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Episode 289 Documentally

Episode 271 Ready Player One

profit

Profit: Twitter grew, what’s next?

It has taken them 12 years but Twitter finally turned a profit. In what seems crazy, (Twitter never turning a profit a remaining alive) they’ve profited! The social media giant posted their Q4 earnings recently and posted that they grew 2% from year to date. For the number nerds out there they company was in the green $91M for the quarter on a reported $732m revenue.

A lot of the growth is down to targeted advertising. The click-through rate of Twitter’s targeted ads hasa largely improved. Thus pushing Twitter into the green. Consequently the ads have worked so successfully due to machine learning advancements.

Profit & Growth

Twitter has also seen a rise in growth! Globally at least. Whilst the revenue was down 8% in the US, it grew to an impressive 17% for the rest of the world. Most notably a 34% increase in Japan!

 

However, user growth has seemed to have plateaued a bit. Ever since the company went public in 2013 there has been nominal increase in user growth. Twitter had 218M users in 2013; the total now? 330M the same as Q3 and only a 4% gain year on year. (Twitter grew by 0 users in one WHOLE quarter!?)

Shares grew due to Twitter turning a profit too! The shares reached a high of $34 per share, which was a 20% hike!

We don’t think Twitter is going anywhere soon, plus with the giant turning a profit, only good is going to come. There seems to be a lot of innovation coming from Twitter, as shown by the recent Local News investment from Twitter. Hopefully this will help get people chatting more on Twitter, as it’s a really good platform to get all your news from!

What do you think this will do to Twitter?

Let us know by getting in touch via our social platforms! @howtokillanhour

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

 

twitter local news

Twitter local news: combating misinformation?!

Social networks want to combat the spread of misinformation. When something major occurs, sites such as Facebook and Twitter can provide people with real time information of what’s going on. This all the while being good. Can also be a hot bed for misinformation. Lies, truth and everything in between. Therefore Twitter wants to do something about it. Via Twitter local news!

To do this, Twitter are teaming up with select local news services to broadcast local news live. Therefore doing the utmost best to provide news that is factually correct. While this won’t stop people from spreading complete lies. Yet, it will do a lot of good to provide up to date, important, local news. While the spread of misinformation can be unintentional, it still doesn’t stop others as reporting it as fact. Which is why Twitter are focusing so much on broadcasting local news in a live manner.

Over in the US Twitter have already begun utilizing the live local news on thier service. Miami’s WSVN 7 live streamed footage of the recent tragic shooting in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. This footage was displayed on users timelines within America.

Kayvon Beykpour Twitter’s video general manager (and former Periscope CEO) Spole to Buzzfeed News about Twitter local news:

“We’re continuing to work on new ways we can surface credible and relevant information to help people stay informed. By pairing live video with the conversation on Twitter, there is no faster way to see what’s happening in the world.”

Twitter local news: How does it work?

What’s different than the regular streaming services that Twitter currently offer is that anyone clicking the local news feed will be linked to a custom timeline. The Twitter local news timeline will show live footage of what’s going on and tweets (which are selected and organised by an algorithm alongside) The display of tweets alongside what’s happening in real time, Twitter hopes, will help stop the spread of misinformation.

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

Twitter Verified Dating

Loveflutter “Blue” is a premium dating app aimed exclusively at Celebs which requires you to have a blue tick to sign up to.

It’s creators claim that it’s all about authenticity and weeding out bots and catfishes. “Blue” latches on to Twitter’s verification methods to get around this and connect to ‘real’ celebs. Yet not all blue ticks are famous people, apparently of the 150,000 blue ticks 25% of them belonged to journalists and media personalities, this was back in 2015 before you could apply to get verified! (Ironically Loveflutter and the apps co-founders aren’t verified on Twitter) Despite rolling out in San Fran, LA, NYC, LDN and Tokyo, the app won’t go live until there’s a 1000 local members on the app.

 

Twitter Subscription

Twitter are introducing a £75 ($99) a month service that allows you to promote tweets to a wider audience automatically and users interested in this service get the first month for free.

On sign up, subscribers can tweet as they would normally and then the programme would automatically choose tweets to promote. Those who it promotes to us based on similar interests, location and whatever a user picks. Such as ‘up to’ the first 10 tweets posted each day. Users who pay for this service will also see their accounts promoted as a suggested account.

The aim is to take some of the effort out of regular Twitter Ads, they will also send subscribers bi-weekly reports of Tweet engagement and new followers.

To download Twitter please click here Apple / Android

 

Episode 253 – They’re Spying On Us!

No One’s Joined Twitter For Months

Over the past 3 months, according to Twitters latest earnings report, the mammoth company grew by 0. Yes ZERO. 66 million less than what FB grew by in the same period, 9 million few than Twitter grew in the 1st quarter.

Twitter won’t shut down as it pulled in £440million in ads during the last quarter and it struggles to make money off of user generated content, Twitter isn’t at death’s door. But to grow by 0 in 3 months, for a company as big as Twitter, is concerning.

Twitter’s stats stated that 2million US people stopped using it during the last quarter and 70million people were using it occasionally, falling to 68million in quarter 2. Which is a BIG Drop as Twitter hasn’t seen that, like EVER & it grew by 1 million (to 260million) internationally.

Twitter says it’s focused on “making Twitter the best place to see and share what’s happening, where you can see every side and perspective.” What will they do to make Twitter more usable and increase users? We shall see….

To listen to the guys chatting about this please click here!

Episode 247 – Boosted Boards

Periscope lets you buy and send Super Hearts that broadcasters can cash in

Periscope has a new revenue stream

Periscope (owned by Twitter) has a new way to attract the best new content and also help you make some money along the way – this week it launched it’s ‘Super Hearts’ feature which allows users in-app purchases to buy the Super Hearts.

The Super Hearts can be sent to the creators of the content through the comment reel and then they (the creators) can redeem these with Twitter on a monthly basis.

Twitter takes 30% of the revenue and the creator/user gets the remaining 70%.

This gifting process seems to be inspired by the trend in China where users buy digital roses or stickers to send to broadcasters – essentially an in-app tipping service!

This is only available in the US at the moment but Periscope hope to extend this to everyone soon.

To download Periscope please click here: Apple / Android