Yahoo – AFP,
Glenn Chapman, 18 March 2016
 |
Twitter's
woes include a slump in its stock price to all-time lows this year -- down
nearly half from its 2013 stock market debut -- and ongoing losses, even as
its
revenue grows (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)
|
San
Francisco (AFP) - As Twitter marks its 10th birthday Monday, it is somewhat of
an awkward child -- having become a powerful communication tool but still
struggling to win users and reach profitability.
Since making
a star-quality entrance a decade ago, Twitter has become a must-have tool for
journalists, activists and celebrities but has struggled to show it can expand
beyond its devoted "twitterati" to become a mainstream hit.
 |
March 2006:
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey
(@jack) sent the first tweet, an automated
message saying "just setting up my twttr"
and later the same day, he
sent the first
live tweet, "inviting coworkers" (AFP
Photo/Justin
Tallis)
|
While
Internet lovers might have trouble envisioning life without Twitter, the San
Francisco-based company has seen its stock tank, a chief executive leave, and
its staff cut.
Twitter's
woes include a slump in its stock price to all-time lows this year -- down
nearly half from its 2013 stock market debut -- and ongoing losses, even as its
revenue grows.
Twitter's
base of monthly active users remained stuck at 320 million at the end of 2015.
While that is a big accomplishment, Twitter has failed to keep pace with
fast-growing rivals and to expand beyond its base.
The
troubles have forced Twitter to bring back co-founder Jack Dorsey as chief
executive, but that has not stemmed rumors about a possible buyout or merger.
"It's
not dead yet," independent analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group said
of Twitter.
"Watching
all the metrics, you see they are not getting a lot worse but they don't seem
to be getting better either."
Some
analysts believe Twitter's true value is being demonstrated in the US presidential
race, especially by the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump.
"Eight
weeks ago I would have said the days of Twitter are over; I don't say that
anymore," Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry told AFP.
Twitter
has 'legs'
 |
Republican
presidential candidate Donald
Trump has boosted the number of his
followers to
nearly seven million, and has
managed to beat rivals with a campaign
largely
based around Twitter (AFP
Photo/Rhona Wise)
|
The analyst
said Trump has shown how potent Twitter can be for those who embrace it.
"I
think that probably the worst for Twitter is over," Chowdhry said.
"This platform has legs."
Chowdhry
said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also used Twitter effectively to win
his campaign and Tesla founder Elon Musk has been shaking up the auto sector
with the help of the messaging platform.
Twitter and
other social media have been important tools in movements such as the Arab
Spring, and in protests in Turkey, where the government has sought to ban it.
An
advantage of Twitter is that it lets users "amplify" messages with
tweets that echo on the Internet, and assess public sentiment in real-time by
getting quick feedback.
Trump has
boosted the number of his followers to nearly seven million, and has managed to
beat rivals with a campaign largely based around Twitter.
"I am
pretty sure most of his followers are not on Twitter, but they know what he is
saying on Twitter," analyst Omar Akhtar of the technology research firm
Altimeter Group, said of Trump.
"The
Twitter effect cannot be ignored. Twitter has a life beyond its platform, the
trouble is it doesn't know how to monetize that part."
The
research firm eMarketer lowered its revenue estimates for Twitter this month,
saying its "monetization" efforts -- the selling of advertising or
"promoted tweets" for those who use the platform without logging in
-- are falling short.
 |
A man looks
at a tweet from US Republican
presidential candidate Jeb Bush showing a
handgun
and the caption "America" in
Washington, DC (AFP Photo/Nicholas
Kamm)
|
"Events
like the US election and Summer Olympics this year may prove pivotal to the
success of this strategy," said eMarketer's Martin Utreras.
Change
brings risk
Twitter
bears the weight of being measured against Internet titans such as Facebook,
which is only a few years older but has eclipsed the billion-user mark.
Flight VC
partner Lou Kerner, whose investor group watches emerging companies, said
Twitter has done "an amazing job" creating a new communication medium
but appears to have leveled off instead of becoming ubiquitous.
"Like
any other company, Twitter is judged on growth," Kerner said. "They
have stagnated."
Even more
troubling, Kerner noted, is that engagement at Twitter has been ebbing in an
indication that "people have tired of it."
While
Facebook has evolved with new features, Twitter has changed little since it
began, according to Kerner.
"In
order to reignite engagement, they would have to make profound changes to what
they do," he said.
"The
problem is, you can't make a make a massive change without a massive
risk."
 |
Some say
Twitter has become a victim of
its own success -- it has become so
cluttered with information that it becomes
hard to navigate (AFP Photo/Damien
Meyer)
|
Some say
Twitter has become a victim of its own success -- it has become so cluttered
with information that it becomes hard to navigate.
"Twitter
is still incredibly relevant when it comes to major cultural events, major news
events, the kinds of things people are discussing around the world," said
Debra Aho Williamson of eMarketer.
"But
anyone who follows just a couple of hundred people can easily be overwhelmed by
the amount of information. It becomes work rather than fun."
Dorsey
currently is managing two firms, Twitter and mobile payments startup Square --
both multibillion dollar companies struggling to achieve profitability.
Dorsey said
Twitter priorities for this year include making it more intuitive to use;
live-streaming video, and making it safer for people to freely express
themselves on the platform.
Twitter
recently revamped its timeline, allowing the "best" tweets to rise to
the top, despite warnings of a revolt from members loyal to the real-time flow
of the messaging platform.
"If
you look at the 10 years as a whole, you will see that Twitter really has
revolutionized the way we communicate," Akhtar said.
"To
me, it is a utility like electricity or the phone -- it is really part of
everyday life."
Related Article:
"You Don’t Know How the Frog Jumps"– Jan11, 2011 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)
“… Last week, I gave you a message about the potentials of 2011. And there were those in this room who attended. I'm going to repeat something I said there, for you need to hear it and it has to do with politics. It would seem intuitive to every single Human Being in the room that in order to accomplish what you do as Americans in Congress, you must have at least two parties. For that is the way it has always been - the red and the blue.
What if I told you that there will come a time when there will be no parties? You might then say, "Well, that's impossible, Kryon, because you're not Human and you don't know how funding works." You might say, "It has to be a party that creates the power to raise money for the ones who cannot, and then the funding is spread around and this is the way we work. If you didn't have parties, you'd have no funding. Nobody could advertise, and no one could get elected."
Oh, really?
Are you aware right now, that you have a president who was elected on the Internet? He figured it out. When everybody can talk to everyone, you have plenty of funding. A few dollars here, a few dollars there. You talk to millions at the same time, they talk to millions at the same time. It's a new paradigm of communication. The young people know all about it, and you can't stop it. Watch for more from this new paradigm.
It is worldwide communication, one person at a time. It doesn't matter how many laws you pass, and it doesn't matter what you decide about who is in charge of it, you can't stop it. It's out of the bag now, and the communities of the young are going to be communicating. This is how the politicians are going to be communicating to you, literally coming into your home in a holographic form perhaps, explaining their position one by one, without a party. Then you will elect them to your Congress without a party and they will sit in the chairs without a division and there will be no such thing as the "other side of the aisle."
And that, Human Being, is called unity and there is a paradigm that you cannot even imagine. And it's in the works. And then you'll have a Congress that works together and gets things done without the current duality. ….”
