Twitter timeline
Yay twitter. You launch a small fun social chatter app. It falls over during WWDC, hillarity ensues. You gain an adorable downtime mascot! Next WWDC, you're better, things stay up. Much handwaving happens about business models, never goes anywhere. Spammers arrive - you must be a real web service! Yay!
US elections happen! Major political parties use Twitter to do.. things. You start appearing in major newspapers. Every company suddenly has to have a Twitter account. Hardcore userbase grumble about how people aren't using twitter 'properly', it's just microblogging/broadcast. Noone notices them because their grumbles are buried under the firehose. You turn off some features, tweak others, there's a little grumbling, noone actually stops using it. Future looking rosy! Though that might just be the burning servers.
Then the State Department asks you to move downtime to not clash with elections. Today, you're a tool for Iranian propaganda.
Personal thoughts on this.
a. Twitter are a lot bigger and more important than I thought they were, apparently.
b. If I worked there, I'd be terrified.