Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#51

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 8:05 PM UTC

Aleman360 wrote: post #25

rezashirazian wrote: post #22

Twitter hasn't focused on anything else besides twitter. Facebook is taking on the mission of "connecting the world". Google has gone well beyond being only a search engine. Amazon has expanded into mobile, AWS and ... Twitter, on the other hand, is still pushing the same product.

Taking a step back, what's the advantage to society of every company growing into a conglomerate? Why not just let a company live and die on its core business? Do we really want to allow all that power to be consolidated into company boards and executives?

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#52

Post by ohitsdom » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 8:06 PM UTC

joaq wrote: post #23

Am I the only one who never really liked the whole concept of Twitter?

It's really hard to sell/explain to the uninitiated because it's a diverse platform. Even my twitter feed is very diverse- breaking news and headlines from the beat writers for my favorite teams, activists and protesters covering police brutality, and developer blogs.

With this mix, my twitter feed varies greatly. Unrest in Ferguson? Breaking news from the ground. Microsoft Build conference? Latest in tech from Redmond. Eagles training camp? Live highlights from reporters I trust. It's really a wonderful thing.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#53

Post by tajano » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 8:07 PM UTC

zalzane wrote: post #49

Aleman360 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking a step back, what's the advantage to society of every company growing into a conglomerate? Why not just let a company live and die on its core business? Do we really want to allow all that power to be consolidated into company boards and executives?

imagine if snapchat announced that they would start living and dying on their core business rather than try to expand now you have a bunch of investors who are upset that they invested in a company at a 16 billion dollar valuation that has jack diddly squat for income and has no promise of some magical "over the horizon" way to monetize

This sounds about right. Wait, I forgot, Snapcash.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#54

Post by Aleman360 » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 8:07 PM UTC

zalzane wrote: post #49

Aleman360 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking a step back, what's the advantage to society of every company growing into a conglomerate? Why not just let a company live and die on its core business? Do we really want to allow all that power to be consolidated into company boards and executives?

imagine if snapchat announced that they would start living and dying on their core business rather than try to expand now you have a bunch of investors who are upset that they invested in a company at a 16 billion dollar valuation that has jack diddly squat for income and has no promise of some magical "over the horizon" way to monetize

But that just doesn't seem sustainable in the long term. That's how power and wealth consolidate into a small number of hands.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#55

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 8:08 PM UTC

mikegioia wrote: post #43

stagger87 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a search icon in the upper left of the landing page for me. It opens up a search bar.

I know that and I use it, but the problem is bigger because that homepage has no idea what it is or what it's trying to do. Search is an afterthought and I'm suggesting that search should be their primary focus for this page. Logged in, yea you can get your feed and do whatever you want. But this logged-out page has absolutely 0 value for anyone who isn't a Twitter user.

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#56

Post by theseatoms » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 8:08 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #10

codingdave wrote: post #4

Everyone says it is all about growth. Twitter is not growing. Pretty simple story, really.

Twitter is still growing in terms of revenue, but they're losing money. They've already scaled up. They've had ads ("promoted tweets") since 2010. It's not clear where they go from here. Increasing the ad density to boost revenue begins the Myspace death spiral.

IIRC they announced a Buy button, but I haven't encountered any instances of it in my feed.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#57

Post by rezashirazian » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 8:08 PM UTC

Aleman360 wrote: post #25

rezashirazian wrote: post #22

Twitter hasn't focused on anything else besides twitter. Facebook is taking on the mission of "connecting the world". Google has gone well beyond being only a search engine. Amazon has expanded into mobile, AWS and ... Twitter, on the other hand, is still pushing the same product.

Taking a step back, what's the advantage to society of every company growing into a conglomerate? Why not just let a company live and die on its core business? Do we really want to allow all that power to be consolidated into company boards and executives?

In all honesty how far can you take microblogging? Twitter's core business is something any half decent developer can build over a weekend and polish over a few months.

There is so much you can do to attract and keep your users engaged with Twitter's core business.

For the growth Twitter investors are looking, twitter needs to expand beyond its 140 character tweets and look for possible innovative ideas that can cultivate with its current infrastructure, data and talent.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#58

Post by meatysnapper » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

The interesting question will be the on-going struggle between engineering (Roetter/Weil) and business (Noto/Bain), who actually want to run a profitable company. My bet is Roetter and Weil will be out before the year is done.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#59

Post by freehunter » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #42

freehunter wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I think of twitter I think nothing but mainstream. There are two platforms that anyone who is anyone (celebrity or business or politician) needs to have: either Facebook or Twitter. Niche is Instragram. Niche is Snapchat. But when Kardashian is on CNN once an hour because of a tweet, it's not niche. App.Net is niche. Twitter is the epitome of mainstream.

> "Niche is Instagram" Except Instagram has more active users than Twitter...

When was the last time you saw a business with nothing but an Instagram profile, or saw Instagram referenced on the news, or cited in a paper, or used for a press release?

It's not about active users, it's about how it's used.

Re: Twitter Falls Below IPO Price as Concerns Mount Over CEO, Growth

#60

Post by roymurdock » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 8:09 PM UTC

hatred wrote: post #12

hyperbovine wrote: post #9

Twitter was the first in a long list of current (i.e. post-2000) startups where I thought to myself, Really? That's a $X0 billion business? I wonder if this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Twitter had a Q1 revenue of $436 million. Doesn't it make it a $X0 billion business or am I missing something ? The main concern to investors is primarily the growth and their ability to warrant a premium price on the stock.

What do you think of the underlying business model that is generating this $436m in revenue? Do you think the current model of is a sustainable way to grow revenues? How about the idea of charging superusers (top 1% of tweeters) a yearly subscription to use Twitter?

All this tells me is that a lot of companies are willing to throw advertising budgets into the black hole of social media with no possible way of accurately measuring ROI.