US YoY numbers are down--this is true. Q4 has historically been a bad growth month for them. If you're focused on MAUs, then Q4 in a non-election year is going

US YoY numbers are down--this is true. Q4 has historically been a bad growth month for them. If you're focused on MAUs, then Q4 in a non-election year is going to be bad. It's like "peak boring Twitter". Everyone is rocking Amazon and the online retailers. There are no new TV series or movies dropping. Bowl season hasn't started. World Cup 2014 (Men) and 2015 (Women) are past. Granted, the US annual YoY numbers aren't good, but: * International is up 11%. * 2016 is an election year. * And there are Olympics this year. * And Q1 is historically the strongest growth month. I kind of think that if you're strictly MAU-focused, it's not a bad time to get in. That said: * I have noticed casual users dropping off their interaction volume based on my puny timeline. * I attribute some of that not to anything competitive, but to the economy picking up and everyone being so freaking busy. More lurking, less of a need to self-validate. Call it social proof fatigue. (I really suspect this is the canary in the coal mine for Facebook engagement.) * The sharp divide between folks who claim to "get" Twitter and those who claim to "don't get" Twitter is sharpening. Rather than seeing this as a negative, I see this as a bifurcation that can be studied and exploited. Twitter still has a unique and important niche. There are so many ways they can innovate around this niche without destroying it. My take: * Twitter search is an unexploited global resource. * Buffing up search and offering it orthogonally to the Twitter user experience is a HUGE potential upside that is untapped. They can monetize the hell out of that and not screw up the experience! Why limit engagement with their data flow to the timeline! I'd gladly accept more ads in a search than in my timeline. * Restating that: content creators--the people who tweet--low barrier to entry. Market search and Moments in a broader way. The pulse of the country. You can laden that with the ads. Those are the MAUs you want. They'll be fine. This feels more like a narrative created by competitors or potential acquirers to get them on the cheap before they can execute on their core value. Maybe they're run by weak-willed dullards who will cave because they can't see it, and it will be Google or someone else with a lick of sense that leads them to their promise, or who acquires them to kill them off.