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Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

reuters.com

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Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#341

Post by altdataseller »

echelon wrote: post #339
underwater wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Twitter's market? They seem increasingly like just another online community. Most of my feed is the same few Twitter influencers with high follower counts. The drama, conventions, and memes all make it feel insular and hostile to outsiders. Feels more like Tumblr than some global, open, platform.

Twitter has all of the "smart people" and "money" on it, unlike Reddit, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Billionaires are tweeting each other in the open. Politicians. Reporters. CEOs, CFOs. No other social network is like that. It's the only thing keeping Twitter relevant. TikTok and Instagram have their celebrities and trend setters (which is where the ad dollars are), but you don't see anyone musing about "metave…

Those topics are only important to you and your bubble though. Not to the vast majority of regular Joes like my mom, grandmothers, people in 3rd world countries, etc.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#342

Post by pcmoney »

stevenwliao wrote: post #324
pcmoney wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It exists so you can know what everyone is talking about 5 weeks before they do. Follow the right people and it will change your life.

Any recommendations?

I would strongly bias towards people who have built or created something anything even a small thing vs "experts" "academics" "blue checks" (Eg. John Arnold probably knows a lot more about economic fundamentals than most economists)

I would bias towards people who have a concrete position they are advocating for and not just talk about what they are against. Critique is cheap and mostly pointless without a real solution.

I tend to find the best accounts are ones that you disagree with on some things but not everything. Avoid people who still need herd acceptance to survive. So either niche accounts or people with a social moat/fairly uncancelable, this will get you rawer inputs.

DO NOT JUST FOLLOW PEOPLE YOU AGREE WITH. They should either make you think at a deeper level or inspire you. If they just parrot back what you already think then what's the point of reading what they have to say?

@evacide @JohnArnoldFndtn @sama @ShellenbergerMD @balajis @dhh @micsolana

Also find people who break up the monotony with interesting things: @Rainmaker1973 @Mikeachim @simonsarris

Also do not unfollow people just because they believe/do something your tribe says is "unforgivable". When someone asks you to hate a stranger on the internet, just say no.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#344

Post by peterhunt »

riffic wrote: post #340
peterhunt wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do and no one uses it. There is some truth to the classic HN post that "Twitter can be built in a weekend". A service / protocol that can distribute 280 character messages isn't really where the value is for a service like Twitter. It's 20% engineering, 80% recruiting the right users, retaining them, and getting them to engage on the platform. Additionally, open protocols are way harder to evolve and are therefore…

> We do and no one uses it. This is straight up denialist and hyperbolic FUD. There's a healthy and vibrant ecosystem surrounding the federated social web, which has been a thing since 2008 or so. Also, I would argue that email's staying power isn't quite backed by the answer you gave ("it locked everyone in with its network effect") but more along the lines that it survived the Lindy effect (the great thing about th…

I think the denialism is that open standards somehow magically win. That's only happened a few times and is the reason that the Web is one of the most important pieces of infrastructure humanity has ever created.

Yes, there are people using federated social products but the growth rate is low and so are the absolute numbers. If growth were good, we would see VC backed startups trying to profit off of it. Why do you think that is?

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#345

Post by ray__ »

I never understood Twitter until I started using it professionally, if you could call it that, as an academic. "Science Twitter" complements traditional academic publishing models really well. When I want updates about science, I read papers that I find from searching, RSS updates, or citations. When I want updates about _how science is done_, I turn to Twitter, where many of my scientific role models are active and almost all of the interesting stuff tends to bubble to the top.

Its algorithm seems to work really well for rapid consumption of buzz within a particular network that you can tap into by following people. It is one of the few cases where I like the fact that I occasionally get out-of-network Tweets in my timeline because it usually exposes me to something really interesting posted by someone outside of my direct field. I'd never want to use Twitter for comprehensive reviews of some topic, reliable back-and-forth discussion, etc. but it's just fantastic for gossip and trends.

The tables here are even starting to turn–so many people are on Science Twitter that it feels like I find as many new and relevant papers on Twitter as I do in my tailored email notifications and RSS feeds. Twitter is also always a day or two ahead, and the papers usually come with the backstory and context in plain English. I hate to say that the Twitter thread from the paper author is often more informative (at least, per unit of time that it takes to consume) than the content of the paper itself.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#346

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

kec wrote: post #301
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter started putting up an overlay up prompting you to log in or create an account to continue after viewing x tweets. Annoying, but not a huge issue as you could just dismiss the modal and continue. you can no longer dismiss the modal, or in any other way bypass this as of a few days ago. (at least on mobile)

copying the URL into a new tab usually seems to work.

F5 and clicking close is enough

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#347

Post by timmg »

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…

> I just don't understand what they've been doing all this time.

They added NFT profile pics. What more do you want?

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#348

Post by klyrs »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #326
shakezula wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the end of social media, just nearing the end of its first gods.

TikTok can be considered at least 3rd generation, if FB and Twitter were second and first is MySpace. I am sure one could argue there are more generations. Twitter is not among the first social media god generation.

In my experience, first generation happened on BBSs (contemporaneous with usenet, which wasn't on my radar until it was nearly dead). Then came niche community discussion boards and AOL. Then, Geocities and webrings. Friendster came out a few months earlier than MySpace, but they were close enough to be the same generation. By my count, TikTok is sixth generation? I can't help but feel that I'm missing a few; not even considering my anglocentric experience.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#349

Post by simon_kun »

kilroy123 wrote: post #139

Honestly? It's because their ads are trash. I know lots of marketing people and they all stay away from using them. Say what you will about Facebook and Instagram, their ads are better overall. There's been several times an Instagram ad showed up in my feed, and I said shut up and take my money. Nothing like that has ever happened on Twitter for me.

this. if a Google/IG ads team was put on Twitter ads, their revenue and user satisfaction would likely go through the roof

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#350

Post by [deleted] »

altdataseller wrote: post #341
echelon wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter has all of the "smart people" and "money" on it, unlike Reddit, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Billionaires are tweeting each other in the open. Politicians. Reporters. CEOs, CFOs. No other social network is like that. It's the only thing keeping Twitter relevant. TikTok and Instagram have their celebrities and trend setters (which is where the ad dollars are), but you don't see anyone musing about "metave…

Those topics are only important to you and your bubble though. Not to the vast majority of regular Joes like my mom, grandmothers, people in 3rd world countries, etc.

[deleted]
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