Twitter Digest and the persistence of opt-out
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Othman Laraki, Director of Growth and International at Twitter, on the official Twitter Blog:
Like other Twitter email notifications, you can manage your preferences for this new digest in your Notification Settings.
That is true, but Twitter has opted all users into their new weekly email digest. If you don’t want it, you’ll have to opt out of it. The quoted line is a half-assed way of telling us that.
Twitter is (arguably) progressive on patents and protective of privacy, so I won’t spend hundreds of words criticizing them on this particular point, but it’s worth noting.
Companies introducing new features always have two options:
- Companies that force users to opt-out of new features may create annoyance, project a lack of confidence in the feature’s likelihood of organic adoption, and give users occasion to second-guess other features the company offers while they’re busy trying to turn off the new stuff in their settings panel.
- Conversely, companies that allow users to opt into new features may create goodwill, cause organic word-of-mouth dissemination (much more powerful than the forced version), and help to stagger adoption of resource-intensive features, allowing them to successfully scale.
I don’t understand why more companies don’t go with the second option. I find it hard to believe that blind adoption by users too underinformed or lazy to opt-out is somehow more valuable than voluntary adoption.
But the persistence of opt-out feature introductions suggests companies believe exactly that, whether or not it’s accurate.