The selection of Twitter customers didn’t develop in any respect within the ultimate Quarter Of 2015

Twitter printed startling information on Wednesday:For the fourth quarter of 2015, the social network’s total choice of month-to-month active users remained utterly flat, at 320 million. except SMS fast Followers, who get right of entry to Twitter completely by way of textual content message, the full selection of monthly lively customers actually declined, from 307 million to 305 million. In the united states, the collection of lively customers fell from 66 million to 65 million.

this is discouraging information for Twitter, which during the last 12 months has considered main management and product adjustments.

On the income front, Twitter stated a 48% increase in earnings yr-over-year for the fourth quarter of 2015, bringing it to a complete of $710 million. revenue from merchandising used to be $641 million, with knowledge licensing and other earnings totaling $70 million. After the company revealed its financial outcomes on Wednesday, its stock was once down 12%, but rebounded.

A letter to shareholders outlined five areas the company plans to center of attention on in 2016: persevered enhancements to the core product, including more algorithmically curated timelines; further investment in reside-streaming video, together with Periscope; better reinforce for creators and influential customers; a crackdown on on-line harassment and threats; and elevated funding in builders.

The Timeline

Dorsey stated he expected the up to date introduction of algorithmic timelines to boost consumer growth and engagement. in line with Twitter, the new timeline format (learn more about that right here) resulted in greater charges of tweeting, retweeting, direct messages, and replies all over testing. “It does enhance the expertise basically,” Dorsey mentioned.

‘broken home windows’

Acknowledging common complaints in regards to the platform, Dorsey mentioned the company’s product workforce is working to repair certain “damaged home windows” that make Twitter troublesome to make use of, together with how users tag and reply to each other. “we have some actually bizarre rules round conversations, replies and the .@name structure, that nobody understands. And we wish to restore those issues,” he said.

security

past this week, Twitter printed a brand new initiative, called the Twitter belief & security Council, aimed at combatting abuse and harassment on its platform. the company addressed this difficulty in its shareholder letter:

we can continue to invest extra instruments in making our platform safer. We stand for freedom of
expression, and other people should really feel secure in an effort to talk freely. on-line harassment and abuse is a tough
challenge. This yr we will put in force technology to help us detect the use of repeat abusive bills,
make it so much more effective to file a couple of abusive Tweets or money owed, and provides people more effective tools to
curate and keep watch over their experience on Twitter. nevertheless it’s not as regards to developing higher instruments and
expertise; we will be able to even be sensible and adaptive about our insurance policies in this space and invest in sooner
response times.

2016 increase

The shareholder letter emphasised the importance of the are living nature of Twitter, and in a name with buyers, Dorsey underscored that time. “listening to about and watching a live experience unfold on Twitter is probably the most highly effective strategy to be aware the worth of Twitter,” Dorsey said, noting that he expects the U.S. election and the Rio de Janeiro Olympics to power growth this 12 months.

management Reshuffling

seeing that Dorsey back as CEO ultimate 12 months, Twitter has considered various high-level departures—in late January, the top of media, head of product, head of Vine, senior VP of engineering, and VP of human tools all left the corporate. On Wednesday, Twitter announced some other exchange: Kayvon Beykpour, the CEO of Twitter-owned streaming app Periscope, has been delivered to Twitter’s executive team, an indication of the company’s dedication to making are living video imperative to its trade.