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Tons of employees + tons of machines + tons of bandwidth - very little advertising revenue = big loss Have you purchased anything or viewed many ads on Twitter

by pdq 13y ago

Tons of employees + tons of machines + tons of bandwidth - very little advertising revenue = big loss Have you purchased anything or viewed many ads on Twitter?

bitwarrior 13y ago
Everything I see on Twitter is a kind of ad.
- colinbartlett 13y ago
  On some level, everyone on Twitter is promoting themselves, and grooming their followers to a particular image or persona.
samsolomon 13y ago
I've said this before, but if Twitter added a tier of paid accounts that offered analytics, scheduling and other features, I'd upgrade. Maybe there would be enough revenue to keep the servers running.
- InAnEmergency 13y ago
  You may be interested to know that Twitter does offer such things: https://support.twitter.com/groups/58-advertising#topic_247 https://support.twitter.com/groups/58-advertising#topic_247
- rcoder 13y ago
  Full disclosure: I used to work at Twitter, and this conversation came up all the time. I even proposed it myself as a naive new hire, and after a few good-humored suggestions from coworkers to run the math, ended up with roughly the following scenario: Say 1% of Twitter's active users would be willing to pay for such a service. (That's extremely generous, I think, but it makes the math easier.) At 240 million MAUs, that gives ~2.4 million paying users. Say the price was comparable to Flickr at $50/year. (Again, very generous, and probably out of reach of most users outside US/Japan/EU, but we'll try it for the sake of argument.) After up-selling each and every one of those users, the company could have annual revenue of about $120 million...or roughly _half_ what they cleared in Q4. Even with 2-3x organic growth in the next couple of years, it would be a dead-end in terms of revenue, and better-financed competitors would be able to push them around, poach their best staff, etc.
  - ionwake 13y ago
    So how do they make most of their money?
TomGullen 13y ago
Wikipedia says they have 2,000 employees last year, without meaning to sound rude what exactly do they need all those employees for?
- ceejayoz 13y ago
  A good portion are likely selling ads and supporting advertisers.
  - icedchai 13y ago
    they're not doing a very good job. i can't remember the last time i clicked on a twitter ad.
    - ceejayoz 13y ago
      They're doing a pretty good job if they're managing to sell ads no one clicks on. I also don't click on Twitter ads, but I'd guess some folks are.
      - wmeredith 13y ago
        I've never even SEEN a Twitter ad. Maybe it's becuase I exclusively interact with the platform through Tweetbot and Buffer?
- adventured 13y ago
  It's an interesting question. By comparison, at the end of 2010 Facebook had about 2,000 +/- employees and $2b in sales for that fiscal year. Twitter is roughly three times overstaffed compared to Facebook.
  - mastermojo 13y ago
    Do you happen to know how the active user base compares between 2010 Facebook and 2013 Twitter?

by pdq 13y ago

Tons of employees + tons of machines + tons of bandwidth - very little advertising revenue = big loss Have you purchased anything or viewed many ads on Twitter?

bitwarrior 13y ago

Everything I see on Twitter is a kind of ad.

colinbartlett 13y ago
On some level, everyone on Twitter is promoting themselves, and grooming their followers to a particular image or persona.

samsolomon 13y ago

I've said this before, but if Twitter added a tier of paid accounts that offered analytics, scheduling and other features, I'd upgrade. Maybe there would be enough revenue to keep the servers running.

InAnEmergency 13y ago
You may be interested to know that Twitter does offer such things: https://support.twitter.com/groups/58-advertising#topic_247 https://support.twitter.com/groups/58-advertising#topic_247
rcoder 13y ago
Full disclosure: I used to work at Twitter, and this conversation came up all the time. I even proposed it myself as a naive new hire, and after a few good-humored suggestions from coworkers to run the math, ended up with roughly the following scenario: Say 1% of Twitter's active users would be willing to pay for such a service. (That's extremely generous, I think, but it makes the math easier.) At 240 million MAUs, that gives ~2.4 million paying users. Say the price was comparable to Flickr at $50/year. (Again, very generous, and probably out of reach of most users outside US/Japan/EU, but we'll try it for the sake of argument.) After up-selling each and every one of those users, the company could have annual revenue of about $120 million...or roughly _half_ what they cleared in Q4. Even with 2-3x organic growth in the next couple of years, it would be a dead-end in terms of revenue, and better-financed competitors would be able to push them around, poach their best staff, etc.
- ionwake 13y ago
  So how do they make most of their money?

TomGullen 13y ago

Wikipedia says they have 2,000 employees last year, without meaning to sound rude what exactly do they need all those employees for?

ceejayoz 13y ago
A good portion are likely selling ads and supporting advertisers.
- icedchai 13y ago
  they're not doing a very good job. i can't remember the last time i clicked on a twitter ad.
  - ceejayoz 13y ago
    They're doing a pretty good job if they're managing to sell ads no one clicks on. I also don't click on Twitter ads, but I'd guess some folks are.
    - wmeredith 13y ago
      I've never even SEEN a Twitter ad. Maybe it's becuase I exclusively interact with the platform through Tweetbot and Buffer?
adventured 13y ago
It's an interesting question. By comparison, at the end of 2010 Facebook had about 2,000 +/- employees and $2b in sales for that fiscal year. Twitter is roughly three times overstaffed compared to Facebook.
- mastermojo 13y ago
  Do you happen to know how the active user base compares between 2010 Facebook and 2013 Twitter?