5 ms·

How is a company which "might never be profitable" considered a "significant asset"?!

by joobus 10y ago

brazzledazzle 10y ago
I assume it's because another company is in a position to capitalize on it in ways Twitter alone could not.
dpflan 10y ago
As a social network, this is probably valuable to Google's Ad business - gives more dimensions to a Google user if you link your Twitter account with Google account...just guessing ATM.
falcolas 10y ago
There's a lot of signal to be had in Twitter, signal which can be (and has been) turned into revenue not directly gained from it's users or advertisers. Remember the story about Dataminr and its Government contracts?
adventured 10y ago
The same thing was said about YouTube because of its immense costs of operations and the fact that few/nobody had figured out how to do a good job monetizing video advertising at that point. Google being the ad monster that it is, could significantly boost Twitter's business and they could slash the operating costs very considerably. Twitter should be solidly profitable at $3-$4 billion in sales (which Google could deliver).
the_duke 10y ago
Money isn't everything. YouTube is a hugely popular service, driving lots of data, traffic and brand image towards Google. Could be the same for Twitter.
- daveguy 10y ago
  I'm not sure if brand image is something YouTube gives Google. I honestly don't think the general public knows that YouTube is a part of Google. YouTube seems like its own separate thing to the casual user. It would be interesting to see a poll of the general public. But the data. The data is key. They have rocked image recognition and video is a huge data source for their ML efforts.
tantalor 10y ago
YouTube isn't profitable either. http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-google-any-money-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-goo...
SixSigma 10y ago
Controlling the narrative. See who has been banned from Twitter. It's not BLM people celebrating cop murders, it's people posting too many #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen tweets. http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/09/21/twitter-suspends-womens-rights-group-after-criticizing-saudi-arabia/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/09/21/twitter-suspends-wo...

How is a company which "might never be profitable" considered a "significant asset"?!

by joobus 10y ago

How is a company which "might never be profitable" considered a "significant asset"?!

brazzledazzle 10y ago

I assume it's because another company is in a position to capitalize on it in ways Twitter alone could not.

dpflan 10y ago

As a social network, this is probably valuable to Google's Ad business - gives more dimensions to a Google user if you link your Twitter account with Google account...just guessing ATM.

falcolas 10y ago

There's a lot of signal to be had in Twitter, signal which can be (and has been) turned into revenue not directly gained from it's users or advertisers. Remember the story about Dataminr and its Government contracts?

adventured 10y ago

The same thing was said about YouTube because of its immense costs of operations and the fact that few/nobody had figured out how to do a good job monetizing video advertising at that point. Google being the ad monster that it is, could significantly boost Twitter's business and they could slash the operating costs very considerably. Twitter should be solidly profitable at $3-$4 billion in sales (which Google could deliver).

the_duke 10y ago

Money isn't everything. YouTube is a hugely popular service, driving lots of data, traffic and brand image towards Google. Could be the same for Twitter.

daveguy 10y ago
I'm not sure if brand image is something YouTube gives Google. I honestly don't think the general public knows that YouTube is a part of Google. YouTube seems like its own separate thing to the casual user. It would be interesting to see a poll of the general public. But the data. The data is key. They have rocked image recognition and video is a huge data source for their ML efforts.

tantalor 10y ago

YouTube isn't profitable either. http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-google-any-money-2015-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-still-doesnt-make-goo...

SixSigma 10y ago

Controlling the narrative. See who has been banned from Twitter. It's not BLM people celebrating cop murders, it's people posting too many #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen tweets. http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/09/21/twitter-suspends-womens-rights-group-after-criticizing-saudi-arabia/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/09/21/twitter-suspends-wo...