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Twitter says it could turn first-ever profit

reuters.com

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Re: Twitter says it could turn first-ever profit

#221

Post by bm1362 »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #111
ProAm wrote: post #3

They would be profitable in an instant if they'd get rid of half their employees? Im not sure why they need SO many people for Twitter. I believe they have over 4000, they could easily get by with 1000

It's because they need the headcount to speculatively try to achieve the growth numbers needed to support their valuation. Suppose they cut back to just keeping the lights on in engineering, along with obviously-profitable sales staff to sell advertisements and make business deals. Twitter is instantly profitable, but the net present value of those cash flows is something like a third to a tenth of their current valu…

This makes the most sense to me. Constant growth to meet investor expectations.

Re: Twitter says it could turn first-ever profit

#222

Post by umeshunni »

willitpamp573 wrote: post #158
datavirtue wrote: post #131

Twitter, like FaceBook, should be an open, distributed platform. They are too valuable to remain under the control of a person or small group of people. They are communities and their value slides, and danger to society increases, when they are under centralized control.

Who is gonna pay to host the open distributed platform? Surely not the users

"Please Read: A Personal Appeal From Founder" a la Wikipedia

Re: Twitter says it could turn first-ever profit

#223

Post by egypturnash »

willitpamp573 wrote: post #158
datavirtue wrote: post #131

Twitter, like FaceBook, should be an open, distributed platform. They are too valuable to remain under the control of a person or small group of people. They are communities and their value slides, and danger to society increases, when they are under centralized control.

Who is gonna pay to host the open distributed platform? Surely not the users

So far Mastodon seems to be doing okay on a mix of "I wanna run a server for me and a few friends" and "I'm running a server, here's the Patreon to help pay for it".

Re: Twitter says it could turn first-ever profit

#224

Post by egypturnash »

alexasmyths wrote: post #147
a13n wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boy, another Hacker News commenter with zero experience running a large corporation telling experienced folks how they should run a large corporation. Better yet, with no explanation for why. The sheer arrogance.

It's a little arrogant, but the commenter is probably more or less correct. Twitter is bloated. Their headcount has expanded quite a lot over the last few years - and for what? Their service has remained the same and 'scale' beyond a certain point does not matter. What is 'labour intensive' - sales? Sure. Maybe some support staff? I doubt they're full time, more likely in Phillipenes off the books. I don't doubt for…

Moderation would be, if they actually did it.

Re: Twitter says it could turn first-ever profit

#226

Post by skrebbel »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #74
perseusprime11 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree. Also, a good time for Jack to step fully into Twitter boat. Square is doing quite well, he can easily find somebody to run it. If he takes the fulltime role at twitter, expect the stock to go up another 20-30 %

Honest question: why should Dorsey not be seen as an exaggerated media story (by the media and himself) and what has he done which justifies the stock jumping that high? He's run both companies for awhile now, Twitter has basically been stagnant. Doesn't he supposedly work like 80 hours a week anyway? It's already a full time job. Examples from 2011 and 2016: http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/13/technology/dorsey_techonom…

I never understood Han's contempt for Jack Dorsey. He built two multi-million dollar companies. Very, very few people can say that.

Re: Twitter says it could turn first-ever profit

#227

Post by King-Aaron »

austinl wrote: post #194
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find the article but an economist was estimating Trump's worth to Twitter at almost $2 billion. So I can't say I'm surprised; he is the single best thing that has happened for their company in YEARS.

Worth noting that $2B is roughly 13% of Twitter's market cap. Fascinating to think how one person simply using your service is worth that much.

one person / leader of the supposed "free world".... same same

Re: Twitter says it could turn first-ever profit

#228

Post by T2_t2 »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #208
T2_t2 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and you are likely on the front line of new things, and as such less important for Twitter's long term strategy, even as you were likely a reason for their initial growth. That's the issue for SM sites like Twitter et al: going from early adopters to mass appeal. As much as some people hate Trump, his tweets likely got a lot of the 300 million non-SF, LA, NYC users involved. I might be off on user uptake, but the…

By bots I'm not talking about Trump fans who have Twitter accounts. I'm talking about actual bots. Huge networks of fake accounts with predictable combos of words for names based around Trump that solely post/retweet about Trump that only follow and are followed by 10s of thousands of similar accounts and use a specific schedule for hundreds and thousands of these tweets/retweets/likes. The kind of bots that take an…

> it turns off anyone with a brain.

Exactly. So it has mass appeal :)

That's the sad reality. The Kardasians aren't popular because of people with a brain. Mass appeal matters.

Re: Twitter says it could turn first-ever profit

#230

Post by cisanti »

jquery wrote: post #213
groby_b wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mostly suspend minorities who are pissed enough to not politely say "no, thank you" to Trolls & Nazis sending them death threats. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad.

Examples of this happening?

I'm sure it has happened but it's also funny to see as an observer how both American political sides feel victimized the same way. Basically, both sides blame same things.

I'm not bothered about big Silicon Valley companies, but it can't be easy to satisfy both sides and keep making more money.

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