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The attention economy seems to be "forcing" people to jump to conclusions as fast as possible to write that viral post "X is dead", "goodbye Y", etc. You can't

The attention economy seems to be "forcing" people to jump to conclusions as fast as possible to write that viral post "X is dead", "goodbye Y", etc. You can't just call for a business model change after only two weeks of such a radical management change. Twitter positioning is very strong and there is no real alternative/competitor. If users keep using Twitter advertisers will come back. It is tiring and makes seemingly smart people look dumb.

nindalf 4y ago
This ignores the fact that Twitter was never a good ads business. Even in its heyday, it had a fraction of the ad revenue of Meta. They were just showing users less relevant ads, meaning less value to advertisers and less revenue generated. You confidently state that they’ll be back if there are users. That’s not true. They’ll be back if they think their RoI will be better than alternatives. And it’s unclear if Twitter is capable of providing more value than YouTube, Meta, TikTok etc.
- cloverich 4y ago
  Its not zero sum because the user bases aren't the same. If twitter has eyeballs or time that facebook doesn't, they'll get advertisers.
  - kristintynski 4y ago
    Not if they can’t prove the ROI vs other ad channels. They will just move spend from Twitter to better performing platforms, or even into other marketing or sales activities entirely. For most brands, Twitter isn’t the sole place they can target their audience.
- davoneus 4y ago
  I half suspect the only reason Twitter had the status it did is because all the news organizations pushed it so hard. Hell, it did all the hard work of finding interesting "new/hot" topics for them to cover. Made their job easier, and it's with the journalists I see a lot of concern and fear over where Twitter is heading. Of course others used it too, but the 'news cachet' meant a lot too, and helped convince others to use it too. I could easily see journalists fears helping to keep the ugly bastard going. Glad I never wasted my time on it.
  - threeseed 4y ago
    Twitter had a team dedicated to working with news organisations to surface their content throughout the app. The leader of that team quit yesterday. People seem to think Twitter is this almighty power that everyone was begging to work with but actually it's the opposite. Twitter was out there hustling for any relationship they could get.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  >This ignores the fact that Twitter was never a good ads business. Twitter had >5 billion in ad revenue. Facebook isnt the minimum threshold for good revenue. It isn't a winner take all system. Meta might get the lions share, but that doesnt mean there is no room for competition. Costs are adjusted to get similar ROI. Meta might get more clickthrough per add and command a higher price, but Twitter can compete with more adds for the same price, resulting in the same ROI.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- HillRat 4y ago
  As advertisers are saying, what Twitter really had going for it wasn't that it was a great place to advertise so much as it was a very engaged ad sales team that leveraged their agency and advertiser relations for all they were worth. Gutting ad sales (and mocking the concept of brand safety) is Musk -- whether he realizes it or not -- burning the advertising bridges behind him and forcing him to commit entirely to this idea of Twitter being a subscription-funded service. Now, Riedy's a long-timer who's held senior positions in both US and EMEA ad sales, so there's what normally would be considered a steady hand at the tiller, but not clear to me if he can keep the ship afloat under such a mercurial owner.
  - dangus 4y ago
    The subscription thing won’t work either. Discord is the closest thing to a successful subscription only social media business. Compare what Nitro offers to Twitter Blue. Twitter Blue is like buying the “I am rich” app while Discord Nitro solves actual customer pain points. Discord has about 10% of their active users paying for Nitro by my calculation based on available information. Twitter getting anywhere close to that level is not likely. Discord has been building their service around paid features for years. Luckily, Twitter has a large and skilled engineering team capable of quickly rolling out valuable new features to entirely change their business model! (Sidenote: has anyone ever heard of a generally stable ~10 year IPOed tech company pivoting so drastically? It’s insane)
- Aunche 4y ago
  >They’ll be back if they think their RoI will be better than alternatives. The RoI will be better than alternatives if Twitter ads are cheap enough. TikTok and possibly YouTube aren't profitable either, but they have inherently higher expenses. If Facebook and Instagram can be profitable, that means that there's a profitable company inside Twitter somewhere. I'm skeptical that Elon can achieve this, but that doesn'tean it's impossible.
- MarkMc 4y ago
  When on vacation earlier this year I saw ads in a language I don't understand. Think about that: For 16 years Twitter management was so sclerotic that they were unable to perform basic improvements on targeting ads. Instead their focus was on trendy but money-losing projects like hexagonal profile pics for NFT users. This is indicative of deep structural problems at Twitter, and won't be tolerated by Elon
  - nindalf 4y ago
    When I went on a vacation to another country, I saw an ad for an ISP in the tri-state area 10 times. Friends, I have never been to the tri-state area in my life. I don't live in the US. I have no idea why I saw this. This is a mobile app! You can get a coarse location, good enough to not show me an ad meant for an area 12000 km away. And yet, Twitter could not manage it. That ISP wasted money by advertising on Twitter. Eventually other brands will realise this as well.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bergenty 4y ago
A lot of this is a self fulfilling prophecy. There are many people who don’t want the “new” twitter to succeed and being vocal about it will result in advertisers leaving the platform making the whole thing collapse in on itself. Twitter doesn’t have a valid competitor though (no mastodon is not it) so Elon might end up pulling it off. I hope he doesn’t though and I’m going to do what it takes to influence that decision.
- AlchemistCamp 4y ago
  > Elon might end up pulling it off. I hope he doesn’t though and I’m going to do what it takes to influence that decision. Wow. That’s a pretty mean-spirited way to go through life. Why not put your efforts into building something positive instead of trying to tear others down?
  - ss2003 4y ago
    Because there are many things that should just be torn down.
  - Larrikin 4y ago
    It's a pretty easy argument that tearing Twitter down and reducing the wealth of the richest guy on paper is building a better world.
    - Robotbeat 4y ago
      What's remarkable to me is people cheering desperately for Tesla to fail. Also weird that people were both cheering for Elon to be forced to buy Twitter, then mad that he bought it. Then cheering for Elon Twitter to fail (hoping for advertisers to leave even before any layoffs were announced) and then lambasting Elon for being so mean to lay off people (how can they stay employed if Twitter's revenue fails?). It's really weird.
  - macintux 4y ago
    Arguably it’s better in the long term for civilization if narcissistic bullies don’t succeed.
ProAm 4y ago
Twitter was always the 'commercial break' of the internet. Ad spots on TV and radio were 15-30 seconds. On twitter you got 140 (now 280 characters). Its always been advertising. Sizzle clips, strong sentences with no meat. Why would you pay for advertising on a website whose entire purpose is advertising. Maybe their ad targeting is not strong. The risk now is you're supporting someone promoting hate, violence, lies..... Maybe someone is still there that honestly likes twitter and doesnt like exposure. But its always been the internet's commercial break.
enkid 4y ago
There are so many competitors for Twitter. Every social media platform is an alternative. Twitter's only moat is the network effect, and they are ruining any chance of that being maintained by making the experience awful, not moderating the platform and reinventing people who the majority of users don't want to hear from.
- cesarvarela 4y ago
  Sorry but that's not true, no network provides the same experience and dopamine flavor: - twitch: parasocial/games - youtube: long videos/reviews - tiktok: short videos/random stuff/zoomers - facebook: friends/stalking/boomers ... - twiter: microbloging/townhall/news Totally different use cases with each having a clearly defined space (of course there is some overlap, it is all about human interaction after all).
  - kristintynski 4y ago
    What’s to stop any of its current competitors from making a Twitter clone, one with moderation? If he can’t keep advertisers, Google or someone else could leverage their already existing network effects to take Twitter refugees.
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      > Google or someone else could leverage their already existing network effects Google tried this taking on Facebook. It didn't work because network effects cannot force someone to a new network. Heck, it almost killed YouTube in the process of getting Google+ their network.
  - dangus 4y ago
    How does that different user experience and format affect the customer? By customer, I mean advertiser. Why does an advertiser go to Twitter over Meta or TikTok? That’s the real question to be asking. I’d make the argument that the content format is very nearly irrelevant to the advertisers. I can understand why an advertiser goes to Twitter instead of more defined niche ad platforms like Yelp, Google Maps, and iOS App Store. What customer can be reached on Twitter that can’t be reached in Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok? In my mind, if advertisers are spooked by Twitter, they’ve got plenty of equivalent alternatives.
dangus 4y ago
The article doesn’t jump to conclusions. As the article points out, large enterprise clients require a human relationship and that’s something hard to provide with a massive staff cut. They also don’t tolerate their brand being used alongside extreme content, and Twitter is telling the world that it’s going lax on moderation. Elon stated that directly in the recent tweet where he described the shadow banning process. Twitter is looking at $1 billion a year just in interest payments, which is basically a 20% increase in total expenses compared to 2021, and they’re facing lower revenues. No real alternative? Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snap, Pinterest, YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr… On top of that, any sales professional will tell you that competition includes doing nothing. Advertisers can just not spend and wait out the Twitter situation, especially during a recession. Elon is going to need to show advertisers that he represents stable leadership rather than posting memes of women’s asses with Twitter logos on them. He’s not used to running a company where customers are buying a product that projects the customers’ own image into the world. You know how Zuck is a boring G-rated robot? Advertisers love that.
- cesarvarela 4y ago
  I mentioned in another reply, but none of the networks you enumerate have the same value proposition as Twitter. For example today, I'm watching the World Cup.. Argentina just conceded a goal... I want to see reactions, memes, etc. Too soon for Youtube, uploading videos takes time, TikTok is too random.. Too soon for Tumblr and Pinterest.. Snap format is weird.. Reddit also might have something but I want a shorter format, reactions from known celebrities and sport commentators.. Instagram has some stuff but it is too picture centered... and then comes Twitter, exactly what I wanted, a quick fix of the now, some funny replies, I scroll a little bit, I go back to watching the match. In the real world people are using Twitter the same as they were before Musk, and if the this trend doesn't change or even improves, advertisers will come back. If there are eyeballs there are ads. It's a fact of nature (sadly). Please tell me something that millions of people pay attention to daily that isn't plagued with ads.
  - sprkwd 4y ago
    > Please tell me something that millions of people pay attention to daily that isn't plagued with ads. The weather outside.

nindalf 4y ago

This ignores the fact that Twitter was never a good ads business. Even in its heyday, it had a fraction of the ad revenue of Meta. They were just showing users less relevant ads, meaning less value to advertisers and less revenue generated. You confidently state that they’ll be back if there are users. That’s not true. They’ll be back if they think their RoI will be better than alternatives. And it’s unclear if Twitter is capable of providing more value than YouTube, Meta, TikTok etc.

cloverich 4y ago
Its not zero sum because the user bases aren't the same. If twitter has eyeballs or time that facebook doesn't, they'll get advertisers.
- kristintynski 4y ago
  Not if they can’t prove the ROI vs other ad channels. They will just move spend from Twitter to better performing platforms, or even into other marketing or sales activities entirely. For most brands, Twitter isn’t the sole place they can target their audience.
davoneus 4y ago
I half suspect the only reason Twitter had the status it did is because all the news organizations pushed it so hard. Hell, it did all the hard work of finding interesting "new/hot" topics for them to cover. Made their job easier, and it's with the journalists I see a lot of concern and fear over where Twitter is heading. Of course others used it too, but the 'news cachet' meant a lot too, and helped convince others to use it too. I could easily see journalists fears helping to keep the ugly bastard going. Glad I never wasted my time on it.
- threeseed 4y ago
  Twitter had a team dedicated to working with news organisations to surface their content throughout the app. The leader of that team quit yesterday. People seem to think Twitter is this almighty power that everyone was begging to work with but actually it's the opposite. Twitter was out there hustling for any relationship they could get.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
>This ignores the fact that Twitter was never a good ads business. Twitter had >5 billion in ad revenue. Facebook isnt the minimum threshold for good revenue. It isn't a winner take all system. Meta might get the lions share, but that doesnt mean there is no room for competition. Costs are adjusted to get similar ROI. Meta might get more clickthrough per add and command a higher price, but Twitter can compete with more adds for the same price, resulting in the same ROI.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
HillRat 4y ago
As advertisers are saying, what Twitter really had going for it wasn't that it was a great place to advertise so much as it was a very engaged ad sales team that leveraged their agency and advertiser relations for all they were worth. Gutting ad sales (and mocking the concept of brand safety) is Musk -- whether he realizes it or not -- burning the advertising bridges behind him and forcing him to commit entirely to this idea of Twitter being a subscription-funded service. Now, Riedy's a long-timer who's held senior positions in both US and EMEA ad sales, so there's what normally would be considered a steady hand at the tiller, but not clear to me if he can keep the ship afloat under such a mercurial owner.
- dangus 4y ago
  The subscription thing won’t work either. Discord is the closest thing to a successful subscription only social media business. Compare what Nitro offers to Twitter Blue. Twitter Blue is like buying the “I am rich” app while Discord Nitro solves actual customer pain points. Discord has about 10% of their active users paying for Nitro by my calculation based on available information. Twitter getting anywhere close to that level is not likely. Discord has been building their service around paid features for years. Luckily, Twitter has a large and skilled engineering team capable of quickly rolling out valuable new features to entirely change their business model! (Sidenote: has anyone ever heard of a generally stable ~10 year IPOed tech company pivoting so drastically? It’s insane)
Aunche 4y ago
>They’ll be back if they think their RoI will be better than alternatives. The RoI will be better than alternatives if Twitter ads are cheap enough. TikTok and possibly YouTube aren't profitable either, but they have inherently higher expenses. If Facebook and Instagram can be profitable, that means that there's a profitable company inside Twitter somewhere. I'm skeptical that Elon can achieve this, but that doesn'tean it's impossible.
MarkMc 4y ago
When on vacation earlier this year I saw ads in a language I don't understand. Think about that: For 16 years Twitter management was so sclerotic that they were unable to perform basic improvements on targeting ads. Instead their focus was on trendy but money-losing projects like hexagonal profile pics for NFT users. This is indicative of deep structural problems at Twitter, and won't be tolerated by Elon
- nindalf 4y ago
  When I went on a vacation to another country, I saw an ad for an ISP in the tri-state area 10 times. Friends, I have never been to the tri-state area in my life. I don't live in the US. I have no idea why I saw this. This is a mobile app! You can get a coarse location, good enough to not show me an ad meant for an area 12000 km away. And yet, Twitter could not manage it. That ISP wasted money by advertising on Twitter. Eventually other brands will realise this as well.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bergenty 4y ago

A lot of this is a self fulfilling prophecy. There are many people who don’t want the “new” twitter to succeed and being vocal about it will result in advertisers leaving the platform making the whole thing collapse in on itself. Twitter doesn’t have a valid competitor though (no mastodon is not it) so Elon might end up pulling it off. I hope he doesn’t though and I’m going to do what it takes to influence that decision.

AlchemistCamp 4y ago
> Elon might end up pulling it off. I hope he doesn’t though and I’m going to do what it takes to influence that decision. Wow. That’s a pretty mean-spirited way to go through life. Why not put your efforts into building something positive instead of trying to tear others down?
- ss2003 4y ago
  Because there are many things that should just be torn down.
- Larrikin 4y ago
  It's a pretty easy argument that tearing Twitter down and reducing the wealth of the richest guy on paper is building a better world.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    What's remarkable to me is people cheering desperately for Tesla to fail. Also weird that people were both cheering for Elon to be forced to buy Twitter, then mad that he bought it. Then cheering for Elon Twitter to fail (hoping for advertisers to leave even before any layoffs were announced) and then lambasting Elon for being so mean to lay off people (how can they stay employed if Twitter's revenue fails?). It's really weird.
- macintux 4y ago
  Arguably it’s better in the long term for civilization if narcissistic bullies don’t succeed.

ProAm 4y ago

Twitter was always the 'commercial break' of the internet. Ad spots on TV and radio were 15-30 seconds. On twitter you got 140 (now 280 characters). Its always been advertising. Sizzle clips, strong sentences with no meat. Why would you pay for advertising on a website whose entire purpose is advertising. Maybe their ad targeting is not strong. The risk now is you're supporting someone promoting hate, violence, lies..... Maybe someone is still there that honestly likes twitter and doesnt like exposure. But its always been the internet's commercial break.

enkid 4y ago

There are so many competitors for Twitter. Every social media platform is an alternative. Twitter's only moat is the network effect, and they are ruining any chance of that being maintained by making the experience awful, not moderating the platform and reinventing people who the majority of users don't want to hear from.

cesarvarela 4y ago
Sorry but that's not true, no network provides the same experience and dopamine flavor: - twitch: parasocial/games - youtube: long videos/reviews - tiktok: short videos/random stuff/zoomers - facebook: friends/stalking/boomers ... - twiter: microbloging/townhall/news Totally different use cases with each having a clearly defined space (of course there is some overlap, it is all about human interaction after all).
- kristintynski 4y ago
  What’s to stop any of its current competitors from making a Twitter clone, one with moderation? If he can’t keep advertisers, Google or someone else could leverage their already existing network effects to take Twitter refugees.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > Google or someone else could leverage their already existing network effects Google tried this taking on Facebook. It didn't work because network effects cannot force someone to a new network. Heck, it almost killed YouTube in the process of getting Google+ their network.
- dangus 4y ago
  How does that different user experience and format affect the customer? By customer, I mean advertiser. Why does an advertiser go to Twitter over Meta or TikTok? That’s the real question to be asking. I’d make the argument that the content format is very nearly irrelevant to the advertisers. I can understand why an advertiser goes to Twitter instead of more defined niche ad platforms like Yelp, Google Maps, and iOS App Store. What customer can be reached on Twitter that can’t be reached in Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok? In my mind, if advertisers are spooked by Twitter, they’ve got plenty of equivalent alternatives.

dangus 4y ago

The article doesn’t jump to conclusions. As the article points out, large enterprise clients require a human relationship and that’s something hard to provide with a massive staff cut. They also don’t tolerate their brand being used alongside extreme content, and Twitter is telling the world that it’s going lax on moderation. Elon stated that directly in the recent tweet where he described the shadow banning process. Twitter is looking at $1 billion a year just in interest payments, which is basically a 20% increase in total expenses compared to 2021, and they’re facing lower revenues. No real alternative? Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Snap, Pinterest, YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr… On top of that, any sales professional will tell you that competition includes doing nothing. Advertisers can just not spend and wait out the Twitter situation, especially during a recession. Elon is going to need to show advertisers that he represents stable leadership rather than posting memes of women’s asses with Twitter logos on them. He’s not used to running a company where customers are buying a product that projects the customers’ own image into the world. You know how Zuck is a boring G-rated robot? Advertisers love that.

cesarvarela 4y ago
I mentioned in another reply, but none of the networks you enumerate have the same value proposition as Twitter. For example today, I'm watching the World Cup.. Argentina just conceded a goal... I want to see reactions, memes, etc. Too soon for Youtube, uploading videos takes time, TikTok is too random.. Too soon for Tumblr and Pinterest.. Snap format is weird.. Reddit also might have something but I want a shorter format, reactions from known celebrities and sport commentators.. Instagram has some stuff but it is too picture centered... and then comes Twitter, exactly what I wanted, a quick fix of the now, some funny replies, I scroll a little bit, I go back to watching the match. In the real world people are using Twitter the same as they were before Musk, and if the this trend doesn't change or even improves, advertisers will come back. If there are eyeballs there are ads. It's a fact of nature (sadly). Please tell me something that millions of people pay attention to daily that isn't plagued with ads.
- sprkwd 4y ago
  > Please tell me something that millions of people pay attention to daily that isn't plagued with ads. The weather outside.