Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#261

Post by znep » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #160

As a heavy twitter user who mostly enjoys it (I'm very particular of who I follow), I just don't understand what they've been doing all this time. Their product has been incredibly stagnant for years save for the occasional feature here and there and some styling. They've screwed over devs trying to build on their APIs and eroded all trust along the way. New features have been rolled out haphazardly, and they totally…

...and almost every time I end up on a mobile link to a tweet in a web browser I have to refresh the page to get anything but an error. Which has been going on for years, or at least seems like it.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#262

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#263

Post by tshaddox » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #160

As a heavy twitter user who mostly enjoys it (I'm very particular of who I follow), I just don't understand what they've been doing all this time. Their product has been incredibly stagnant for years save for the occasional feature here and there and some styling. They've screwed over devs trying to build on their APIs and eroded all trust along the way. New features have been rolled out haphazardly, and they totally…

What they’ve been doing is tons and tons and incomprehensibly many tons of work on targeting and selling advertisements.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#264

Post by kawsper » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #160

As a heavy twitter user who mostly enjoys it (I'm very particular of who I follow), I just don't understand what they've been doing all this time. Their product has been incredibly stagnant for years save for the occasional feature here and there and some styling. They've screwed over devs trying to build on their APIs and eroded all trust along the way. New features have been rolled out haphazardly, and they totally…

You also can't right click their trending widget to open in a new tab.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#265

Post by oonerspism » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

It's a version of the same problem that Facebook has.

Once you've had your term of ruling the world, there are only so many directions you can go from there. And by definition, the majority are downwards.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#266

Post by danlugo92 » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #228

I have never understood Twitter as a product. The idea of following people seems bizarre to me. If I wanted to follow some product or organization I would subscribe to an email, mailer, RSS, or something of the sort specific to the thing I wish to stay informed about. Over sharing, or the idea of broadcasting details about my life to strangers on the internet is also something I completely don't understand.

"It's the UX stupid!"

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#267

Post by tshaddox » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

atlantas wrote: post #244

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #160

As a heavy twitter user who mostly enjoys it (I'm very particular of who I follow), I just don't understand what they've been doing all this time. Their product has been incredibly stagnant for years save for the occasional feature here and there and some styling. They've screwed over devs trying to build on their APIs and eroded all trust along the way. New features have been rolled out haphazardly, and they totally…

Thanks, that's useful. What I don't get about twitter as a company: Why do they have so many employees? If they scaled back they could have a nice business as it is.

The goto answer for this is that they have the number of employees they have because they deemed each new employee to provide more value than they cost to employee. That’s their goal. Their goal is not to have the minimal number of people required to run some very simplistic description of their company. They would employee a thousand milk delivery people if they thought each one would provide more value than their cost to employee.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#268

Post by cheriot » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

Androider wrote: post #241

cheriot wrote: post #169

I wonder if Jack's new company will see a similar stagnation. Square is getting beat by Clover while the CEO is focused on blockchain.

Apple and Stripe are also set to commoditize the small business Point of Sale that is Square's bread and butter. iPhones were just announced to soon accept contactless payments directly, and probably also the next iPad will include the required NFC hardware.

The hardware is less important than the merchant account. The risk of charge backs means a small business accepting a credit card is effectively taking out a loan. Apple isn't going into that part of the value chain (so far).

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#269

Post by tinyhouse » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

knorker wrote: post #209

donio wrote: post #157

Twitter is up by over 150% since 2016. Both are pretty useless statements without context.

The context of "since IPO" for a company that's been public for almost a decade, in the tech business. In fact, what other tech stock valued at double digit billions has had such a flat valuation for its whole lifetime, yet still survived? Yes, a range of ~14-77, but it's neither taken off nor crashed. Look at any other survivor and they'll be shaped more like Oracle, Cisco, FB&NFLX (well, recent troubles aside) Look…

Look at AMD before and after the new CEO...

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#270

Post by charcircuit » Thu, Feb 10, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #228

I have never understood Twitter as a product. The idea of following people seems bizarre to me. If I wanted to follow some product or organization I would subscribe to an email, mailer, RSS, or something of the sort specific to the thing I wish to stay informed about. Over sharing, or the idea of broadcasting details about my life to strangers on the internet is also something I completely don't understand.

Do you understand the concept of being a fan of someone? For example you can follow a bunch of artists to see what they are working on. You can follow your favorite content creators to see what they are working on. You can follow your friends to see what they are up to.