Elon Musk temporarily halts Twitter deal over user metrics

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 28
    Fred257Fred257 Posts: 236member
    Who cares 😂
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 22 of 28
    9secondkox29secondkox2 Posts: 2,664member
    Marvin said:
    Beats said:
    I thought he owned it already. Saw a few “Elon Musk buys Twitter” headlines. 
    It takes time to close deals of this size, the Twitter CEO said 3-6 months:

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10751017/Elon-Musk-seize-Twitter-TODAY-talks-reach-final-stages.html

    "[The CEO] told employees that their stock options would convert to cash when the deal with Musk closes, which he estimated would take three to six months."

    The deal was agreed though so backing out would be costly ($1b, maybe more) and may not be allowed.

    Twitter's earnings are here:

    https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001418091/947c0c34-ca90-4099-b328-a6062adf110f.pdf

    Revenue in 2021 was $5b (90% from ads) net loss $221m, partly due to a big litigation cost. Revenue, monthly actives and assets look healthy enough to be profitable. $44b is a high price to pay for it though.

    Given that Twitter makes so much from ads, maybe they purposely don't tackle bots as they will help generate ad impressions. Potentially at a higher rate than normal users if they open more pages. Everybody starts with good intentions until they cause a heavy impact to revenue. Conflict, self-affirming misinformation, abuse and bots all drive views/engagement, which provides revenue for ad-supported sites.
    Good point. that’s dishonest gain. Better to do it right and forgo what appears to be a good thing financially. Do it right, secure the foundations and you’ll be rewarded. In a world fullbof get rich quick schemes followed by disaster, that’s one big reason apple is so successful today. Trust was built over the long haul. Apple did it honestly and through hard work over the years. 

    This is a problem cause by current/previous Twitter leadership and needs to be rectified. Someone offers to swoop in and salvage the thing while paying way over price, and these bums won’t even paint the walls. 
    edited May 2022 watto_cobra
  • Reply 23 of 28
    stevenozstevenoz Posts: 314member
    I think once Elon finalizes the Twitter buy... and starts inundating users with money-making ads... many-who-twit, plus those who don't trust private ownership, will leave. 

    People who love to have others look at their thoughts will find another venue. If Twitter doesn't do it for them, someone else will. [But don't go to Donald, please...]

    It's the way of the world.


    edited May 2022
  • Reply 24 of 28
    h2ph2p Posts: 329member
    Revenue in 2021 was $5b (90% from ads) net loss $221m, partly due to a big litigation cost. Revenue, monthly actives and assets look healthy enough to be profitable. $44b is a high price to pay for it though.
    Honest question: Does it really cost $5,221,000,000 a year to run a micro blogging site? (The big litigation costs are $809.5 million class action settlement in Sept 2021, which I assume is a one time expenditure – 16.2% of revenue. That qualifies for big.)


    edited May 2022 watto_cobra
  • Reply 25 of 28
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    h2p said:
    Revenue in 2021 was $5b (90% from ads) net loss $221m, partly due to a big litigation cost. Revenue, monthly actives and assets look healthy enough to be profitable. $44b is a high price to pay for it though.
    Honest question: Does it really cost $5,221,000,000 a year to run a micro blogging site? (The big litigation costs are $809.5 million class action settlement in Sept 2021, which I assume is a one time expenditure – 16.2% of revenue. That qualifies for big.)
    They break down the costs in their earnings. For 2021, they had $1.7b for data centers, $1.2b for R&D, $1.1b for Sales and Marketing, $0.5b for General and Admin. That's about $4.5b.

    The latter 3 segments they say are mainly staff costs of 7500 people. If we assume 80% of the costs are for people and the rest for offices, trade shows etc, this is $2.24b / 7500 = $300k average salary. Averages recorded to salary sites look like they are about half this but they likely don't take into consideration stock-based compensation, pension contributions, healthcare allowances etc:

    https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Twitter-Salaries-E100569.htm
    https://www.comparably.com/companies/twitter/salaries
    https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Twitter/salaries

    If they can maintain current revenue levels and the same or lower ongoing costs, they can make a decent profit. It could also grow significantly if they can target a similar volume of users Facebook does. Facebook has around 2 billion daily active users, Twitter has under 300m. Facebook has a report about what people look at:

    https://transparency.fb.com/data/widely-viewed-content-report/#what-people-see

    It's a bit more personal than Twitter. Twitter seems more like it's for arguing with people and Facebook for sharing. For Twitter to grow to the size of Facebook it would have to offer a similar role and they can still be separate so one account for arguing and one account for sharing/connecting.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/204211/worldwide-twitter-revenue/
    https://www.statista.com/statistics/268604/annual-revenue-of-facebook/

    Twitter's revenue is around where Facebook was in 2012 and they scaled up to $117b from $5b in 9 years. Twitter's growth is much slower but if they can replicate some of the key parts of Facebook's appeal, they could grow a lot. They can also replicate a lot of the appeal of reddit ( https://www.reddit.com/top/ ) if they had channels. These can just be tags but official ones and persistent that can be browsed by this tag. Twitter treats everything like a comment but there should also be an article/comment format like on forums:

    https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/twitter-might-launch-a-long-form-format-so-users-can-write-articles/
    muthuk_vanalingamh2psphericwatto_cobra
  • Reply 26 of 28
    h2ph2p Posts: 329member
    Marvin said:
    h2p said:
    They break down the costs in their earnings. For 2021, they had $1.7b for data centers, $1.2b for R&D, $1.1b for Sales and Marketing, $0.5b for General and Admin. That's about $4.5b...

    The latter 3 segments they say are mainly staff costs of 7500 people. If we assume 80% of the costs are for people and the rest for offices, trade shows etc, this is $2.24b / 7500 = $300k average salary. Averages recorded to salary sites look like they are about half this but they likely don't take into consideration stock-based compensation, pension contributions, healthcare allowances etc...

    It's a bit more personal than Twitter. Twitter seems more like it's for arguing with people and Facebook for sharing... They can also replicate a lot of the appeal of reddit ( https://www.reddit.com/top/ ) if they had channels. These can just be tags but official ones and persistent that can be browsed by this tag. Twitter treats everything like a comment but there should also be an article/comment format like on forums.
    Thank you so much, Marvin for the details and the analysis of what Twitter could emulate to grow. I was thinking so much more simply as a free tier - current look - with the paid tier having all of the extras, editing and channel tabs, you've mentioned. Plus product X once it's available. Thanks again for the links.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 27 of 28
    tobiantobian Posts: 148member
    Any opinion opposite to mainstream narrative is going to be considered as paid trolling or bot work anyway, so what is to purge here?

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 28 of 28
    jcs2305jcs2305 Posts: 1,336member
    Smart man. No one wants to purchase problems. Have the current leaders fix it before purchase. 

    Same as buying a house or car. 

    Spam accounts are a huge problem that need resolution ASAP. 

    God, the mystique.  I can't even.

    He knew about it.  Everyone knew the numbers.  The public knew the numbers.  People who read THIS site knew the numbers.  He's using it as an excuse.  He's testing to see exactly how criminal he can be and still not suffer any consequences.
    Yes the numbers were given at the annual earnings report so everyone who wanted to know, knows. It wasn't a question of having the info, but was/is it correct..

    "In making this determination, we applied significant judgment," said the report, "so our estimation of false or spam accounts may not accurately represent the actual number of such accounts, and the actual number of false or spam accounts could be higher than we have estimated."

    This quote doesn't exactly represent itself as the picture of accuracy and honesty? B)


    For the record I am not a Musk fan..just stating what I read here on AI...

    edited May 2022 watto_cobra
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