Twitter

[bmann025]

"BUSTED! Twitter Caught Manipulating Tweets Of Former BlackRock Fund Manager Critical Of CIA and NSA


... This isn't the first time Twitter has throttled, censored, or banned conservatives who speak their mind..."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-23...itical-cia

[cyclone]

Twitter stock jumps on news it'll replace Monsanto in S&P 500

Chloe Aiello
June 5, 2018

Twitter jumped as much as 5 percent in extended trading on Monday, after Dow Jones Indices announced the social media company would replace Monsanto in the S&P 500. Another tech company, Netflix will fill the agricultural giant's place on the S&P 100.

The gains pushed Twitter stock above $39 a share after hours, extending earlier gains during the regular session that had pushed the company to a 52-week-high.

The changes will go into effect prior to market open on Thursday, June 7.

More details in https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/04/twitter-...p-500.html

[cyclone]

Twitter Shares Plunge 17% as Monthly Users Decline

By Selina Wang
July 27, 2018, 6:52 PM GMT+8

Twitter Inc. said monthly users dropped by 1 million in the second quarter, and predicted that number will decline further as the company continues to fight against spam, fake accounts and malicious rhetoric on its social network. The shares plunged 17 percent in early trading.

Monthly active users were 335 million --a decline from 336 million in the first quarter, San Francisco-based Twitter said Friday in a statement. Though that measure was up 2.8 percent from a year earlier, the company expects monthly visitors to fall again in the current period. Twitter blamed the projected drop on intensified efforts to clean up the platform, stricter privacy rules in Europe and changes to the way its service is used through SMS messaging.

“We are confident that this is in the best long-term interest of the platform and will enable long-term growth as we improve the health of the public conversation on Twitter” and reallocate resources, including those used to prepare for the data privacy changes in Europe, Twitter said in a note to shareholders accompanying the earnings release.

Twitter reported net income for the third consecutive quarter, which has helped drive the shares 79 percent higher this year to $42.94 at Thursday’s close. But the company gave a forecast for third-quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of as much as $235 million, falling short of analysts’ average estimate of $268 million.

Twitter’s user woes are similar to those of Facebook Inc., which also has been plagued by manipulation, robot accounts and unrest about the growing influence of social media in the culture. Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey has said his priority is to reduce abusive conversations on the platform and the company said its machine-learning algorithms are identifying more than 9 million potential spam or automated accounts a week.

The huge number of deletions have raised concerns among investors that Twitter -- the favorite communications tool of U.S. President Donald Trump -- can’t attract a more general audience to supplement the politicians, entertainers and journalists who are among its prime users. The company, however, said the vast majority of malicious accounts are inactive or caught before they become counted among active users.

More details in https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/...-estimates

[cyclone]

Twitter will soon delete your account if you don't use it enough

By Michelle Toh, CNN Business
Updated 1052 GMT (1852 HKT) November 27, 2019

Hong Kong (CNN Business) - Twitter (TWTR) has a message for anyone who doesn't do much with their account: Use it or lose it.

The company on Tuesday warned users who haven't logged in for at least six months that their accounts could soon be gone.

"We're working to clean up inactive accounts to present more accurate, credible information people can trust across Twitter," a spokesperson told CNN Business. "Part of this effort is encouraging people to actively log in."

The move won't affect those who spend time on the domain, but don't necessarily tweet much. Twitter defines activity by logging in, and recognizes that "not all signs of account activity are publicly visible," according to policy guidelines outlined on its website.

It's unclear when exactly accounts will start being purged, or how many users will be affected. The company said it is reaching out to "many accounts" that don't meet its requirements, but declined to share a timeline or an estimate of the number it considers to be inactive.

These handles will be deactivated over the course of "many months — not all at once," the company added. A spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on what happens to the accounts of people who have died.

The push against inactive users highlights a broader effort to tidy up the platform. Twitter (TWTR) has pulled the plug on large numbers of users before — although for entirely different reasons.

Policymakers have long called on the tech company to crack down on fake pages or feeds that are used to spread disinformation and other abuse. And the company routinely takes down spam or automated pages, and says its "focus is increasingly on proactively identifying problematic accounts and behavior."

More details in https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/27/tech/...index.html

[weijian]

IN THE CORONAVIRUS ERA, THE FORCE IS STILL WITH JACK DORSEY

Dorsey, who is around six feet tall, has a long, scraggly beard that some liken to one of the lead singers from ZZ Top and the build of a man who only eats once a day. He enjoys working from home at least two days a week, often in his kitchen, or at his desk under the glow of a near-infrared light. When he does go into the office, he always walks the five miles there.

Dorsey also spends a large amount of time on the road, but not in a way that most CEOs of public companies do. He goes on 10-day silent retreats to places like Myanmar, and last year went on a round-the-world trip over several months to visit satellite offices of Twitter, where he was treated like an A-list celebrity and posed for selfies with low-level employees, which he then shared on Twitter.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/...ack-dorsey

[karlmarx]

Good read.

The cult of personality is arguably almost as important as the technical ability of the CEO. Attracting top talent, regulatory support, and massive financing -- some of the most important start-up ingredients -- relies heavily on stakeholders' belief that the CEO has the midas touch.

Elizabeth Holmes is another of the Steve Jobs wannabes, who unfortunately overplayed her hand.

At least Jack Dorsey has something that works.

[specuvestor]

It's interesting to revisit my skepticism on Twitter as a business model / hype

Though the stock collapsed before Trump "saved" it, it's now near the IPO price and unlikely to revisit the highs while Nasadq has defied my wildest expectation to continue the "2nd dot com run" to Feb 2020. So if you held on to Twitter you probably not the happiest tech investor around. Maybe the Force is somewhere else

Point is there is a limit to cult personality. It needs to be coupled with substance to be long lasting. Jobs or Buffett are good example. There are plenty of bad examples starting from Softbank's stables, including Son himself.

End of the "2nd dot com" run is "official":

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/0...ts-street/

Nasdaq peaked 4 months later 10% higher in early March, after Twitter IPO. What I didn't expect is S&P to be so resilient

^^ Reminded me that S&P is already below 6 Nov close even after a strong run up late December.

Now to see when Twitter will go below $44.90 IPO first day close to usher in the end of the 2nd dot com run.

Since we are already in middle of Dec and yesterday was an upday, it might be interesting to follow up on my observation.

S&P is up 0.91% since 6 Nov close while Twitter up 117.7% from IPO price, and possibly we might have some residual capricorn effect early Jan.

Let's see if history rhymes again with these big name listings in midst of euphoria.

I've a feeling that Twitter IPO is going to mark the US market high for at least next 12 months

[Wildreamz]

I signed up for a Twitter account back in 2009, but never really understood the point of it.

Recently (the last few years) though I start to appreciate it more, as more and more professionals, scientists, engineers, politicians, journalists, companies, whistle-blowers, developers, startups, entrepreneurs, freelancers, celebrities, influencers etc, use it to build their personal brand, and connect with people around the world. They are also collecting and utilizing increasingly more, and more important, real-time data.

As of late I see some positive improvement to their business:

(1) Better ad-targeting (perhaps due to better machine learning algorithm).

(2) Better user engagement (https://zephoria.com/twitter-statistics-top-ten/), globally. Twitter use has a resurgence of late. 



Interestingly, in certain countries (like Japan), Twitter usage has exceeded Facebook.


(3) Also, better profitability, and better balance sheet.

That said, as a business, I don't understand their long-term goal/story; hence, still sitting on the sidelines. Twitter investors, especially those that initiated position after Dorsey returned in late 2015, during the lows of 2016 - 2017, should be quite satisfied with their returns, as well as improvements in it's business fundamentals.

(not vested in Twitter, but vested in Jack Dorsey's other company, Square Inc.)

[weijian]

This security breach looks bad on Twitter. But i do wonder why Twitter-In-Chief wasn't hit by it? Maybe the SS has been watching over his Twitter account?

Joe Biden, Elon Musk and Kim Kardashian: high-profile Twitter accounts hijacked in large-scale scam

A series of high-profile Twitter accounts were hijacked on Wednesday, with some of the platform’s top voices – including US presidential candidate Joe Biden, reality television show star Kim Kardashian, former US President Barack Obama, billionaire Elon Musk and rapper Kanye West, among many others – used to solicit digital currency.

The cause of the breach was not immediately clear and – more than an hour after the first wave of hacks – Twitter took the extraordinary step of preventing at least some verified accounts from publishing messages altogether.

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-s...gh-profile

[gzbkel]

This security breach looks bad on Twitter. But i do wonder why Twitter-In-Chief wasn't hit by it? Maybe the SS has been watching over his Twitter account?

Joe Biden, Elon Musk and Kim Kardashian: high-profile Twitter accounts hijacked in large-scale scam

A series of high-profile Twitter accounts were hijacked on Wednesday, with some of the platform’s top voices – including US presidential candidate Joe Biden, reality television show star Kim Kardashian, former US President Barack Obama, billionaire Elon Musk and rapper Kanye West, among many others – used to solicit digital currency.

The cause of the breach was not immediately clear and – more than an hour after the first wave of hacks – Twitter took the extraordinary step of preventing at least some verified accounts from publishing messages altogether.

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-s...gh-profile

I am suspecting its the deterrence effect. If dare hack POTUS's account, hackers can expect to be chased to the ends of the world by SS/CIA/Seal team 6 haha