The Accidental Tweet From Twitter's CFO Reveals The Company's Biggest Problem (TWTR) | ||
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Back in February, CEO Dick Costolo told Wall Street analysts that the company was going to make Twitter easier to use. He may have failed in that task, judging by the accidental tweet sent out by Twitter CFO Anthony Noto yesterday. Noto appeared reveal the fact that the company is considering a new acquisition:
On the one hand, it's just a simple human error by Noto, and we can't read too much into it. Noto is new to Twitter, after all. But on the other, Twitter is a public company and news of impending acquisitions can move the stock up or down. So this is serious — the company's CFO is having difficulty using his own product, and it may have consequences for investors. Twitter has a longstanding problem with its confusing user interface that it has not solved. Plenty of people get the DM thing wrong: Anthony Weiner, the congressman who fell from grave after sending naked photos of himself on Twitter, made the same mistake. In February, Costolo said Twitter would be redesigned so that users were less confused by its navigation and interface.
As a longtime Twitter user, I can tell you that there have been only tiny, subtle changes to the Twitter user interface. It's still a complicated product that seemingly requires you to learn a separate shorthand of RTs, MTs, @, ".", #'s and bitly links in order to get the best from it. And it is easy to confuse a private direct message, or DM, and a public reply tweet — which is what Noto seems to have screwed up yesterday. The litmus test: I still would not recommend that my mother begin using Twitter, but I've begged her to get onto Facebook so we can share photographs better. (My mum is a bit of a gadget nerd by the way — she's already got an iPhone 6 and Apple TV.) This isn't trivial. Costolo believes that getting the user experience right is what will drive monthly active user (MAU) growth. Right now, that user growth is feeble. In Q3 it reported 283 million MAUs, up 21% for the year. That sounds like a lot but remember that Facebook has more than 1.3 billion users. Instagram overtook Twitter in popularity a long time ago. Snapchat probably has faster growth than Twitter, although fewer users overall. There is a case to be made that Twitter should not, in fact, be a mass medium for every single person. The company has a lot of valuable data and does not need to be as big as Facebook to succeed. But as long as Costolo keeps telling investors that reaching everyone on the planet is achievable, then the company needs to make its product easier and simpler to use. Disclosure: The author owns shares of Twitter (TWTR). SEE ALSO: 'People Are Losing Confidence In Him': A Brutal Takedown Of Dick Costolo's Reign At Twitter Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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While Twitter is useful, the more you use it the more elaborate and complicated your dashboard can become, with separate streams for your home feed, sent tweets, direct messages, notifications and "activity." The 10 Things You Need To Know In Advertising Today | ||
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Good morning. Here are all the important advertising stories you need to know today. 1. Samsung’s ad agency Cheil has taken a stake in UK-based creative agency Iris Worldwide. No terms of the deal were disclosed, but Cheil does have the option to increase its “significant” stake to 100% in the next five years. 2. Sony has moved quickly to remove an innuendo-ridden ad from its European PlayStation YouTube channel. The ad, to promote the PS4’s Remote Play, was presumably removed due to its sexist connotations. 3. The UK’s biggest newspaper The Sun claims it has doubled its number of paid-for digital describers year on year to 225,000 users. However, The Sun’s total paid-for sales (which includes copies of the print newspaper) are still down 2.2% on 2013. 4. Coca-Cola milk doesn’t immediately sound too appealing, but the company says its new milk product will “rain money.” The drink is called Fairlife and will sell for twice the price of regular milk when it hits US store shelves in December. 5. Here’s a shocking stat that shows why Budweiser is in serious trouble. A recent company study found that 44% of drinks aged between 21 and 27-years-old have never tried the brand. 6. Meet Sparc, which has used neat design and branding to turn itself in the "Apple store of marijuana shops." The company serves up to 400 customers a day in its trendy San Francisco medical marijuana dispensary store. 7. It’s going to be tough for web video contenders like Facebook, Vessel and Yahoo to pry away top YouTube stars, according to the WSJ’s CMO Today. One prominent YouTuber told the title, “I don’t think I’d ever leave YouTube,” while another said: “YouTube will always be my base, these other places are all to help push my YouTube stuff.” 8. Adweek explores how MailChimp is reaping the rewards from the runaway success of the “Serial” podcast, which has been streamed more than 5 million times. Each episode begins with a 20-second callout to the email vendor, and data shows people are talking about the ad on social media. 9. 7up, the second largest PepsiCo drink brand, has undergone a global brand refresh, The Drum reports. The transformation is being accompanied by a campaign that aims to celebrate people who fit the brand’s “original and refreshing” identity. 10. French city Grenoble plans to ban all outdoor ads and replace them with trees and “community spaces,” The Telegraph reports. The city’s 326 advertising signs will be removed between January and April next year and its contract with JCDecaux will be terminated as they no longer “correspond to the expectations of the inhabitants who want to reclaim public space,” the the city’s mayor’s office said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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European Stocks Are Climbing | ||
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European stocks are climbing after Germany confirmed that it did not fall into recession in Q3. Here's the scorecard. France's CAC 40: +0.15% Germany's DAX: +0.46% The UK's FTSE 100: +0.11% Spain's IBEX: +0.45% Italy's FTSE MIB: +0.59% Asian markets were mixed: Japan's Nikkei closed up 0.29%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended Tuesday down 0.21%. US futures are down: ahead of the open, the S&P 500 is down 1.75 points, and the Dow is down 13 points. Later today the biggest single piece of economic data is the second estimate of US GDP. That's out at 1.30 p.m. GMT, and economists are expecting a 3.3% annualised jump. Consumer spending figures are out at the same time, followed by consumer confidence at 3 p.m. GMT. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The Accidental Tweet From Twitter's CFO Reveals The Company's Biggest Problem (TWTR) | ||
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Back in February, CEO Dick Costolo told Wall Street analysts that the company was going to make Twitter easier to use. He may have failed in that task, judging by the accidental tweet sent out by Twitter CFO Anthony Noto yesterday. Noto appeared reveal the fact that the company is considering a new acquisition:
On the one hand, it's just a simple human error by Noto, and we can't read too much into it. Noto is new to Twitter, after all. But on the other, Twitter is a public company and news of impending acquisitions can move the stock up or down — Re/code has a list of some the companies Noto could have been referring to, which includes Storehouse, Shots, Secret, Prismatic, Drawbridge and Shopular. So this is serious — the company's CFO is having difficulty using his own product, and it may have consequences for investors. Twitter has a longstanding problem with its confusing user interface that it has not solved. Plenty of people get the DM thing wrong: Anthony Weiner, the congressman who fell from grave after sending naked photos of himself on Twitter, made the same mistake. In February, Costolo said Twitter would be redesigned so that users were less confused by its navigation and interface.
As a longtime Twitter user, I can tell you that there have been only tiny, subtle changes to the Twitter user interface. It's still a complicated product that seemingly requires you to learn a separate shorthand of RTs, MTs, @, ".", #'s and bitly links in order to get the best from it. And it is easy to confuse a private direct message, or DM, and a public reply tweet — which is what Noto seems to have screwed up yesterday. The litmus test: I still would not recommend that my mother begin using Twitter, but I've begged her to get onto Facebook so we can share photographs better. (My mum is a bit of a gadget nerd by the way — she's already got an iPhone 6 and Apple TV.) This isn't trivial. Costolo believes that getting the user experience right is what will drive monthly active user (MAU) growth. Right now, that user growth is feeble. In Q3 it reported 283 million MAUs, up 21% for the year. That sounds like a lot but remember that Facebook has more than 1.3 billion users. Instagram overtook Twitter in popularity a long time ago. Snapchat probably has faster growth than Twitter, although fewer users overall. There is a case to be made that Twitter should not, in fact, be a mass medium for every single person. The company has a lot of valuable data and does not need to be as big as Facebook to succeed. But as long as Costolo keeps telling investors that reaching everyone on the planet is achievable, then the company needs to make its product easier and simpler to use. Disclosure: The author owns shares of Twitter (TWTR). SEE ALSO: 'People Are Losing Confidence In Him': A Brutal Takedown Of Dick Costolo's Reign At Twitter Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Pope's first visit to European Parliament: Live Report | ||
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Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - 09:02 GMT - WELCOME TO AFP'S LIVE REPORT on Pope Francis's first visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg as the continent struggles with economic troubles and surging nationalism. Francis will leave his pope-mobile behind and -- unusually for the crowd-loving Argentine -- dedicate his time to addressing lawmakers and the Council of Europe in a four-hour trip, the shortest abroad by any pope. In what will be the second visit by a pope to the parliament in the French city, Francis will also meet briefly with outgoing European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and new European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker. Stay with us for live updates on the visit as it unfolds. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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