Twitter takes a couple of hectic weeks, to say the least: announcement of new CEO ( Jack Dorsey , cofounder and who had already flaunted this position), indexation . of its financial targets for the fiscal quarter, layoffs and start-up of new services
The problem with Twitter is the classic dog chasing its tail: in short, service strange to use for people who do not spend their days curing and reviewing your account and this has not only limited the growth of the platform in terms of traffic (which records today just over 316 million users) , but also the interest of advertisers for a place that apparently is not easy to understand for many, if few understand it and use it, then why advertise in it ?; and so. (Read more about the appointment of Jack Dorsey here)
Dorsey plays predate its official entry fee, but just respond to these two concerns: capture more audience and how to return the most profitable platform .
Part of the strategy includes Tuesday announced layoffs, representing 8% of the workforce of the company, 336 employees . By June this year, the company reached 4,100 workers, representing an increase of 24% on the figures recorded for the same time of 2014. The cuts will cost Twitter about $ 20 million. However, the company said its revenues for the fiscal quarter are above the projected US $ 560 million, of which US $ 115 million will be earnings . (Read more about layoffs here)
In addition, the company announced last week at an event made for people from the world of marketing, new functions to allow advertisers to enter more deeply into the platform , including the possibility that those users specialized in video publishing voluntarily allow an advertiser paute the beginning of their content; the operation should not cost the user more than a click in your account preferences and 70% of revenues are generated by advertising for it, the remaining 30% would stay on Twitter. Good functionality, and in the right direction, because the video is the type of content that grows more in the network, but it is clearly not alone accelerate the growth of the company.
For months, the company had said that he was working on a project called Lightning that, words, words less, it would overturn the user experience of Twitter and be the gateway to new audiences .
Twitter suffers from a bad strange and certainly paradoxical, since his greatest strength is, in turn, its greatest weakness : the way it is designed the platform is what makes it preferred to know which place is happening in the world at every moment, but it also prevents it from being user-friendly for many and, for those not willing to spend your days refreshing the list of tweets, it is rather a chaotic place without context and without apparent relevance.
Moments is the official name of the Lightning project. The new feature introduced by the company represents the most dramatic change of vision that has made the company itself, Twitter is a place to know what is happening at every moment, but can also be the place to understand what is happening, not only learn, but to understand.
The difference is not merely semantic issue, but, basically, means breaking with many of the golden rules of the platform. Moments is, as its name implies, a collection of moments through tweets. For example, if there is an important soccer match, this event can be viewed as a time which group the most relevant tweets about not only the most recent publication: While the idea is to tell a story, an event, as consistently as possible and not be left only with the most immediate information that often is not the best to understand a phenomenon .
The service is available only in the United States, for the moment, but the first tests consistently suggest a metaphor. Twitter is like an endless information service without further context, while Moments is something like the first page of this service
It’s funny both associations have to do with news and media because much of the success of Moments be in the hands of editors who, initially, will heal the moments available to users and the tweets that make these moments . Twitter may not want to enter the business of news, or at least not now, but here raises several questions that orbit the criterion by which are selected right now.
Again, one of the great Twitter values is its openness, a feature that has allowed him to be the vehicle for channeling dissent in situations in which free speech was repressed, generally opposed to an out-dominant policy: from the Arab Spring, passing by events in former Soviet republics, to some facts in Iran .
Moments not replace the classic time line Twitter, but aims to be the gateway for new users and here the selection criteria is essential for what risks there are to present biased or incomplete information. Now, the contents remain the same tweets circulating today in the platform, but their selection can clearly offer a different speech.
On the other hand, Moments pretend to be a reflection of what is happening in service, the most popular on the site. And, with internet which is often, this may end up being an eternal collection of videos of cats when the day that users can create their own moments, a point that is not clear when will arrive, just that eventually come.
Navigating these waters can not be easy for Twitter thing, but what is clear is that Dorsey and his team want to not only expand the reach of the company, but go redefining, facing people and advertisers, what can you do with a means of immediate communication in the age of instant communication. If the equation is properly balanced, can we all win a little. Perhaps.
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