One Twitter user tweeted, external, "That Twitter commercial was *really bad*. Can't imagine anyone feeling invited to use the service or see the value after seeing the spot."
And blogger John Gruber described, external it as "incomprehensible", going so far as to say: "Someone should be fired."
Some were positive about the broadcast, though. "That Twitter commercial is pretty cool," tweeted, external one viewer.
Twitter has recently been struggling to continue to attract large numbers of new users to its network - a problem which some say is because of the slightly esoteric nature of the platform.
"I'm a baseball fan […] I've been on Twitter since 2007 and to be honest I had trouble making sense of it," said digital entrepreneur George Nimeh, at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.
"I can't imagine what it would be like for someone who is unfamiliar with what Twitter really is. It was really fast, it was kind of a mish-mash of different stuff."
Mr Nimeh added that while Twitter's user figures showed strong year-on-year growth a few years ago, that growth had slumped to less than 20% early in 2015.
"I think Twitter's fundamental problem is they've never been able to very simply and succinctly explain to people who are not familiar with Twitter what it is - and this particular ad this commercial does nothing to help," he told the BBC.