When I used to cover the banking industry, one firm was known to insiders as “the bank most likely to step on a sharpened stick.” What they meant was that this bank seemed to be so accident prone (or cursed) that if there was a problem to find, it would somehow find it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s hard not to think of this phrase whenever Twitter launches a new feature. It’s not just that the company has lost 80% of its former market value over the past few years, or that it failed to generate<\/a> much interest from a raft of acquirers last year, despite massive leaks about all the offers it was fielding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whenever the service even tries to do something good, it can’t seem to avoid shooting itself in the foot somehow. In the latest example, it announced<\/a> that @ replies won’t count towards the 140-character limit, as it promised months ago. You might think that this new development would be a good thing. But most users appear to hate it<\/a>, in part because the execution is clunky at best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s true that almost every tweak that Twitter has made to the service has been received with howls of outrage. Many people just don’t like change. But there are valid criticisms<\/a> of the latest move, which point out that it makes certain aspects of Twitter harder rather than easier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In some ways, Twitter is caught in a classic Catch-22. It needs to boost its user base and engagement levels to prove to investors (and potential acquirers) that there’s still some juice in the engine. But every change it makes irritates hard-core users. And so it lurches forward, stumbling and falling and then getting back up again like some kind of cartoon zombie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Note<\/strong>: This was originally published at Fortune magazine’s website, where I was a senior writer<\/em><\/p>\n