Twitter's CFO just explained why on earth the company put its finance guy in charge of marketing (TWTR) | ||
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When reports emerged earlier this month that Twitter's CFO Anthony Noto may also now be in charge of the marketing department, it was met with a bemused reaction. The finance guy? In charge of marketing? The relationship between marketing and finance is one of the most strained within a company. The marketing department usually wants more budget, while the finance department is generally reluctant to give it over. The CFO wants proof that the money they delegated to marketing last quarter is actually delivering a return for the business, but marketing can take time to have an effect on sales, which leaves marketers fumbling around for other, softer metrics, like awareness, affinity, recall, and social media engagement, to prove the worth of their ads. The CFO doesn't always buy that. Speaking at the JP Morgan Global Technology, Media, and Telecom conference in New York on Wednesday (Seeking Alpha has published a transcript,) Noto confirmed that he is indeed in charge of the marketing department now. Noto explained that the board wanted to "elevate the importance of marketing as a key component of everything we do," adding: "Marketing really needs to permeate product, it needs to permeate content, and it needs to permeate media, and it's a really huge opportunity in front of us." Twitter already had a marketing team, building out the foundations, but Noto's explanation about his expanded role seems to suggest that Twitter wanted to emphasize that it was starting to take marketing seriously — but perhaps with caution as far as budget is concerned. Noto explained why its fundamental Twitter starts increasing its focus on marketing: Nearly everybody knows what Twitter is, but barely anyone knows how to use it. This is an existential problem for Twitter: its monthly active user base is slowing, and investors are concerned.
Noto said: "We [have] over 90% aided brand awareness globally ... TwitBird is everywhere. People are very familiar with it, but they're familiar with it in the way others have presented it. The second issue about the great awareness we have is that it hasn't actually translated into users. We've less than 30% penetration of the social, digital mobile market. In fact, if you just take our monthly active users on a quarterly basis and divide it by the largest player in the group, you'll see that it's 30%." Twitter has tried to combat this problem by changing the user experience: Creating "instant timelines" last year so that new users can get up and running straight away, for example. A big Twitter marketing campaign is on the wayBut now, at this stage in the company's maturity, Twitter feels it needs a marketing campaign to educate users as to what the service is all about and why people would want to use it. Noto said Twitter is in the "very early days in our thinking" about whether it will invest on a broadcast ad campaign, and on deciding which types of consumer and geographies it will target. And, in typical CFO style, Noto said "we will invest appropriately based on the returns and the value we think it can drive over time and we'll do it in a prudent way like we've done everything else." So we don't know what form it will take yet, but here's the plan, according to Noto: I think we’ve a significant opportunity to educate the 75% of people that don’t use Twitter that should use Twitter on the value proposition it provides, and consumption-first experience is the way to do that, marketing is the way to do that, [and the] consumption first experience being logged out. So there’s not a tax that someone has to pay, or an investment someone needs to make to use Twitter. And converting that mindset from people thinking they have to tweet or they have to contribute to use Twitter, to people thinking it’s frictionless, it’s easy, the real value proposition is the best real-time content in the world. Twitter has actually aired a TV campaign before. Back in 2012 it aired seven 15-second spots during the Pocono 400 NASCAR race, highlighting activity around the race track, such as a driver taking a photo inside his race car and a helmet cam capturing a tire change in the pit lane. The idea was to promote its then-new hashtag pages, which curate all the tweets, photos, and videos around a certain subject. Here's one of the ads: SEE ALSO: Twitter just made it harder to figure out how many inactive users it has Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: What It Was Like On The Trading Floor During Twitter's IPO  | ||
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It looks like Stripe is raising a really big funding round | ||
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Stripe is is rumoured to be in talks to raise a new funding round that could see the payments firm reach a valuation of $5 billion (£3.2 billion). There is no single consensus on how much Stripe is looking to raise. Re/Code reported that Stripe is in talks to raise new funding at a valuation of around $5 billion (£3.2 billion). A TechCrunch source noted that the round could be as big as $500 million (£320 million), adding that Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's DST Global is thought to be one of the leading investors in the deal. Milner has also invested in Facebook and Twitter, and more recently Indian companies FlipKart and Ola Cabs. A Stripe spokesperson declined to comment on the funding rumours. Stripe's software makes it really easy for website owners and app developers to take almost any kind of payment method, including credit cards, bitcoin, and Apple Pay. Back in December the company was valued at $3.5 billion (£2.2 billion) and has raised $190 million (£120 million) in funding so far from the likes of PayPal founders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia Capital. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Kids settle the debate and tell us which is better: an Apple or Samsung phone  | ||
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Twitter's CFO just explained why on earth the company put its finance guy in charge of marketing (TWTR) | ||
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When reports emerged earlier this month that Twitter's CFO Anthony Noto may also now be in charge of the marketing department, it was met with a bemused reaction. The finance guy? In charge of marketing? The relationship between marketing and finance is one of the most strained within a company. The marketing department usually wants more budget, while the finance department is generally reluctant to give it over. The CFO wants proof that the money they delegated to marketing last quarter is actually delivering a return for the business, but marketing can take time to have an effect on sales, which leaves marketers fumbling around for other, softer metrics, like awareness, affinity, recall, and social media engagement, to prove the worth of their ads. The CFO doesn't always buy that. Speaking at the JP Morgan Global Technology, Media, and Telecom conference in New York on Wednesday (Seeking Alpha has published a transcript,) Noto confirmed that he is indeed in charge of the marketing department now. Noto explained that the board wanted to "elevate the importance of marketing as a key component of everything we do," adding: "Marketing really needs to permeate product, it needs to permeate content, and it needs to permeate media, and it's a really huge opportunity in front of us." Twitter already had a marketing team, building out the foundations, but Noto's explanation about his expanded role seems to suggest that Twitter wanted to emphasize that it was starting to take marketing seriously — but perhaps with caution as far as budget is concerned. Noto explained why its fundamental Twitter starts increasing its focus on marketing: Nearly everybody knows what Twitter is, but barely anyone knows how to use it. This is an existential problem for Twitter: its monthly active user base is slowing, and investors are concerned.
Noto said: "We [have] over 90% aided brand awareness globally ... TwitBird is everywhere. People are very familiar with it, but they're familiar with it in the way others have presented it. The second issue about the great awareness we have is that it hasn't actually translated into users. We've less than 30% penetration of the social, digital mobile market. In fact, if you just take our monthly active users on a quarterly basis and divide it by the largest player in the group, you'll see that it's 30%." Twitter has tried to combat this problem by changing the user experience: Creating "instant timelines" last year so that new users can get up and running straight away, for example. A big Twitter marketing campaign is on the wayBut now, at this stage in the company's maturity, Twitter feels it needs a marketing campaign to educate users as to what the service is all about and why people would want to use it. Noto said Twitter is in the "very early days in our thinking" about whether it will invest on a broadcast ad campaign, and on deciding which types of consumer and geographies it will target. And, in typical CFO style, Noto said "we will invest appropriately based on the returns and the value we think it can drive over time and we'll do it in a prudent way like we've done everything else." So we don't know what form it will take yet, but here's the plan, according to Noto: I think we’ve a significant opportunity to educate the 75% of people that don’t use Twitter that should use Twitter on the value proposition it provides, and consumption-first experience is the way to do that, marketing is the way to do that, [and the] consumption first experience being logged out. So there’s not a tax that someone has to pay, or an investment someone needs to make to use Twitter. And converting that mindset from people thinking they have to tweet or they have to contribute to use Twitter, to people thinking it’s frictionless, it’s easy, the real value proposition is the best real-time content in the world. Twitter has actually aired a TV campaign before. Back in 2012 it aired seven 15-second spots during the Pocono 400 NASCAR race, highlighting activity around the race track, such as a driver taking a photo inside his race car and a helmet cam capturing a tire change in the pit lane. The idea was to promote its then-new hashtag pages, which curate all the tweets, photos, and videos around a certain subject. Here's one of the ads: SEE ALSO: Twitter just made it harder to figure out how many inactive users it has Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: What It Was Like On The Trading Floor During Twitter's IPO  | ||
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Hamilton on top after opening practice in Monaco | ||
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Monaco (AFP) - Championship leader Lewis Hamilton celebrated signing his new deal with Mercedes by topping the times in Thursday’s opening free practice session for Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix ahead of Dutch teenager Max Verstappen in a Toro Rosso. The two-time champion, who announced on Wednesday a three-year extension of his contract to 2018, celebrated that deal with a composed performance and a best lap time in one minute and 18.750 seconds. This left him 0.149 seconds ahead of Verstappen while his Mercedes team-mate and championship rival German Nico Rosberg was ninth fastest. Rosberg, who won the Spanish Grand Prix earlier this month, trails Hamilton by 20 points in the title race and survived a "moment" at the Tabac corner when he "kissed" the barriers without damaging his car early in the 90-minutes session. Australian Daniel Ricciardo was third quickest for Red Bull ahead of four-time champion German Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari and Spaniard Carlos Sainz in the second Toro Rosso. Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado was sixth for Lotus ahead of Russian Daniil Kvyat in the second Red Bull, Finn Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari, Rosberg and Brazilian Felipe Massa who was 10th in the second Williams. The track was cool and slippery from the start of the session following overnight showers and the surface temperature climbed slowly from 16 to 21 degrees Celsius while the air temperature hovered around 14 degrees, very cool by local Monegasue standards. Sainz and Frenchman Romain Grosjean in a Lotus survived spins during a busy session that saw something of a recovery by the besieged McLaren team for which Briton Jenson Button who was delayed in his garage for the first 45 minutes. The most impressive run came from Verstappen who proved to any doubters that, aged just 17, he has all the talent and skills to impress and total confidence in his Toro Rosso car.
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It looks like Stripe is raising a really big funding round | ||
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Stripe is is rumoured to be in talks to raise a new funding round that could see the payments firm reach a valuation of $5 billion (£3.2 billion). There is no single consensus on how much Stripe is looking to raise. Re/Code reported that Stripe is in talks to raise new funding at a valuation of around $5 billion (£3.2 billion). A TechCrunch source noted that the round could be as big as $500 million (£320 million), adding that Russian billionaire Yuri Milner's DST Global is thought to be one of the leading investors in the deal. Milner has also invested in Facebook and Twitter, and more recently Indian companies FlipKart and Ola Cabs. A Stripe spokesperson declined to comment on the funding rumours. Stripe's software makes it really easy for website owners and app developers to take almost any kind of payment method, including credit cards, bitcoin, and Apple Pay. Back in December the company was valued at $3.5 billion (£2.2 billion) and has raised $190 million (£120 million) in funding so far from the likes of PayPal founders Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia Capital. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Kids settle the debate and tell us which is better: an Apple or Samsung phone  | ||
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New Zealand bowl against England in 1st Test | ||
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London (AFP) - New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum won the toss and elected to field against England in the first Test at Lord's on Thursday. Despite blue skies above Lord's, McCullum opted to give his bowlers first use of a green-tinged pitch, doubtless hoping they could exploit any lingering moisture following recent rain in the first of this two-Test series. England gave debuts to Yorkshire opening batsman Adam Lyth and Durham paceman Mark Wood. Lyth replaced Jonathan Trott, now retired from international cricket, and Wood came in for Chris Jordan as in the only two changes to the side that lost the third Test against the West Indies by five wickets in Barbados earlier this month. England's side included all-rounder Ben Stokes, son of former New Zealand rugby league international Ged Stokes. New Zealand gave a Test debut to fast bowler Matt Henry while in-form opener Martin Guptill was recalled for his first Test since New Zealand's 2-0 series loss in England two years ago. This match was the 100th Test between England and New Zealand. The Black Caps have won just eight of the previous 99, compared to England's 47, with 44 draws. New Zealand have also managed just four wins in 52 Tests in England, with only two series victories -- in 1986 and 1999. England: Alastair Cook (capt), Adam Lyth, Gary Ballance, Ian Bell, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler (wkt), Moeen Ali, Stuart Broad, Mark Wood, James Anderson New Zealand: Tom Latham, Martin Guptill, Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Brendon McCullum (capt), Corey Anderson, BJ Watling (wkt), Mark Craig, Tim Southee, Matt Henry, Trent Boult Umpires: S Ravi (IND), Marais Erasmus (RSA) TV umpire: Rod Tucker (AUS) Match referee: David Boon (AUS) Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Eurozone growth falters despite improved employment | ||
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Brussels (AFP) - The eurozone economy showed unexpected signs of fragility in May, a key survey said Thursday, in a blow to hopes of a swift recovery and despite a welcome increase in employment levels. The closely watched Markit Economics Composite Purchasing Managers Output Index (PMI) fell to 53.4 points in May from a revised 53.9 points in April. Although the report showed the single currency bloc holding above the 50-point boom-or-bust line, Markit said the second month running of decline in growth momentum was a sign that unprecedented stimulus measures by the European Central Bank had yet to take effect. In March, the ECB embarked on a vast bond-buying programme known as quantitative easing or QE with the aim to jolt the eurozone economy out of the doldrums. "At the moment the extent of the slowing is not a major concern, but will no doubt be causing some nail-biting at the ECB as policymakers await signs that quantitative easing is the panacea the region needs to achieve a robust and sustainable recovery," said Chris Williamson, Chief Economist at Markit. But Markit also said that despite the unexpectedly low result for May, eurozone companies were boosting staffing levels at a faster pace. "Job creation is running at the highest rate for four years as employers remain upbeat about the business outlook, especially in manufacturing where the weaker euro appears to be helping drive strong export sales," Williamson added. By country, Germany showed the slowest growth in business activity in four months, while France pushed up only marginally from zero-growth levels. Encouragingly however, France showed its best spell of hiring in over three years, Markit said. The official unemployment level in the eurozone stands at 11.3 percent and Thursday's data indicates that this should fall further in the coming months. The eurozone's smaller economies were once again the main spurs in improved business activity across the single currency bloc, Markit said. The PMI for the services sector, which accounts for about two-thirds of all economic activity, was at 53.3 in May against 54.1 for April. For manufacturing it was at a 13-month high of 52.3 in May against 52.0 the month before. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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New York celebrates opening of World Trade Center deck | ||
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New York (AFP) - Testament to the regeneration of New York, nearly 14 years after the 9/11 attacks, is the new observation deck at the World Trade Center, offering spectacular views across the city. "We are back, 100 percent," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told CBS television in a special program broadcast atop the observation deck that covers the 100th, 101st and 102nd floors of the gleaming glass tower. "It's a great moment, it really says that we have turned the corner once and for all, and those that sought to attack us, lost once again." The observation deck opens to the general public next Friday. The tallest office building in the Western hemisphere, the Trade Center, also known as Freedom Tower, welcomed its first tenants last year. Built on the site of buildings destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, it was constructed to a total height, antenna included, of 1,776 feet, to honor the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Operators expect three to four million visitors a year will take in the 360-degree views at 1,250 feet (380 meters) from the Statue of Liberty, to Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge and New Jersey to the west. On a clear day, you can see for 50 miles (80 kilometers) says David Checketts, chairman and chief executive officer of Legends, the company which operates the observatory. "We can start to see the curve of the earth on a clear day," he told AFP during a visit to the deck Wednesday. It was a panorama that many never expected to see again, and which Checketts said is testament to the resilience of New Yorkers. "This is like a fist bump, saying we put it back up and the construction and restoration of neighborhoods around downtown make it really feel like New York is back," he told AFP.
- 3D view -
The elevator -- one of the quickest in the world -- takes 47 seconds to reach the 102nd floor and is a journey in itself. Floor-to-ceiling LED technology provides visitors with a virtual time-lapse that recreates the development of the city's s skyline from the 1600s to present day. Once in the observatory, visitors are welcomed with a two-minute video that combines time-lapse shots with abstract textures and patterns to present the rhythm and pulse of the city in 3D. On the 101st floor there is a restaurant, a grill and a cafe, and a place to have photographs taken against the backdrop. Those who don't get queasy with vertigo can step out onto a sky portal -- a 14-foot wide disc that uses real-time, high-definition footage to give a view of the streets below. Visitors are subject to tough security measures similar to those at airports, or indeed at other public buildings in New York. "It is the strongest and most secure building perhaps on the earth," said Checketts. The observatory will compete with two other popular viewing sites in the city: the Empire State Building, which stays open until 2 am and which last year welcomed more than three million visitors, and the Rockefeller Center, visited by 2.5 million and open until midnight. Standard entry is $32 for adults, $30 for seniors and $26 for children. The observatory will be open seven days a week from 9am to midnight until September 7, and from 9am to 8pm until May 5. It is free for relatives of the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and to first responders to the disaster. In total 2,753 people were killed at the World Trade Center site when Al-Qaeda hijacked two passenger jets and flew them into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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