back to article Profitless Twitter: We're looking to raise $1.5... yes, billion

Twitter is planning to raise up to $1.5bn in its first debt offering since the company went public in November last year. Twitter said that some of the cash from the debt offering would go towards paying for these hedge transactions and the rest would be used for very vague “general corporate purposes”. The microblogging …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wow

    Just wow. Yet to make a profit and they are asking for how much?! Sad thing is they will get it too no doubt... Problem with Twitter is everything is so disposable and relevant for a short space of time that I can't see how it can be converted into money... The amount of tweets I see on hashtags where people just ask questions it would've been quicker easier and made them look less foolish if they'd typed them in Google is staggering. Even with adverts I can't see how they can make this work as their whole business model is based around a short attention span of users

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wow

      their whole business model is based around a short attention span of users

      They have a business model?

      My view is that Twitter is doomed under current management. Micro-blogging is a great idea, pretty much everything else Twitter have done has been pretty dire. Their core offering could be so much better, and there are plenty of monetisation strategies that don't appear to be getting considered.

      Companies that never make a profit have a 100% probability of failure.

      1. AMBxx Silver badge

        Re: Wow

        The impressive part about Twitter it is scalability. Easy enough to knock together the application in a couple of days to server a few hundred users, but not for their user base.

        Not sure why you'd want to invest in the rest of it though.

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Wow

      Exactly the same statements were made about television - with the additional problem that TV was very expensive and would only ever be available to a small number of users.

      I wonder if anyone ever made any money out of that TV stuff ?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All aboard the bubble train

    Last one off pays the bills

  3. Hargrove

    The marketing challenge with selling novelty is that . . . well, it's got to be novel.

    If, as I suspect is the case of so many apps, they fall into the "who the f#@k needs it" box, demand and revenue can evaporate quickly. .

  4. breakfast Silver badge

    Still haven't figured it out

    I'm really not sure about the whole Twitter business model. I mean, how do they get from where they are now to where money comes to them from their user base, without alienating that user base who use the service on a daily basis.

    I like Twitter and I use it a whole lot, but I only use it for reading tweets, sending tweets and sometimes to join in conversations, which is basically what the service offers. I don't see how those things can be monetised unless they wanted to start charging me for them, which would probably lead to other free competitors who aren't yet on the "need to make a profit" part of the curve overtaking them.

  5. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
    Devil

    What do you mean?

    What do you mean we haven't managed to make money? We've sold shares. We're about to get lent $1 billion. We're making loadsamoney!

    Oh sorry, you meant profits? Oh carry on then. I'm just off on the corporate jet to my other office in Tahiti. Let me know when you need some really vital PR Pwnage, and I'll be right back at ya...

  6. wolfetone Silver badge

    I've built a website called Scriptio, it allows users to send short bits of scripts to the audience on the internet, all within 144 characters.

    I have no users yet, but this thing will be huge. All I'm asking for is $1.5 billion to get me going.

    Apply within.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I was in Shoreditch...

    At a hipster tech startup hub today, there was a 3D printer next to the coffee machine and everyone had a Mac...Twitter is not the worst bet in the universe...there are many, many more crap ideas dumbasses will sink their money into...most of them even have crap names too...

  8. psychonaut

    "vague corporate purposes"

    would this include buying companies that actually make a profit? then maybe they would make a profit.

    or they could buy companies like themselves that dont make a profit, and make more loss, then go back to market and raise more funds.

    who invests in this shit? i hope to fsm its not my pension fund

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "vague corporate purposes"

      "would this include buying companies that actually make a profit? then maybe they would make a profit."

      Most people would tell you that when a company that cannot make a profit buys a company that does, pretty soon there are two companies not making a profit. Because management skills are transferable downwards, but it is easier to transfer incompetence than competence, because there is more of it, and it is stickier.

  9. Caesarius
    Go

    Judging the value of content

    The internet has a very large quantity of worthless drivel, but enough interesting material to make it worth the effort of getting involved.

    Some parts have a high concentration of goodness, like The Register (1).

    Others have a low concentration of goodness, like Facebonk (just my prejudice?!).

    My impression is that Twitter is not significantly worse than the internet generally, but that isn't a very good reason to invest in it.

    (1) If El Reg doesn't pay me for this, then I'm deleting it. Mutter mutter mutter.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Senior debt"

    I like it. I assume it means that it's the first debt to be paid when the company goes pear shaped, assuming there are any assets. (Unless there's some super-senior debt...) Sounds good, doesn't it?

    It sounds to me as if some of the boys that did such a great job on flogging tranches of more or less dodgy mortgages to the people who invested your pension fund are now working their magic on flogging debt based on profitless companies. And that ended so well.

    Perhaps they should rename it Tulip. Or Bubble.

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. joed

    so goes your 401k

    but please continue to contribute ... to someone's fancy lifestyle

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