Friday, July 24, 2020

Bye Bye Birdie: "After Ad Revenue Drops 19%, Twitter Confirms It Is Looking At A Subscription Model" (TWTR)

From SocialMediaToday:

Twitter Adds More Users in Q2, but Sees Revenue Decline 19%
Twitter has released its latest performance update, showing a significant increase in users in Q2, along with a largely anticipated reduction in ad spend. Twitter's lower revenue results, given the pandemic, are largely in line with expectation, but the growth in users should better place the company moving forward.

Here are the key highlights.
First off, as noted, Twitter's average monetizable daily active user (mDAU) count grew 34% year over year to 186 million in the quarter, with more people turning to the platform to stay up to date with the latest news.
Twitter mDAU Q2 2020
Twitter's real-time stream has proved to be a key connector amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as through events like the #BlackLivesMatter protests around the world. As you can see in these charts, Twitter has seen ongoing usage growth in 2020, with its international usage rising significantly - growing by 29 million from Q4 '19 (compared to +5 million in the US)....
....MUCH MORE
....There is also this note in Twitter's report:
"We are in the early stages of exploring additional potential revenue product opportunities to complement our advertising business. These may include subscriptions and other approaches."

Speculation about a possible subscription element for tweets came to light earlier this month after Twitter posted a job ad for a role working on a new 'subscription platform', codenamed 'Gryphon'. Twitter removed references to the project from the job ad, but by then it was too late, with every tech pundit taking a guess at what Twitter might be building.....
If interested see also:
BBC Head of Standards: Our "Journalists" Have Become Addicted to Twitter, a "Toxic" Site Which Is Exacerbating Preexisting Psychopathologies
I may have hallucinated part of the Daily Mail headline. Let's try it again:
BBC journalists are becoming addicted to 'toxic' Twitter, bosses say as corporation launches review into social media use amid fears it is undermining impartiality rules