Has Twitter Lost Its Mind? Removes Share Count, Appoints Parttime CEO

[Janiform]

https://twittercommunity.com/t/a-new-design-for-tweet-and-follow-buttons/52791
"The Tweet button has displayed share count over the last five years by querying a JSON endpoint hosted on various domains. These private JSON endpoints have been used by third-party developers over the years to retrieve a simple share count of any URL. These endpoints will be shut down next month when the Tweet button removes its share count feature."

Do you feel like saying "f*ck Twitter" now as a website/business owner? What will you do about the decreased social proof of your content after the removal?

http://uk.businessinsider.com/fabulous-life-of-twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-2015-6
"Twitter announced Monday that Jack Dorsey will be staying on as the company's full-time CEO."

"He will stay on as CEO of Square, the mobile payments company he founded in 2010, while managing new responsibilities at Twitter."

Dumb ass move or a smart one? What are they thinking? Do you think Twitter's a sinking ship?

Curious to hear your thoughts...

 

[CCarter]

They go into a bit more detail in this blogpost about why: https://blog.twitter.com/2015/hard-decisions-for-a-sustainable-platform

Basically it comes down to the count was the last thing on the Cassandra database which they are moving away from. Yes they COULD take the time and resources to rebuild the twitter count on their new Manhattan database, but it's time they really don't want to take into doing it since it will take away resources from newer features.

It's an interesting trade-off gamble they are making on their future. I personally don't like it, but maybe something better can come out of it. At times you have to get rid of the past in order to walk into the future.

 

[contract]

I'm impartial...

Already switched to static buttons; not a fan of them getting my data/loading scripts/making extra extra http requests. Personally, I like the count, but not to the point where I must have it.

But at least their search works, for brand, url, hashtags, etc... On Facebook I can't track a damn thing, it's awful. Will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

 

[Janiform]

It's an interesting trade-off gamble they are making on their future. I personally don't like it, but maybe something better can come out of it. At times you have to get rid of the past in order to walk into the future.

I feel the same way. As a business owner, I know marketers collectively will come up with workarounds with varying degrees of creativity: switch to static buttons like @contract, switch to a consolidated share count (FB + LinkedIn + Pinterest, etc.) like Business Insider does with their "popularity flame" or perhaps create a bot which scrapes share counts and translates them into a button...

Looking at online marketing as a whole, though, I don't like where Twitter's going: parttime CEO, drops share count, considers removing the 140 character limit, etc. I fear Twitter could lose its existing audience by trying to appeal to a new one ("oversimplification"), with Twitter going up in flames as a result. Less social avenues for me to exploit = more competition in still existing avenues.

But at least their search works, for brand, url, hashtags, etc... On Facebook I can't track a damn thing, it's awful. Will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Agreed! Twitter Search is pretty damn good, especially compared to Facebook's.

Just throwing a curveball here: does anyone think Twitter will eventually be bought up by one of the other social networks?

 

[emp]

I don't care about the count, however..

The part time CEO / CEO mess of the last months is killing the brand, reputation, and possibly the future of the company.

The removal of the 140 character limit removes the unique selling point twitter has. The 140 characters limit makes twitter what it is and influences writing style, etc..

And yeah, I think they are gonna be bought up.

Why? How?

Let's take a look at their stock (I included the reason for the little uptick, too)

Now, keep in mind twitter is burning money like crazy. Here is the latest I could find

Revenue, most of which comes from advertising, was $502 million, compared with $312 million a year ago. The company posted a net loss of $137 million, or 21 cents a share, as it spent heavily on stock compensation to attract and retain employees. In the same quarter last year, it posted a loss of $145 million, or 24 cents a share.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/technology/twitter-quarterly-earnings.html?_r=0

Even better when viewed here:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income-of-twitter/

::emp::

 

[lion1978]

Less social avenues for me to exploit = more competition in still existing avenues.

Or a golden opportunety to take advantage of, if the original audience of twitter abandons ship then there is an open market/audience ripe for picking if you can give them what they want but still without beeing an old twitter copycat.

And yeah, I think they are gonna be bought up.

I agree and I'll throw in a guess as to who is going to buy lets guess that it's gonna be google, as far as I recall google already has a partnership with twitter, and g+ isn't going to be the hottest thing ever(except maybe for seo exploitation) so I'm gonna venture out and say that google will buy twitter and then try to merge twitter with g+ and f**k both platforms up completly

 

[CCarter]

I'm not sure if you guys know this but Twitter is already a publicly traded company, It's had it's IPO. Right now it's at $30.71 a share, any buyout would have to be on the public market, or that thing is going to get expensive taking it private.

Public companies buying other public companies are rarer then public companies buying a private company, like in Facebook's Instagram buyout. It can happen in a takeover bid, but it's highly unlikely unless there isn't revenue being generating, which is not really the case for twitter.

Twitter more then double it's revenue from 2013 to 2014. They also have started reducing their loss by $67 million in the same time period, so even though they are not yet profitable they are heading in the right direction.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'd be happy if Twitter just made URLs and Images take up less characters. That's what eats up the 140 count for marketers faster than anything. Try tossing in hashtags on top of that and you can't even drop the title of your post or whatever. It's hard out here for an IMpimp.

I like Twitter, more than every other social network. I just tweeted at and was tweeted back by one of the biggest rappers in the world right now, just on a whim. It reminds me of the MySpace days, where famous folks actually maintained their own pages. I was able to speak to all kinds of people who would have been out of my reach back then.

 

[emp]

m not sure if you guys know this but Twitter is already a publicly traded company, It's had it's IPO

Yes, this is why I posted the stock chart and why we have access to all the numbers.

Twitter more then double it's revenue from 2013 to 2014

Problen is that they managed to raise revenue by ~200 million, but only cut the losses ~70 million.
I don't think this is moving anywhere.

Didn't have time yet to dive into the reports, but that balance sheet better have some nice acquisitions.
Keep in mind that Twitter has only been burning money so far.

::emp::

 

[CCarter]

Yes, this is why I posted the stock chart and why we have access to all the numbers.

I didn't see your post when I wrote mine.

 

[emp]

Ah, I was confused you did not see the chart.
You had me re-check the image links.

::emp::

 

[Janiform]

The removal of the 140 character limit removes the unique selling point twitter has. The 140 characters limit makes twitter what it is and influences writing style, etc..

This! What's Twitter's USP for the Average Joe besides the character limit? Nothing it does is unique except for this artificial limit.

But...

I'd be happy if Twitter just made URLs and Images take up less characters. That's what eats up the 140 count for marketers faster than anything. Try tossing in hashtags on top of that and you can't even drop the title of your post or whatever. It's hard out here for an IMpimp.

If Twitter decides to stretch the char limit by no longer counting URLs, images, and maybe hashtags as being a part of the char limit... then that would be a smart move. Keep the char limit but change the definition or so to speak. It'll increase usability for marketers & bloggers, who will then start using it more and push their Twitter acc's to their audience more probably and, in turn, this will drive Twitter's user growth.

Or a golden opportunety to take advantage of, if the original audience of twitter abandons ship then there is an open market/audience ripe for picking if you can give them what they want but still without beeing an old twitter copycat.

I think you'll pretty much have to be a copycat of the "old Twitter" (140 char limit and all) in order to capture the hardcore userbase that left it at that point, i.e. give people what they're used to. Then, at a later date, you could add new features without touching the routine ones the userbase has grown accustomed to.

 

[lion1978]

If Twitter decides to stretch the char limit by no longer counting URLs, images, and maybe hashtags as being a part of the char limit... then that would be a smart move.

I agree with you on that, but there could be a downside to it and that would be, that it might actually turn into some sort of Hastag spam heaven/hell, I have already seen it to some extend when people just throw up a shortened url and then use the rest of the char limit only for hashtags, it's kinda ugly and the post makes little sense, depending on if they use hashtags that appears to be at least on the same topic.

 

[CCarter]

Anyone looking for a follow up to this, in December there appeared an alternative way to get twitter counts. Enter: http://twitcount.com/



TwitCount uses the official twitter RESTFUL API to get the twitter count of any URL, which Twitter suggested to users in their announcement. Here is an article about this method: TwitCount – The Twitter Share Counts Alternative

I'll try implementing this on one of my sites and let you guys know the outcome, but seems straight up easy to be honest.