Who am I kidding, the marketing drones don't have consciousness of any kind.

    1. Re:The had a little common sense by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      I think they saw the past and understood what would happen. The brand would become a term that allowed two or more people to chat without and need for the brand.
      The mention of the brand would then be to pass on details to allow for a chat/cam/mic protocol to work.
      No user base, no public comment, no trends, no marketing. Just two or more people using the brand's tools and bandwidth to chat and then quit.
      Better to keep the herd of users commenting in public to attract and keep users than just letting them chat in private.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  4. They have a working one already by NotInHere · · Score: 1

    Signal. Although they didn't build it themselves.

  5. Twitter's flagship platform by ooloorie · · Score: 1

    The app was envisioned as a tool to ease new users on to Twitter's flagship platform.

    This is Twitter's flagship platform, in case you were wondering. Hey, it hasn't sunk yet.

  6. More than a year? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How does one spend more than a year developing something as trivial as a messaging app?

  7. Messaging app = 250 hours of work MAX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We cobbled together these things back in college, scaleable and everything. A half dozen coders probably bashed this thing together in a week. The login functions they already have from twitter itself. That's like 1/4 of the work right there.

  8. Twitter made an app and didn't release it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And nothing of value was lost.

  9. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  10. How does a simple app take a year to write? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How is it that large companies take years to make simple programs? A messaging app is something a student should be able to write in a couple weeks.

  11. In other Mon news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I built up pressure in my ass and didn't release it.

    Captcha: Constipation

  12. Written in India? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And they cancelled the team and threw away the code? Sounds like pretty much every outsource attempt ever.

  13. Re:Happy Birthday! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Any mobile development that takes longer than a year to see it's birthday needs to be shuttered. Too bad it took Twitter executives to realizes this past 30 days. Maybe, just maybe, next they should think about milestones and KPI benchmarks for projects. Just saying it might help.

    CEO Dorsey is terrified President-Elect Trump will stop using Twitter.

  14. market saturation by Khashishi · · Score: 1

    We don't need 100 messaging apps that do the same thing. Unless you can provide something that other apps don't do.

  15. The Indian bluff failed this time ... by swell · · Score: 1

    Education in the US is primarily oriented toward job training. It is about 'how to please your employer'.

    In other times and places there is a quite different attitude that might be called 'how to survive in spite of your employer'. One of the prime lessons in this thought pattern is that you must make yourself indispensable. There are many ways...

    For one; you might want to discover company secrets that would destroy the company if the taxman or competition learned about them. You become so powerful with this information that you cannot be fired (but you might suffer a deadly 'accident').

    In this Twitter case, the relevant ploy that makes you indispensable is that only you can understand the code that makes a valuable software system work. The company either keeps you on ... or they have to give up the entire software system.

    Nice try, you Indian fuckers, but the company decided to dump your messaging app. Or maybe I'm entirely wrong about this, but let this be a reminder to other employees who are more interested in survival than pleasing your employer. Make yourself indispensable.

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  16. Re:Happy Birthday! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Any mobile development that takes longer than a year to see it's birthday needs to be shuttered.

    How does someone close the window protection on mobile development?