Name: Is Twitter the next MySpace?
Uploaded: 2015-07-31
Duration: 3 min 37 s
Description: The company hasn’t been attracting users but its revenue is actually growing. What’s going on?

[ MUSIC ] Okay Brian, let's talk about those earning reports, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. In each case, the companies exceeded expectations, and yet in each case the price dropped. So I know there are specific Specific things going on with each company, but big picture what's going on here? Maybe, it's because it's so hot and investors are just frustrated. I don't know. No, I think maybe the word expectations is a big part of it. I mean first of all, we're six years into a market. Prices are not cheap. Valuations are not cheap. The expectations on Silicon Valley companies are very, very high. So even though a company like Facebook is really starting to make a lot of money, investors might be a little disappointed. Aaron, you actually watched and listened Steps into the Twitter earnings report, on periscope of course. And in it, they were quite frank about the problems the company is facing. What's going on there? I mean, it's kind of interesting, for an interim CEO, Jack Dorsey, to come out and say, " We are very disappointed, this is unacceptable ," is kind of strong words for someone whose supposedly just in there temporarily. Of course some people do think that he might be campaigning for the The full time job but I think, And you still had the [ UNKNOWN ] He did still have a [ UNKNOWN ] which we could all see down periscope because it was done via video but I think the thing that's kind of [ UNKNOWN ] about Twitter is that now people are starting to talk about it like it's a turnaround company. I know, you mentioned this. Yeah. You mentioned that you wrote about it this week that they are using the T word. So is it that bad, and is a turnaround possible? Well the thing is, in the consumer web world it is very hard to turnaround any brand. MySpace is the perfect example. They've tried many different ways to bring that thing back to life. So, it's really faddish. And people are really eager to move on to the next shiny thing. If Twitter is viewed as something that is not cool anymore, or that is really struggling, that's a bad sign for the company, because they're just getting started. But, Bob, I mean. It feels unfair yet to put Twitter in the same sentence as MySpace, a famous Failure. This is Twitter. This is a site we all use. We communicate on it. News is released on it, right? Totally true. And actually I don't think they're doing that bad. They're still growing. That growth is flatlined. Internationally, they're picking up more people. Unfortunately, they're on the SMS version of Twitter and not the mobile app version, so they're not as easy to monetize But, I mean, it still has a lot of opportunity. Ad engagements are increasing, they're doing very well with advertising on the platform. That's actually the real problem, that people are focused on the user group, but their revenue is actually growing a lot. So that's something. So Facebook Erin, what's the most interesting thing we learned about Facebook this week based on earnings? Oh man. Well it was a pretty tame earnings. I mean Facebook has been really vague about how they're going to monetize a lot of their subsidiaries that they've acquired, and that's what investors are really starting to clamor for. People are asking How are you gonna make money on Instagram and how are you gonna make money on [ UNKNOWN ] and it's kind of said basically we're gonna take the same thing that we did with newsfeed which was like organic interactions with brands on the platform and bring that to all of our other things. So they'll elaborate on that a little bit we still you know it's It still early days. And Bob, we learned a little bit more about Facebook's drone project this week. Between that and artificial intelligence and virtual reality; these are projects that don't necessarily yield profit any time soon. So how can Facebook get away with continuing to make those investments? Not anytime soon but their entire purpose is now- they want to get everybody in the world online. If they can get everybody online And be the destination for users all across the world. They give away their services for free, then they can monetize those people. Right. They're just gonna make money off them. [ MUSIC ]

Is Twitter the next MySpace?

The company hasn’t been attracting users but its revenue is actually growing. What’s going on?