4 ms·

Twitter just doesn't have an idea about where to evolve. They've tried small changes, and nothing helped their bottom line. Rumors are that part of the reason i

by beagle3 10y ago

Twitter just doesn't have an idea about where to evolve. They've tried small changes, and nothing helped their bottom line. Rumors are that part of the reason is that they are not sure what their "secret sauce" is, so they are reluctant to change anything in fear of harming it. Also, they are dying. They have never turned a profit. Facebook or Google or Microsoft will eventually buy them, because of the users - but they have so far given no indication they can survive independently. And they have had a few billion dollars in funding and ten years to give that indication.

manigandham 10y ago
> Facebook or Google or Microsoft will eventually buy them, because of the users Those companies already have those same users.
- godzillabrennus 10y ago
  Maybe Rupert Murdoch is feeling adventurous again. I mean he did buy MySpace once.
- beagle3 10y ago
  Facebook had essentially all of WhatsApp's users, and they still paid $20B for it. I should have said "users and the time the spend on it".
  - scholia 10y ago
    On Device Research said the overlap was only 24% in the USA. 45% only used Facebook and 31% only used WhatsApp. Also, WhatsApp was strong in some parts of the globe where Facebook was weaker. In particular, WhatsApp was used in mainland China where Facebook was banned.
reitanqild 10y ago
>> It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. > Twitter just doesn't have an idea about where to evolve. My feeling is the secret sauce was "being cool and disruptive". /s To secure that position they have, IMO, spent the last few years painting themselves into a corner.
niftich 10y ago
Twitter (the service, not the company's) secret sauce is: You can have a public platform, using an identity you choose for yourself, to broadcast snippets of information. Where do you evolve this? Blogger, Blogspot, Livejournal, Tumblr, Medium, they're all in this same space, except they focus on traditional, long-form content. I don't see Twitter as a social network (although many do, that's okay). I see it as a broadcast medium, a soapbox, a blogging platform. But if you see Twitter as a social network, you're subject to a different set of pressures than a blogging platform. Also, Twitter holds no value to FB, Google, MS, or Yahoo. They all have subsumed parts of its core functionality into their offerings. If they ever get acquired, it's by some 'outsider' that wants to enter this space, like Verizon or Yandex.
- kristianc 10y ago
  They have value to anyone who has an interest in selling interest / location / cross-device based advertising, so that's exactly Facebook, Google, Microsoft. Yahoo would buy it for exactly the same reason they bought Tumblr - trying to stumble on a new business model via acquisition.
- valgaze 10y ago
  >> I don't see Twitter as a social network (although many do, that's okay). I see it as a broadcast medium, a soapbox, a blogging platform. A few years back Peter Kafka wrote an article [1] about how joe/joan-shmoe twitter user will probably never have their tweets read by anybody at all. It was astonishingly small number of folks who broke 500 followers (writing 3/4 years ago) ex. “The median Twitter account has a single follower. Among the much smaller subset of accounts that have posted in the last 30 days, the median account has just 61 followers.” It is from a few years ago, maybe things have changed but if that's the experience of the average person why invest time in it? [1] http://allthingsd.com/20131223/almost-no-one-is-reading-your-tweets/ http://allthingsd.com/20131223/almost-no-one-is-reading-your...
  - Eutow 10y ago
    Because most people's tweets are read by their friends/relatives/social circle. Half of Facebook's users have fewer than 200 friends on it.
acdha 10y ago
The big problem was that they're profitable at the hundreds-of-millions-per-quarter level but have been trying to spend into the billion+ range. They uses to have tons of ideas and innovation until they locked the API in preparation for the IPO, but the ways they expected that to generate revenue obviously haven't happened at the scale they hoped for. Their quarterly reports consistently show that the losses are caused by stock-based compensation and simply having staffed for a much larger business.
JibberMeTimbers 10y ago
What I think is interesting is their direction towards streaming. For instance, they struck a deal to stream NFL games and they will being streaming the RNC and DNC conventions. That may be a good direction for them to pair with their platform.

by beagle3 10y ago

manigandham 10y ago

> Facebook or Google or Microsoft will eventually buy them, because of the users Those companies already have those same users.

godzillabrennus 10y ago
Maybe Rupert Murdoch is feeling adventurous again. I mean he did buy MySpace once.
beagle3 10y ago
Facebook had essentially all of WhatsApp's users, and they still paid $20B for it. I should have said "users and the time the spend on it".
- scholia 10y ago
  On Device Research said the overlap was only 24% in the USA. 45% only used Facebook and 31% only used WhatsApp. Also, WhatsApp was strong in some parts of the globe where Facebook was weaker. In particular, WhatsApp was used in mainland China where Facebook was banned.

reitanqild 10y ago

>> It's such a shame, really; arguably Twitter, much more so than their competitors, tries to stick as close to the original form of their product as they can. > Twitter just doesn't have an idea about where to evolve. My feeling is the secret sauce was "being cool and disruptive". /s To secure that position they have, IMO, spent the last few years painting themselves into a corner.

niftich 10y ago

Twitter (the service, not the company's) secret sauce is: You can have a public platform, using an identity you choose for yourself, to broadcast snippets of information. Where do you evolve this? Blogger, Blogspot, Livejournal, Tumblr, Medium, they're all in this same space, except they focus on traditional, long-form content. I don't see Twitter as a social network (although many do, that's okay). I see it as a broadcast medium, a soapbox, a blogging platform. But if you see Twitter as a social network, you're subject to a different set of pressures than a blogging platform. Also, Twitter holds no value to FB, Google, MS, or Yahoo. They all have subsumed parts of its core functionality into their offerings. If they ever get acquired, it's by some 'outsider' that wants to enter this space, like Verizon or Yandex.

kristianc 10y ago
They have value to anyone who has an interest in selling interest / location / cross-device based advertising, so that's exactly Facebook, Google, Microsoft. Yahoo would buy it for exactly the same reason they bought Tumblr - trying to stumble on a new business model via acquisition.
valgaze 10y ago
>> I don't see Twitter as a social network (although many do, that's okay). I see it as a broadcast medium, a soapbox, a blogging platform. A few years back Peter Kafka wrote an article [1] about how joe/joan-shmoe twitter user will probably never have their tweets read by anybody at all. It was astonishingly small number of folks who broke 500 followers (writing 3/4 years ago) ex. “The median Twitter account has a single follower. Among the much smaller subset of accounts that have posted in the last 30 days, the median account has just 61 followers.” It is from a few years ago, maybe things have changed but if that's the experience of the average person why invest time in it? [1] http://allthingsd.com/20131223/almost-no-one-is-reading-your-tweets/ http://allthingsd.com/20131223/almost-no-one-is-reading-your...
- Eutow 10y ago
  Because most people's tweets are read by their friends/relatives/social circle. Half of Facebook's users have fewer than 200 friends on it.

acdha 10y ago

The big problem was that they're profitable at the hundreds-of-millions-per-quarter level but have been trying to spend into the billion+ range. They uses to have tons of ideas and innovation until they locked the API in preparation for the IPO, but the ways they expected that to generate revenue obviously haven't happened at the scale they hoped for. Their quarterly reports consistently show that the losses are caused by stock-based compensation and simply having staffed for a much larger business.

JibberMeTimbers 10y ago

What I think is interesting is their direction towards streaming. For instance, they struck a deal to stream NFL games and they will being streaming the RNC and DNC conventions. That may be a good direction for them to pair with their platform.