6 ms·

Completely disagree. Tiktok, Instagram, and Snap are fundamentally different platforms.

next_xibalba 4y ago
tl;dr - They are different platforms, but they are still direct competitors, and Twitter is getting crushed. I imagine the total addressable market (roughly) to be: - humans with an internet connection - Total their clock time - Subtract all the time they are otherwise necessarily occupied (sleeping, working, etc. etc.) The remainder is the time over which all media companies are vying. Twitter is competing against Netflix, Tiktok, physical books, etc. Some of these things can be done concurrently (watching Netflix while surfing the internet, listening to radio while driving), so add that time back or double it, whatever. But, basically, this is the state of play. To say that Twitter is not competing against Tiktok, Snap, IG, etc. is to obscure the true state of play and competitive landscape. In 99.9% of cases†, you cannot scroll Tiktok and Twitter concurrently. So one or the other (or neither) is displaying ads to you. One or the other is generating revenue from those impressions. It is not really users over which they are competing. Rather, it is the ad inventory. The ad inventory is a function of time on site/app. Of course, ad inventory is definitely also a function of users–hence the focus on active users (xAUs). On that front, Twitter is a small fry[1]: - Facebook (Meta): 2.9 Billion MAUs - Instagram (Meta): 1.5 Billion MAUs - TikTok: 1 Billion MAUs - Snap: 557 Million MAUs - Twitter: 436 Million MAUs So, Twitter would have to generate a heckuva lot of engagement per user to generate anywhere near the inventory of other social media platforms. But we know they don't, as evidenced by their revenues and ARPU [2]. † I'm swagging here, but you get the point [1] https://blog.hootsuite.com/snapchat-statistics-for-business/ https://blog.hootsuite.com/snapchat-statistics-for-business/ [2] https://stockdividendscreener.com/information-technology/comparison-of-average-revenue-per-user-for-social-media-companies/ https://stockdividendscreener.com/information-technology/com...
- criddell 4y ago
  The idea that every minute outside of working, sleeping, etc... would be thought of as being "owned" by some social network is sickening. Scrolling Twitter or TikTok shouldn't be a default activity. Sadly, I think you might be more right than wrong for far too many people.
  - next_xibalba 4y ago
    Just to be clear, I did not suggest that every minute outside of work/sleep/etc. is or should be "owned" by a social network. Rather, that is just the total, raw addressable market (at least to my naive mind). Though I do think the developed world would be better off if people consumed less media (and social media).
- Slartie 4y ago
  The relevance of Twitter does not originate in generating the biggest number of eyeballs on advertisements (it doesn't do well at all in that regard). Twitter is relevant because a very specific audience of multipliers (particularly journalists, but also other influential public figures) use Twitter - often in person, while some marketing company runs their Facebook account. The public reach that Twitter can potentially provide is much bigger than that of any other social network, even though those networks may nominally have a multiple of the number of users of Twitter. Musk gets this, and it is why he is interested in Twitter. The market doesn't get it, which is why it undervalues Twitter. However, you cannot blame the market for that; it is poised to undervalue Twitter, because the actual value of Twitter is not accessible to just anybody, but people like Musk, who are well-connected in the Twitter social graph. Hence the value of Twitter to someone like Musk is actually much larger than the value of the exact same Twitter to any random shareholder.
  - next_xibalba 4y ago
    > Musk gets this, and it is why he is interested in Twitter. You think this is why he's interested. He has not actually said this, correct? Another plausible explanation is that it is his preferred social media and its (relatively) cheap because it is very poorly run and thus its growth and financials suck. You maybe right about Twitter having outsized relevance with respect to its user base, but I'm absolutely not buying that "the public reach that Twitter can potentially provide is much bigger than that of any other social network". Meta's platforms reach BILLIONS of people.
    - Slartie 4y ago
      > Meta's platforms reach BILLIONS of people Yes, but most of these are leafs on the (imaginary) unified global social graph. Twitter's active users are much more likely to not be leafs, but multipliers, some able to reach even people completely out of reach of any social network (by transporting a story over to other media, like print or TV). And considering that even Facebook only has a minority of the world's population among its gigantic user base (and an even smaller minority among its active users), the ability to reach out to other media through Twitter is extremely valuable, in my opinion even more valuable than the ability to reach the giant Facebook user base directly.

tl;dr - They are different platforms, but they are still direct competitors, and Twitter is getting crushed. I imagine the total addressable market (roughly) to be: - humans with an internet connection - Total their clock time - Subtract all the time they are otherwise necessarily occupied (sleeping, working, etc. etc.) The remainder is the time over which all media companies are vying. Twitter is competing against Netflix, Tiktok, physical books, etc. Some of these things can be done concurrently (watching Netflix while surfing the internet, listening to radio while driving), so add that time back or double it, whatever. But, basically, this is the state of play. To say that Twitter is not competing against Tiktok, Snap, IG, etc. is to obscure the true state of play and competitive landscape. In 99.9% of cases†, you cannot scroll Tiktok and Twitter concurrently. So one or the other (or neither) is displaying ads to you. One or the other is generating revenue from those impressions. It is not really users over which they are competing. Rather, it is the ad inventory. The ad inventory is a function of time on site/app. Of course, ad inventory is definitely also a function of users–hence the focus on active users (xAUs). On that front, Twitter is a small fry[1]: - Facebook (Meta): 2.9 Billion MAUs - Instagram (Meta): 1.5 Billion MAUs - TikTok: 1 Billion MAUs - Snap: 557 Million MAUs - Twitter: 436 Million MAUs So, Twitter would have to generate a heckuva lot of engagement per user to generate anywhere near the inventory of other social media platforms. But we know they don't, as evidenced by their revenues and ARPU [2]. † I'm swagging here, but you get the point [1] https://blog.hootsuite.com/snapchat-statistics-for-business/ https://blog.hootsuite.com/snapchat-statistics-for-business/ [2] https://stockdividendscreener.com/information-technology/comparison-of-average-revenue-per-user-for-social-media-companies/ https://stockdividendscreener.com/information-technology/com...

criddell 4y ago
The idea that every minute outside of working, sleeping, etc... would be thought of as being "owned" by some social network is sickening. Scrolling Twitter or TikTok shouldn't be a default activity. Sadly, I think you might be more right than wrong for far too many people.
- next_xibalba 4y ago
  Just to be clear, I did not suggest that every minute outside of work/sleep/etc. is or should be "owned" by a social network. Rather, that is just the total, raw addressable market (at least to my naive mind). Though I do think the developed world would be better off if people consumed less media (and social media).
Slartie 4y ago
The relevance of Twitter does not originate in generating the biggest number of eyeballs on advertisements (it doesn't do well at all in that regard). Twitter is relevant because a very specific audience of multipliers (particularly journalists, but also other influential public figures) use Twitter - often in person, while some marketing company runs their Facebook account. The public reach that Twitter can potentially provide is much bigger than that of any other social network, even though those networks may nominally have a multiple of the number of users of Twitter. Musk gets this, and it is why he is interested in Twitter. The market doesn't get it, which is why it undervalues Twitter. However, you cannot blame the market for that; it is poised to undervalue Twitter, because the actual value of Twitter is not accessible to just anybody, but people like Musk, who are well-connected in the Twitter social graph. Hence the value of Twitter to someone like Musk is actually much larger than the value of the exact same Twitter to any random shareholder.
- next_xibalba 4y ago
  > Musk gets this, and it is why he is interested in Twitter. You think this is why he's interested. He has not actually said this, correct? Another plausible explanation is that it is his preferred social media and its (relatively) cheap because it is very poorly run and thus its growth and financials suck. You maybe right about Twitter having outsized relevance with respect to its user base, but I'm absolutely not buying that "the public reach that Twitter can potentially provide is much bigger than that of any other social network". Meta's platforms reach BILLIONS of people.
  - Slartie 4y ago
    > Meta's platforms reach BILLIONS of people Yes, but most of these are leafs on the (imaginary) unified global social graph. Twitter's active users are much more likely to not be leafs, but multipliers, some able to reach even people completely out of reach of any social network (by transporting a story over to other media, like print or TV). And considering that even Facebook only has a minority of the world's population among its gigantic user base (and an even smaller minority among its active users), the ability to reach out to other media through Twitter is extremely valuable, in my opinion even more valuable than the ability to reach the giant Facebook user base directly.