SO far this month, the man who will become the next president of the United States has turned to Twitter to announce his pick for secretary of state, declare Saturday Night Live "unwatchable" and to defend a phone call with Taiwan's president.
His tweets have sent Lockheed Martin's stock price plunging, dredged up conflicts with China and led to the harassment of labor leaders, reporters and others. Twitter, he has said, is "a modern-day form of communication" -- and he has 34,100 Tweets of his own to prove it.
"There is no doubt that Donald Trump has become Twitter's most powerful ambassador," said Youssef Squali, an analyst for Cantor Fitzgerald. "Who needs a press secretary when you've got Twitter?"
And yet, even with loads of publicity from one of the world's most powerful leaders, Twitter's stock is stuck in a months-long slump. In the 18 months since Trump announced his run for president, the company's share price has tumbled 45 percent. The company last quarter posted a $103 million loss.
"Even though Trump is all over Twitter, it's not really attracting new users," said Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Securities. "It's certainty attracting interest among existing users -- his follower count has gone from 7 million to 17 million in the last year -- but I doubt very many of those people are new users. Twitter hasn't done a very good job of exploiting that."
Instead, financial analysts say Twitter continues to deal with myriad internal issues that have alienated advertisers and made it all but impossible for the 10-year-old company to turn a profit.
Growth has stalled in recent quarters, both in terms of new users and revenue, and almost all of the company's senior management has left in the past two years.
In October, the San Francisco-based company announced it would be laying off 9 percent of its staff, or about 350 people, many of them in its sales department.
"Twitter is a mess," said Richard Kramer, an analyst at Arete, a London-based equity research firm. "It's not growing users. It's not growing sales. The fact that they put themselves up for sale but weren't bought says its value is expected to only decline."
Twitter did not respond to requests for comment. Last quarter, the company said it had 317 million monthly active users, a 3 percent increase from the year before. (Facebook, by comparison, reported 1.79 billion users, a 16 percent increase, during the same period.)
One of the biggest problems, Kramer said, is that Twitter has long had difficulty attracting advertisers because it knows so little about its users. Unlike Facebook and Google, which collect a plethora of data about users, Twitter doesn't require people to sign up using their real names and doesn't ask for information such as birth date, location or gender. On top of that, he says, Tweets are often laden with personal attacks and incendiary rhetoric -- not exactly something advertisers want to be associated with.
"What company wants to put up an ad saying 'Colgate gets your teeth whiter' next to a tweet that's full of inflammatory or abusive language?," Kramer said. "It's not brand-safe."
And yet, some say, Twitter's willingness to allow unfiltered, unedited content on its site is a large part of its appeal -- as Trump has demonstrated time and again.
'That lack of fact-checking is Twitter's greatest liability, but also its greatest asset," Squali said. "The fact that Trump is circumventing everybody -- the media, his staff -- and going straight to 20 million, 30 million users, that's very powerful."
"But," he added, "how do you get from there to financial success? That's the billion-dollar question."
The Washington Post
Fri Dec 16 2016
In October, the San Francisco-based company announced it would be laying off 9 percent of its staff, or about 350 people, many of them in its sales department. - Filepic
Kerajaan Persekutuan kaji cadangan wujud hospital di Pengerang - Azalina
Hospital tersebut akan memudahkan penduduk mendapatkan rawatan memandangkan Pengerang semakin pesat membangun.
AWANI Ringkas: Reformasi gaji di Malaysia
Ikuti rangkuman berita utama yang menjadi tumpuan sepanjang hari di Astro AWANI menerusi AWANI Ringkas.
Piala Thomas: Lee Zii Jia beri mata pertama buat Malaysia!
Kemenangan straight set benarkan Malaysia raih mata pertama dalam aksi peringkat kumpulan saingan Piala Thomas berdepan Hong Kong.
AWANI Pagi: Filem Oppa semai mesej PDRM banteras jenayah scam
Ikuti diskusi bersama Pengarah Jabatan Siasatan Jenayah Komersial (JSJK) Bukit Aman, Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf akan berkongsi mesej disemai PDRM dalam membanteras jenayah scam yang berleluasa ketika ini.
Pusat penamaan calon PRK Kuala Kubu Baharu dibuka
Pusat penamaan calon bagi PRK DUN Kuala Kubu Baharu (KKB) di Dewan Serbaguna dan Kompleks Sukan Daerah Hulu Selangor dibuka pada jam 9 pagi ini.
EPL: "Ada sesiapa jangka kami bakal muncul juara?"
Klopp belum sedia nilai musim terakhir bersama Liverpool.
AWANI Pagi: Break the Siege - Pelayaran ditangguhkan, apa seterusnya?
Misi Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, yang sepatutnya memulakan pelayaran minggu lalu, akhirnya ditangguhkan atas pelbagai faktor. Wartawan kami di Istanbul, Syaff Syukri akan kongsi perancangan seterusnya misi ini.
Polis tahan lelaki bersama pil Yaba bernilai lebih RM12,000
Polis menahan seorang lelaki bersama 823 biji pil yaba bernilai lebih RM12,000 di sebuah bangsal kereta di Rantau Panjang.
PM Anwar ke Riyadh sempena Mesyuarat Khas Forum Ekonomi Sedunia
Mesyuarat Khas bertemakan "Global Collaboration, Growth and Energy Development" akan dihadiri oleh Ketua-ketua Negara dan Kerajaan serta pemimpin industri.
Proses penamaan calon berlangsung 9 pagi ini
Pilihan Raya Kecil (PRK) Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) Kuala Kubu Baharu (KKB) membuka tirai hari ini dengan bermulanya proses penamaan calon di Dewan Serbaguna Dan Kompleks Sukan Daerah Hulu Selangor.