The End of Twitter?
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Pretty black and white. And then the next sentence after clicking through is...
> Twitter might rebound in the wake of Jack Dorsey’s reappointment as C.E.O., but the service is still in trouble.
And the article ends with...
> That doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. There are hundreds of millions of dedicated users (I count myself among them) who still see tremendous utility in the service. ... The company just needs to find the right way to show the power of those connections to a bigger audience, and the value of that audience to advertisers and partners. Not a simple task, but for Twitter an unavoidable one.
Pretty egregiously click-bait. I propose changing the title to something that better captures the article—like "The Current Problems at Twitter".
Other than that, not really much here other than speculation, and the already-known worry about lack of growth. Curious to see how Twitter does, I think there's still chance as long as they quick focusing on revenue above all else, and focus on the experience first. Unfortunately that's not easy to do as a public company.
Should we rather ask, is the article worth reading regardless of its title?
Also, this line of ego-drivel:
> This is especially notable to all of us in the world of media, the people who fill these services with highly valuable and hotly traded “content,” such as the piece you’re currently reading.
One we should put to rest: the "Facebook can just build this" argument. Facebook built Paper to take over news. It failed. Facebook built Slingshot to copy SnapChat. It failed.
Technology companies are not just successful because of their technology. _Especially_ in social media.
1. Doesn't require me to ask you for your screenname
2. Syncs seamlessly between all of my devices
3. Works well with video/pictures/video phone calls
4. Isn't swamped with spam
There isn't one. Don't let selection bias blur your view.
Groups is huge too, it's sitting there also waiting to be monetized and in their latest earnings call, they emphasized that they are investing more heavily into Groups to bring it to it's full potential. It's been put on the back burner for a while, but it will become huge.
I think closing down the service to developers was its pivotal mistake. The possibilities were endless, and could have solidified Twitter as the "utility" Topolosky speaks of...but they got greedy.
Yes, much like handing out megaphones at a music festival. I see very little value in the incoherent rambling that is twitter, but of course I'm not a market researcher or intelligence analyst.
But really. Personally, I actually do find it to be magical. It's taken 5+ years of trying, retrying, adjusting, and readjusting to get it right, but my Twitter feed is superb.
That might be valuable to you, as it is to me, or it might not be. Beyond that, Twitter really is just a list of links.
If the way you use it keeps it from being useful, then I would suggest that you are in fact using it incorrectly.
I mean, you don't have to drive all your friends around everywhere just because you own a car. And you don't have follow all your friends just because you're on Twitter. You don't even have to tell your friends you're on Twitter.
Not a chance. Only true on Facebook but that is easily taken care of by ruthlessly unfollowing/hiding all but your highest value connections.
It just looks like a storm of hatred and noise, with some good comedy and utility in breaking news situations.
Also revenue has continued to grow year over year on par to be over $2B in 2015.
Sure, user growth has slowed but so, the important people are there for me anyway. ;-)
Also, don't forget periscope which is growing like crazy and has yet to be monetized.
There is no platform like Twitter. With a lot of cash in the bank and a slow burn Twitter will be around for a very long time.
Looking at the live feed (https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=gamer...), I don't see anything that matches this description. Is this old media scaremongering against new media like video games and Twitter? Or just terrible reporting?
At what point can a companies growth slow down without it being a concern? For example, google says as of March 2015 Facebook had 1.44 billion monthly active users. With an estimated 3 billion people in the world having internet access that's 50%. Can you really expect to see significant growth at that point?
One other thing I've never quite understood is the concern with users vs. revenue. I get that for a start up, you want to grow and grow fast. For an established company like Twitter, as long as your user base isn't actively shrinking, wouldn't it make more sense to concern yourself with making money off those users instead of trying to gain more? What would be a better sign, 1% user growth but 15% revenue growth, or 1% revenue and 15% user?
That depends on how reliant the company is on perpetual growth. Many tech companies are not profitable. If growth slows for them, and the rate of slowdown points to a bad place, they may never make a profit and so backers will flee. But others with established businesses don't need growth. They can go on steadily with a mildly increasing market value or pay slow dividends to shareholders. Unless they are over-valued and have leveraged whatever stock they have retained. Such companies may be doomed even if profitable. So there is no definitive answer.
As I mentioned in another comment, however, I think there's more money and a better sell to developers. Open up the API & charge for high-volume access to it.
I really don't understand what they're doing. Cash, users, attention, etc. are all there but they're not doing anything with any of it.
Twitter has 300 million users and growing, 60% rev price growth to over 2B, new features like moments, periscope, and a treasure of real time news and data. Twitter is really an fantastic success and every quarter grows revenue by an amazing amount.
If the stock was going up (as I suspect it will from here), the media will parrot the great turnaround... When nothing will have changed fundamentally.
In my experience, SnapChat's My Story feature has completley supplanted the "live social feed of your friends" aspect.
IMO, SnapChat's effect on Twitter's is comparable to EverQuest's effect on text-based MMO's. One platform mercilessly dominated the other because of visual stimulation, and all the fun micro-features that go with that.
But what real value is in that raw stream beyond voyeurism ?
After nearly 50 years on this earth I've come to feel that the nowness of things is not that important. "Quick turn on the news" became "meh, I shall wait a few days and see how it pans out before spending time digesting it".
I know that's a personal thing.
For one thing, it helped feed the Reddit witch hunt that tracked down and popularized images of... the wrong people.
Twitter isn't going anywhere, the very fact that they have survived terrible corporate management, high level turnover, and failed advertising initiatives proves the significant value of their content.