Twitter’s Dickbar Meets Its Demise

When Twitter rolled out an update to its iPhone app earlier this month, it included a new feature that quickly became the bane of most upgraders’ experience. The QuickBar permanently hovered at the top of your tweet-stream, giving you a real-time update of trending topics.

After resoundingly negative feedback that included the new label by which we now refer to the feature – the DickBar (named after Twitter CEO Dick Costolo) – Twitter made some tweaks so that the feature didn’t always appear. And now – rejoice – Twitter has killed the feature altogether, announcing that an update available in the App Store today will return your official Twitter iPhone app to its DickBar-less state.

Sponsor

“After testing a feature and evaluating its merits, if we learn it doesn’t improve the user experience or serve our mission,” says Twitter, “we’ll remove that feature.”

It was pretty clear that the QuickBar did not improve the user experience, as Instapaper founder Marco Arment pointed out in a blistering blog post that labeled its introduction “offensive”: “It’s a news ticker limited to one-word items, lacking any context, broadcasting mostly topics that I don’t understand, recognize, or care about. It’s nonsensical. At worst, it can offend. At best, it will confuse.”

Despite the unpleasant user experience, many speculated that the introduction of the QuickBar was part of Twitter’s plans to eventually insert ads and monetize the tweet-stream. In making its announcement today, Twitter says that it does believe “there are still significant benefits to increasing awareness of what’s happening outside the home timeline. Evidence of the incredibly high usage metrics for the QuickBar support this.”

But it’s “back to the drawing board,” says Twitter. Thankfully, now co-founder Jack Dorsey is back at that drawing board too, having just announced earlier this week that he’s stepping back in to take a more active role in Twitter’s product.

Discuss