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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

#351

Post by heavyset_go »

cronix wrote: post #75

So I never created a Twitter account. Over the years, there are a few people that I liked to read their thoughts on Twitter, so I'd manually go to their wall and read occasionally. They're all verified. Over time, it became cumbersome to continue doing this and I thought I'd give in and create an account (on the website) so that these people were all easy to access from a single point. So I did, and went and immediat…

It's almost impossible to sign up for an account with Twitter, Google, or Facebook without divulging your phone number with them and then confirming it. They're at the stage where their growth is scrutinized by investors and partners, and they're desperate to prove that their users have real eyeballs that can see ads. Before that, they had no problem with new accounts maybe being bots because it's good for growth numbers. Now advertisers want to know if real people are seeing their ads, or if just bots are.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#352

Post by sizzle »

PegasusProject wrote: post #109
cronix wrote: post #75

So I never created a Twitter account. Over the years, there are a few people that I liked to read their thoughts on Twitter, so I'd manually go to their wall and read occasionally. They're all verified. Over time, it became cumbersome to continue doing this and I thought I'd give in and create an account (on the website) so that these people were all easy to access from a single point. So I did, and went and immediat…

I really can recommend Nitter[0], which also creates RSS feeds so you can just add them to your RSS reader of choice. [0] https://nitter.net/

This is the solution I’ve been looking for, thanks for sharing it!

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#353

Post by sizzle »

onedognight wrote: post #202
cronix wrote: post #75

So I never created a Twitter account. Over the years, there are a few people that I liked to read their thoughts on Twitter, so I'd manually go to their wall and read occasionally. They're all verified. Over time, it became cumbersome to continue doing this and I thought I'd give in and create an account (on the website) so that these people were all easy to access from a single point. So I did, and went and immediat…

Same experience except I discovered that, at least on iOS, browsing in a private window still works to go to an individual user’s feed. It’s just a matter of time before they close that loophole and I too go away. FWIW, I do pay many of the people I manually follow on Twitter, but through substack or PayPal.

When you scroll on the page the full screen overlay locks you out unless you sign in, just tried on the latest iOS and safari

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#354

Post by alexpotato »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #298
teddyh wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reaction to the many botnets Makes no sense. If they wanted to require a phone number to keep out bots, they would simply ask for a phone number at registration. Delaying it like this, claiming “suspicious activity” is hard to see any other way than how I described it.

bots can get phone numbers cheap, a cost of doing business. Speculation: Twitter wants your phone number so they can correlate you with existing marketing data so they can target you more effectively.

I would agree.

Twitter has massive data on your interests but collects only minimal information about you vs, say, Facebook which has your name, birthday etc etc. I would also argue that Twitter has BETTER interest data than Facebook b/c you are constantly interacting with thousands of tweets a day across multiple dimensions. Facebook tends to be your family and a couple pages you happened to like.

If they get your phone number, they get all of the available "data in the cloud" about you e.g. income, purchasing preferences etc. Cross reference the interests with that cloud data and you have a very precise target profile to sell to advertisers.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#355

Post by j1elo »

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…

For me (different language, if it makes a difference), the "Discover new Lists" was interesting but didn't work because just that one doesn't have an aria-label. Instead, it's just a series of divs placed consecutively in the Lists page, each containing a span inside, with the header and the suggested lists.

I found it a nice challenge to learn a bit about selectors and uBlock Origin filter rules, and got this working, for anyone who might care:

twitter.com##span:has-text(Discover new Lists):upward(6) > :nth-child(n+5):nth-child(-n+11)

PS. also a nice tip: you can use the uBlock's "element picker mode" and write your filter starting from the "##" (i.e. leave the domain name out), and that will provide immediate visual feedback of the affected area, without having to reload the page. Neat!

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#356

Post by charcircuit »

dageshi wrote: post #296
charcircuit wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Twitter like all mass social media is competing for quantity of user not quality of user. Then why do they ban low quality users such as bots or users who have broken their rules?

Their advertiser don't want to advertise to bots and the users who break the rules potentially cause a pile of bad publicity for them so they're happy to get rid of them.

Those are examples of twitter preferring quality over quantity.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#357

Post by sergiotapia »

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…

Thank you, here's how you can add these custom rules to Brave since it comes with a built-in adblocker.

https://sergiotapia.com/how-to-use-custom-adblock-rules-in-b...

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#358

Post by darkhelmet »

sizzle wrote: post #352
PegasusProject wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really can recommend Nitter[0], which also creates RSS feeds so you can just add them to your RSS reader of choice. [0] https://nitter.net/

This is the solution I’ve been looking for, thanks for sharing it!

There's also https://fraidyc.at/ which provides a browser extension. It's an easy way to do exactly what the OP was doing and for more than just twitter.

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#359

Post by acchow »

pcmoney wrote: post #291
scotty79 wrote: post #212

As a person who never understood why twitter existed, let alone what purpose it might serve this information validates my feelings.

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.

How did it change your life?

Re: Twitter misses ad revenue and user growth estimates

#360

Post by colordrops »

zardo wrote: post #334
delecti wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amused at you questioning what they've been doing all this time, and then giving instructions to avoid seeing what they've been doing all this time. I don't like those things in my timeline either, but that's your answer. Also those annoying voice chatrooms and their lame attempt at stories.

I've noticed big strides in making the site more annoying to use if you aren't logged in.

True, but these strides are microscopic compared to Reddit.
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