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Twitter reports $645m loss for 2013

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Twitter reports $645m loss for 2013

#61

Post by antics »

zaidf wrote: post #40
antics wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No profit model? Completely wrong. According to the IPO docs they make about $2/1000 views in America (which is good) and were projected to make $1 billion in revenue this year (also good). This article reports that their first quarter revenue is about $250 million, more than double the previous year, which makes their prediction definitely feasible. The remaining question is whether they can turn this revenue into p…

If you read the article, you should know the primary concern is not the profits or revenues but rather the decline in product engagement/growth. What is your response to that? Your comment doesn't even make a single mention of the #1 reason to be very concerned about twitter.

Thanks for the spirited reply, Zaid, but I never said I disagree with any of these points. I'm responding specifically to the ridiculous notion that profit could not possibly be in the future of a post-IPO Twitter, not this stuff about whether Twitter is actually in trouble. If you want to take issue with my position you should probably respond to something I actually said. It is less productive to pretend I am debating a different set of issues and then complain when I don't address these other issues.

(I also don't appreciate your assertion that I didn't read an article from which I cited specific factual statements. Obviously I did. This is all particularly annoying, since you seem to believe something that I think is mostly true, and not on something which I concretely disagree; it makes it seem like you're hunting for a disagreement and not conducting this conversation in good faith.)

Re: Twitter reports $645m loss for 2013

#62

Post by swordfish0321 »

zaidf wrote: post #56
swordfish0321 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remove the 140 char limit and you remove the one thing that makes twitter twitter, brevity. You want it to look like Facebook??? Facebook's UI is a hot mess resulting from trying to pack every feature under the sun into one platform--no thanks. Moreover it sounds like you don't really know how to use Twitter and I think that is the real problem the company faces. Most of the people out there on twitter don't really u…

Facebook UI might seem like a hot mess to you, but I can promise you it is getting more engagement and growth for facebook than twitter's. At a time that twitter is struggling with those two things, they should do more to be like the guy who is nailing growth and engagement.

Again you're reinforcing my point on education by comparing Facebook to Twitter. You can't compare the two just because they are both "social networks". They are two completely separate tools with separate purposes and more importantly separate users. Facebook has larger numbers because their user pool is larger and probably always will be. Grandmas look at pictures of grandchildren, high school friends keep in touch, that one guy you're friends with posts obnoxious religious or political rants. There is no barrier to entry, it's the worlds large public bulletin board and that's okay. These people aren't concerned about consuming aggregate information rapidly. When Facebook people come to twitter looking for Facebook they get disappointed. You don't hear Facebook users bitching about Pinterest needing to change because people expect a different experience from Pinterest. If more users coming to twitter from other networks better understood the platform they would be way less likely to be left scratching their head. Like I said, this is a problem that twitter needs to solve, but in the mean time if you enjoy Facebook and find twitter unusable then it's probably not the tool for you.

Re: Twitter reports $645m loss for 2013

#63

Post by mkr-hn »

nimble wrote: post #57
Touche wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales. Being a sales company requires a lot of salespeople. That's frankly a small number considering the number of companies that advertise.

Can't we automate sales?

Computers can't write sales copy or do a great in-person pitch yet.

Re: Twitter reports $645m loss for 2013

#65

Post by protez »

capkutay wrote: post #20

I'm not of those people who thinks all tech valuations are insane, but I think it is hard to justify twitter being worth 150x their quarterly revenue (~$36b valuation/~$240m revenue). I understand twitter's valuation reflects the fact that it's a growing company, but even a company like facebook is only valued at 60x their quarterly revenue ($158b/$2.5b quarterly revenue). But at least the consensus on wall street an…

If it had no business model and no revenues at all, I would assume that the valuation might be higher, since it's far easier to sell on expectations, rather than real cashflow, which would somehow limit the speculator's unbound speculations.

Re: Twitter reports $645m loss for 2013

#66

Post by zaidf »

antics wrote: post #61
zaidf wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the article, you should know the primary concern is not the profits or revenues but rather the decline in product engagement/growth. What is your response to that? Your comment doesn't even make a single mention of the #1 reason to be very concerned about twitter.

Thanks for the spirited reply, Zaid, but I never said I disagree with any of these points. I'm responding specifically to the ridiculous notion that profit could not possibly be in the future of a post-IPO Twitter, not this stuff about whether Twitter is actually in trouble. If you want to take issue with my position you should probably respond to something I actually said. It is less productive to pretend I am debat…

Timeline views were down nearly 7%, suggesting users were refreshing their feeds less often.

(1) Twitter makes most of its revenues from timeline views

(2) Timeline views are declining

(3) When a recently IPO'd company's biggest money making product is on the decline in terms of usage, that is hardly a rosy picture.

Re: Twitter reports $645m loss for 2013

#67

Post by antics »

zaidf wrote: post #66
antics wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the spirited reply, Zaid, but I never said I disagree with any of these points. I'm responding specifically to the ridiculous notion that profit could not possibly be in the future of a post-IPO Twitter, not this stuff about whether Twitter is actually in trouble. If you want to take issue with my position you should probably respond to something I actually said. It is less productive to pretend I am debat…

Timeline views were down nearly 7%, suggesting users were refreshing their feeds less often. (1) Twitter makes most of its revenues from timeline views (2) Timeline views are declining (3) When a recently IPO'd company's biggest money making product is on the decline in terms of usage, that is hardly a rosy picture.

Sure, it is certainly debatable that "rosy" was the right choice of words here (it probably was a bit bombastic). But unless your plan is to claim that it is impossible to be optimistic about this situation (which is more or less the position I have taken issue with), then I'm not interested in having this discussion.

I'm open to the possibility is wrong; I'm not open to the idea that this debate about the semantics of "rosy" is the most interesting thing to be said here.

Sorry if this is a bit blunt.

Re: Twitter reports $645m loss for 2013

#68

Post by ggreenbe »

judk wrote: post #59
alphakappa wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are also an Internet company where the ad signups are done online, so it's not immediately obvious why they would have all those salespeople. (Not saying that they don't need a large number of salespeople, but that it isn't an immediately obvious need)

Guess how many salespeople Google has.

Any chance you know? Would be interested to know their numbers vs twitter.

Re: Twitter reports $645m loss for 2013

#69

Post by wmeredith »

nimble wrote: post #57
Touche wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales. Being a sales company requires a lot of salespeople. That's frankly a small number considering the number of companies that advertise.

Can't we automate sales?

Hooo boy, we wish we could. Sales, much to my own inner-hacker's chagrin, is something done best by building relationships in person. You can put some of it off to a nice self-serve web experience a la Adsense, but if you ever want to make the big bucks (enterprise fuck-you bucks) you have to have sales people talking to real people who can write big checks and aren't Googling for self-serve solutions to their equally big problems.
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