Tag Archives: twtr

LinkedIn Just Imploded, Now Twitter Plans To Blow Itself Up

LinkedIn ( LNKD ) shares lost nearly half their value on the stock market today after the professional networker announced grim 2016 forecasts. Now Twitter ( TWTR ) reportedly is mulling a major shift with the hopes of winning over new customers, but potentially alienating its power users. Twitter will adopt a new algorithimic timeline, as soon as next week Buzzfeed reported late Friday. The new system would order tweets based on what Twitter thinks you want to see, rather than the current reverse chronological order. The goal is to make Twitter more attractive to new and casual users so they can see more targeted tweets, eliminating the unwanted posts. It’s unclear if Twitter will make the change optional or mandatory, Buzzfeed said. The latter would greatly upset power users such as journalists, who use the chronological timelime to spot and follow breaking news. Twitter was abuzz with angry posts Friday night. Twitter staff meeting: ‘Our stock is crashing. How do we fix Twitter?’ ‘Make the user experience worse every week?’ ‘Crazy enough to work!’ — Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) February 6, 2016 Facebook has used alogrithims for years so people see posts from their favorite friends or sources. Facebook’s ongoing efforts have worked for the company, with more than one billion daily users — and still growing. Twitter’s To-Do List: 1) Algorithmic sorting that no one asked for … … … … … … … … … 173) Edit button that every asks for — Matt Mitovich (@MattMitovich) February 6, 2016 Twitter’s growth, meanwhile has basically stalled, though revenue has swelled due to higher ad revenue and other monetization. @ethanradd @BlackIrishI I hate Facebook! — Kevin Budds (@BuddsKevin) February 6, 2016 LinkedIn also is going through a strategy shift. Late Thursday, LinkedIn reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings. But it gave 2016 revenue and earnings targets far below Wall Street views. Part of the reason was LinkedIn’s decision to shut its Lead Accelerator business, which had technology aimed at helping marketers better target prospects. LinkedIn said the project wasn’t worth the time and money, but analysts said they may have to rethink LinkedIn’s prospects. Twitter reports earnings on Wednesday, with analysts expecting a 48% revenue rise to $709.9 million, with earnings per share ex items flat at 12 cents. #SuggestedTwitterAlgorithims Posting “your an idiot” takes you to a grammar basics cheat sheet. — Renna (@RennaW) February 6, 2016 Twitter shares fell 7% on Friday to a record closing low. LinkedIn crashed nearly 44% to a 3-year low. Facebook skidded nearly 6% on Friday and more than 7% for the week, despite hitting a record high on Tuesday.

Twitter Advertising Growth, User Numbers, Under Pressure In Q4?

When Twitter ( TWTR ) reports earnings on Wednesday, analysts will be looking to see if the social media firm known for its global reach has managed to boost its user numbers. During the past year, Twitter has brought in a new CEO, made numerous other executive suite changes, acquired new companies and added new services. Still, its user numbers are expected to remain stagnant in Q4, and Twitter remains under fire from Wall Street. Twitter stock has remained below its 2013  IPO price of 26 since November as analysts worry about the impact that sluggish user growth will have on Twitter’s profitability, as the microblog’s user base could affect its ultimate ability to charge for ads. “We believe positive ad pricing trends drove Q4 revenue towards the high end of guidance, but user growth likely was stagnant,” wrote Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter on Friday in an industry research note. On Friday, Twitter stock tumbled to close at near a record low after getting a price target cut from Wedbush. The investment bank predicts that Twitter won’t show meaningful user growth when it reports Q4 earnings, because the service remains too hard for the average user to figure out, compared to other social media. Monthly active users of the service — excluding SMS Fast Followers who can get tweets on their phones without being registered users — rose by just 5 million to 307 million from Q1 to Q3, Pachter wrote. He doesn’t appear to have high hopes for Moments, the service that Twitter launched last fall to showcase hot news topics and draw more non-registered users to the site. “We do not think that Moments drove a meaningful increase in users, as much of the content remains outdated or irrelevant,” said Pachter. Attrition of high-level staff is also a concern. In late January, Pachter said, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced that the SVP of Engineering, SVP of Product, VP of Global Media and VP of Human Resources had all “chosen to leave,” with the GM of video service Vine also departing. “We believe that had Moments been an early success, the executives would not have left so soon, voluntarily or otherwise,” Pachter said. He said that since Facebook ( FB ) reported that its average price per ad was up 21% year over year in Q4 — with the increase driven in part by the shift to mobile — “positive ad pricing trends drove Q4 revenue towards the high-end of guidance” for Twitter, too. Wedbush cut its price target on Twitter stock to 20 from 30, and Pachter maintains a neutral rating on Twitter stock. Advertising, which makes up 90% of Twitter’s total revenues, will “see continued deceleration over time,” wrote RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney in a report on Friday. “Our concern for some time has been that Twitter’s lack of real-time commercial intent (a la Alphabet ( GOOGL )-owned Google) or detailed, authentic profiles (a la Facebook) will eventually limit Twitter’s growth potential.” Mahaney said that he expects Twitter to generate $2.02 for every monthly active user in Q4 vs. Facebook’s $3.59, compared with $1.60 and $2.83 in Q3. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters are modeling Twitter to post revenue of $709.9 million, up 48% year over year. The consensus opinion is that Twitter’s EPS ex items will remain flat year over year at 12 cents. For Q1, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect Twitter to see revenue rise 44% to $629.3 million and post EPS ex items of 8 cents, up 14% year over year. In late January, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Youssef Squali said that Twitter’s muted stock price might prompt a buyout of the social media company. “Twitter’s current valuation, unique offering and sizable user base makes it a strategic asset for a number of potential buyers, be they technology or media companies,” wrote Squali, who maintained a buy rating on Twitter stock. He said a buyout of Twitter is a little easier than for some other companies because “there is no concentration of share ownership and no super-voting structure, with the top three shareholders owning 6.4%, 5.1%, and 5.0%, respectively.” Besides Facebook, Squali says potential suitors for Twitter, which has a market value near $11 billion, include tech companies Alphabet and Microsoft ( MSFT ), as well as media companies Twenty-First Century Fox ( FOXA ), Walt Disney ( DIS ), Comcast ( CMCSA ) and Time Warner ( TWX ). Late Friday, Buzzfeed reported that Twitter might abandon its reverse chronological timeline display and switch to an algorithimic system.

Twitter Closed 125,000 Accounts Linked To ISIS, Terror Since Mid-2015

Twitter ( TWTR ) said on Friday that it has suspended more than 125,000 accounts for threatening or promoting terrorist attacks, mainly related to ISIS, marking the first time that Twitter has revealed the scale of terrorist-related activity on its service. Twitter made the announcement as public debate grows on what government and business can do to spot potential security threats in advance and stop the Islamic State terror group from recruiting new members online. Twitter provided the news in a tweet from its @Policy team linking to its blog post on the topic. “Since the middle of 2015 alone, we’ve suspended over 125,000 accounts for threatening or promoting terrorist acts , primarily related to ISIS,” the blog post said. “We condemn the use of Twitter to promote terrorism.” Since mid-2015, we have suspended over 125,000 accounts for threatening or promoting terrorist acts. Read more here: https://t.co/FQJeOTtPLz — Policy (@policy) February 5, 2016 Twitter also said that it has made other efforts to intercept terrorist communications on its site, including increasing the size of the teams that review reports, a move that Twitter said has “significantly” reduced its response time. “We also look into other accounts similar to those reported and leverage proprietary spam-fighting tools to surface other potentially violating accounts for review by our agents. We have already seen results, including an increase in account suspensions and this type of activity shifting off of Twitter,” the social media site’s blog post said. In a report last year, the Brookings Institution think tank estimated that ISIS supporters used at least 46,000 and up to 70,000 Twitter accounts between September and December 2014. “The Islamic State, known as ISIS or ISIL, has exploited social media, most notoriously Twitter, to send its propaganda and messaging out to the world and to draw in people vulnerable to radicalization,” the Brookings report said. The 125,000 figure that Twitter released Friday implied that either Twitter has been able to step up its terrorist identifications on its social network or that ISIS and its supporters have drastically increased their presence on it since 2014. Twitter’s announcement follows a controversy over the role of social media in the lives of the apparently ISIS-inspired team that killed 14 people in an attack in San Bernardino, Calif., in December. Ultimately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that the husband-and-wife terror team did not post pro-jihad sentiments publicly on social media before the attack but sent them in private message communications. Like many of its peers, Twitter regularly publishes a transparency report showing content removed and user data handed over at the request of various governments, including the United States. Twitter stock closed at 15.72, down 7%.