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Disney almost bought Twitter in 2016

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Re: Disney almost bought Twitter in 2016

#31

It's hard to imagine why the board thought that was a good idea. They should've bought Twitch or something Twitch-like that could be more easily molded to be "on brand".

I understand why they saw fit, if you don’t look at their media tab, a lot of influential content creators on Twitter are also Disney fans.

If you do look at their media tab, the story changes completely, but if you don’t, the statistics solo should look beautiful.

Re: Disney almost bought Twitter in 2016

#32
post #7

A decision more guaranteed to nuke both brands is hard to think of. As the article says, the hate speech problem is extremely difficult to solve, but Twitter also has all sorts of NSFW, queer, and activist communities that are the exact opposite of Disneyfication.

Remember when Yahoo! bought Tumblr? I guess Yahoo! was already a fallout zone, but Tumblr?

Re: Disney almost bought Twitter in 2016

#33
post #23
post #7

A decision more guaranteed to nuke both brands is hard to think of. As the article says, the hate speech problem is extremely difficult to solve, but Twitter also has all sorts of NSFW, queer, and activist communities that are the exact opposite of Disneyfication.

Yeah there was no way that that union would have worked. They might as well have contemplated buying Reddit. Imagine if it became a sanitized family friendly microblogging platform where it was all pure, clean, fun conversation, anything not sparkly clean got knocked off. That would have ensured its death and would have shrunk to maybe 10MM users total.

> They might as well have contemplated buying Reddit

As a regular user of both platforms I see where you're coming from, but Twitter has more of a mainstream presence. There are politicians, brands, famous people, etc.

Maybe someone that might only hear about Twitter from the news (and not actually use it) could think it would be a good fit for Disney.

Re: Disney almost bought Twitter in 2016

#34
post #29
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "never a hint of arrogance" you mean aside from him deciding to run a public company/major social media platform in his spare time? That it'd be fine to give something with 300 million users a half-hearted effort? Unfortunately my Twitter NDA prevents me from giving details. But happily, I didn't sign the non-disparagement clause, so I don't think I can get in trouble for saying that I am very happy I no…

> That it'd be fine to give something with 300 million users a half-hearted effort? Is Twitter not free? What does Jack owe anyone? He didn't force you to sign up for anything. He didn't force you to work for him either. I am sympathetic if you were somehow swindled through the hiring process as too many people are, but otherwise, it seems more arrogant to demand that this one man spend his time however you see fit v…

Of course it's working for him. That he values that over the impact on others is a sign of arrogance.

Nobody's demanding that he spend his time in a particular way. He is welcome to head off for a year-long silent meditation in Burma for all I care. But plenty of people are saying that Twitter deserves a CEO who's focused on the job. Twitter, as a key social-media platform and a network-effects business, is not something where people can choose among a variety of approximately equivalent providers. He's half-assing it, and the world deserves better.

Re: Disney almost bought Twitter in 2016

#35
post #23
post #7

A decision more guaranteed to nuke both brands is hard to think of. As the article says, the hate speech problem is extremely difficult to solve, but Twitter also has all sorts of NSFW, queer, and activist communities that are the exact opposite of Disneyfication.

Yeah there was no way that that union would have worked. They might as well have contemplated buying Reddit. Imagine if it became a sanitized family friendly microblogging platform where it was all pure, clean, fun conversation, anything not sparkly clean got knocked off. That would have ensured its death and would have shrunk to maybe 10MM users total.

Disney owns extremely diversified portfolio of companies, including, for example UFC and ESPN. They would manage Twitter just fine.

Re: Disney almost bought Twitter in 2016

#36
post #35
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah there was no way that that union would have worked. They might as well have contemplated buying Reddit. Imagine if it became a sanitized family friendly microblogging platform where it was all pure, clean, fun conversation, anything not sparkly clean got knocked off. That would have ensured its death and would have shrunk to maybe 10MM users total.

Disney owns extremely diversified portfolio of companies, including, for example UFC and ESPN. They would manage Twitter just fine.

Just a correction...UFC is owned by Endeavor, the entertainment conglomerate, not Disney

Re: Disney almost bought Twitter in 2016

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jack Dorsey's been pretty active on the podcast scene recently, and I feel it's harder to fake your personality in multiple long form conversations. I never got a hint of arrogance from him. On a side note, why do people love to paint being the CEO of two companies in such a bad light? How is it different to a CEO of a conglomerate having responsibility for multiple divisions?

Generally shareholders would prefer a ceo whose incentives are aligned with those of the company. On the one hand maybe it’s good that Dorsey could fuck off from twitter if things went bad and not suffer too much from it: it allows him to take risks and ceos not wanting to take reasonable risks as much as shareholders would like (because they have a undiversified interest in their company doing well but more importan…

He’s uniquely qualified to run the company:

1) he founded it;

2) he doesn’t depend on it for his own livelihood;

3) he has enough time and space; physically, mentally, financially, and computationally to have proper distance from the company; and

4) Twitter is essentially feature-complete.

Re: Disney almost bought Twitter in 2016

#39
post #11

It's easy how Disney and Twitter would be a bad fit, but don't forget that Hasbro (toy company) owns Death Row Records home to a group N.W.A. where the "N" stands for the "n-word". https://nypost.com/2019/08/25/hasbro-acquires-gangster-rap-l...

The acronym N.W.A., with its meaning, [1] is self-chosen. It is an old, long defunct rap group from Comptom. Quoting from Discogs: "American group, seminal purveyors of the gangsta rap sub-genre. NWA stands for "Niggaz Wit Attitudes". They were active from 1986 to 1991, and for a short period in 1999/2000."

Their most defining album is probably Straight Outta Comptom from 1988. [2] TL;DR these people are one of the pioneers of west side hip-hop, and gangsta rap in general.

What's in a name? Rap music is filled with controversy. Apple bought Dr Dre's Beats, too. Dr Dre was one of the founders of Death Row records.

As a non-American, I find the name "Death Row records" more intimidating than N.W.A. or what it stands for, btw.

[1] https://www.discogs.com/artist/13726-NWA

[2] https://www.discogs.com/NWA-Straight-Outta-Compton/master/26...

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