back to article October proves to be the cruellest month for Twitter staff as 350 more laid off

Twitter today confirmed recent press reports that it is reducing headcount by 9 per cent – about 350 people – in an attempt to become profitable in 2017. The company generated $616m in revenues in Q3 2016 yet still managed to chalk up $515m in costs and an operating loss of $78m. So what exactly does the company that no one …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    stop texting me

    maybe if you stopped sending me txt messages saying somebody has tweeted something every day you'd save a few pennies, Twitter

    1. BillG
      WTF?

      Re: stop texting me

      Twitter has two big revenue streams – ads, which pulled in $545m in the last quarter, and data licensing and other revenue

      "data licensing and other" = "selling people's personal information"?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    #you're sacked

  3. BoldMan

    "traffic acquisition" so they are buying traffic? Must be truly desperate if they need to do that!

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      All advertisers spend money trying get attention including advertising on other services. Probably have to spend even more if journalists get bored of copy pasting and thus providing free advertising. Then there's the not inconsiderable sum they've spunked on broadcast rights for sports. Was there any news of whether this was effective or not? Love to see them taking a bath on this as well.

      #sooneratherthanlater

  4. Old Timer

    The question is...

    What do the remaining 3200 odd people actually do?

    Advertising sales I get, some technical resource and a bit of admin. That's say 100 people?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The question is...

      I'm sure a complete job title list for the company would make for amusing reading.

    2. Warm Braw

      Re: The question is...

      Even with all those people, my initial thought was that with revenue of over $200k per employee they ought to be rolling in it. But, I suppose, if you choose to provide a desk for each of them in places like San Francisco, New York, London, Paris and Tokyo your overheads must be pretty high.

      Maybe they need to get rid of people and relocate to Middlesbrough. Or just relocate to Middlesbrough and benefit from the natural wasteland wastage.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The question is...

      Well.. they have mobile apps, massive databases, server/network infrastructure... say 200 slackers?

      And another 3000 to wield the banhammer for Twitter's core userbase: butthurt social justice wankers.

  5. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Alert

    A bit of Fry & Laurie on Twitter

    Official British National Treasure and Voice-Over Artist, Stephen Fry:

    "Oh goodness, what fun twitter was in the early days, a secret bathing-pool in a magical glade in an enchanted forest."

    http://www.stephenfry.com/2016/02/peedinthepool/

    https://twitter.com/stephenfry

    Actor Hugh Laurie:

    "I don't understand the purpose of it"

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/27/house_twitter/

    https://twitter.com/hughlaurie

  6. Ashley_Pomeroy

    And inevitably the top breaking news story on news.bbc.co.uk is the discontinuation of Vine. If Twitter goes under, how will the media pad out stories?

  7. Michael Sanders

    Sometimes you get what you wish for.

    Now if only it would die. I have always hated twitter. I can't stand it when some one says, "hash tag", and then adds something they think is funny. I never have until now. #goodriddance

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Sometimes you get what you wish for.

      "I can't stand it when some one says, "hash tag", and then adds something they think is funny."

      it's funnier when you read it as 'pound' like

      #sandupyourass

      or

      #myheadonthewall

  8. ForthIsNotDead

    What's it for?

    I don't understand it. I must be too old.

    I did register. Downloaded the official Twitter app to my phone. Couldn't work out the user interface at all. If a UI requires puzzle solving then it's shit.

    #fail

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What's it for?

      It really doesn't. Both Twatter and What?App could easily be replaced by an IRC client that always connects to a certain domain. But, how would you make BILLIONS with that?!?!?!

      1. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Devil

        Re: What's it for?

        "Both Twatter and What?App could easily be replaced by an IRC client that always connects to a certain domain."

        EFNet is still pretty busy these days. lots of 'lurking' in the channels I'm in, however...

        then there's USENET which has NO moderators. visit alt.hacker for some fun, as well as alt.os.linux.ubuntu and a few other linux-related newsgroups.

        Yeah, WHO needs Tw[i,a]tter??

  9. Securitymoose

    And what is it really for???

    ...Absolutely nothing. There is no curation in the data. You either get every single comment from everyone you follow, or none of them. I have a couple of hundred followers. I tweet, offering free books, money or gold bars, and maybe get two replies. Waste of time. Free prediction... Twitter is finished: a last millennium thing.

    1. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: And what is it really for???

      /me thinks, irresponsibly...

      Tw[a,i]tter. HUH! What is is GOOD for? Absolutely nothing y'all...

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