Your stuff owning you...neat inversion. For you personally, what questions do you ask yourself when deciding whether to "rent" or "buy" something? How have those questions changed with time?
"Perhaps a law of evolution is that intelligence usually extinguishes itself. This admittedly dour scenario is based on what can be termed the juggernaut theory of human nature, which holds that people are programmed by their genetic heritage to be so selfish that a sense of global responsibility will come too late. Individuals place themselves first, family second, tribe third and the rest of the world a distant fourth."
Public figures post on Twitter first. As a result, it's where news breaks. However, due to the constraints Twitter has placed on how people are able to represent themselves (i.e. limited profiles) and communicate with their audiences (i.e. inability to publish long-form written content natively), these people are driven to other platforms (i.e. Facebook) to do things they might've otherwise done on Twitter.
Instead of trying to compete as social utility in the way that Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat have positioned themselves, why not cater explicitly to the newsmakers who are already defaulting to their platform, giving them fewer reasons to go elsewhere and attracting non-Twitter users in the process?
Make profiles more robust. Features could include:
• Event creation
• A forum/group tab so followers of a specific account could more easily communicate with each other
• Expanded "About" section
• Custom calls-to-action (i.e. "Sign Up," "Message," "Shop," etc.)
Allow people to publish more content natively. Such as:
• Long-form writing
• Long-form video