Elon to Twitter Employees: Go Hardcore or Quit

Ars Technica reports Elon Musk sent an email to all Twitter employees that they need to go “hardcore” and work long hours or they should quit (and get three months’ severance). I feel for Twitter employees. They didn’t grossly overpay for the company, but now they are expected to put in long hours to attempt its reinvention. This is a monumental task. Right now Facebook, with its 2 billion active users, is struggling. Twitter has something more like 200 million active users. One-tenth the reach. Whether Twitter is successful (and Elon makes more billions) or unsuccessful (and everyone gets laid off), those who sign on to Elon’s hardcore employment still have to deal with wreckage that does to the rest of their lives and relationships.

Steve Jobs did a similar thing at Apple in 1997 when he came back … kind of. I’ve heard of a meeting where he told people they need to get on board or leave, but I’ve never seen any reporting that it included the condition that they screw up their lives. A video from this period on YouTube shows Steve’s plan to turn the company around. Still, that meeting was more to sell his employees on his vision than giving them any ultimatum.

Regardless, if I worked for Twitter, I would take the severance and run.

Tweetbot for Mac 2.0

Yesterday saw the release of Tweetbot for Mac 2.0. (App Store)(Website) Hallelujah. This new version features a Yosem-ified interface that was sorely needed. Like its iPad sibling, Tweetbot on the Mac was looking very old. Things are now bit flatter, a bit cleaner, and fit in better on the OS X 10.10.

The icons in this new version are cleaner and, in my opinion, better. There aren’t a lot of new features. The new tweet window now floats and doesn’t require you to tear it off the application.

I’m not entirely sold on the new icon but, overall, the new design is very much welcome. I hope the iPad isn’t far behind.

I have been poking fun at Tweetbot for a while with its antiquated versions on the Mac and iPad. I jest because I love. Tweetbot has been my twitter application of choice for years. Multiple times I’ve gone on a quest to find a replacement and every time I end up back in Tweetbot. It has always been a very stable application for me and has just the right combination of features and whimsy I’m looking for in a Twitter application.

Tweetbot for Mac version 2.0 is a free update for owners of version 1. Also, the price has been permanently lowered from $20 to $13.

Yosemi-fied Tweetbot

Today Tapbots teased the pending release of Tweetbot 2 for Mac, which will be a free upgrade for existing users. For a long time, Tweetbot was my Twitter app of choice but I spend a significant amount of my Twitter time on the iPad and the application still has that retro, pre-iOS 7 vibe. I know the gang at Tapbots is manic about their UI design and won’t update the app until they can get it right. That’s one of the reasons we love them so much. I just couldn’t wait any longer.

Then I read Federico Viticci’s manifesto on Twitter clients and decided to try the official Twitter app for awhile. I’ve been doing that now for about 6 weeks and I don’t find it terrible, but I also don’t find it particularly efficient for the way I use Twitter. It definitely has not won my heart over the way Tweetbot did several years ago.

I view an update to Tweetbot as a promising sign that Tapbots will give a similar upgrade to Tweetbot for iPad. Alternatively, I’d be just as pleased if Tapbots would just build iPad support into the existing iPhone application. The developer tools make it a lot easier to build an alternate layout for iPad or the larger iPhones. Marco Arment appears to have stumbled into the iPad version of Overcast. Either way, an updated Tweetbot on Mac and long-overdue version on iPad would make my day.