Twitter investors squawk as user growth, income disappoint again Twitter reported first-quarter revenue growth of 119 per cent over the year-ago period, but profitability continues to elude the microblogging network and it still isn't gaining new users as fast as investors would like. Revenues for three months ending on March 31 were $250.49m, more than double what they were for the same …
It is so much hassle to think of something so inane, uninteresting and downright boring to publish to the rest of the population in the hope that you'd find some empty headed yokel that might accidentally follow you and be interested in what you have to say.
The bottom line is that no one cares what you have to say, it's all about self interest.
It's easier to not tweet than to tweet. I prefer the simplicity of silence.
Wasn't there an article a few days ago showing that Twitter's figures for users are, shall we say, a little optimistic?
So, in fact there are probably less than 50 million users who are both real people and active in a way most of us would understand the word active.
"It's easier to not tweet than to tweet. I prefer the simplicity of silence."
Says the fellow who has posted enough on an even more obscure medium - The Register's comments section - to have attained Silver Badge status.
At least on Twitter I can keep up with my friends and other people across the industry. Things like vBeers are organized on Twitter. I get together with and socialise with Tweeple that are part of my local daily life and my professional life.
At the El Reg forums seem to get used for it bitching and elitism.
Now, I'm no better - I use the forums for bitching and elitism too - but at least I'm not out of touch enough to keep trotting our the old trope that Twitter is all about "self interest." Twitter is an instant messenger for conversations that don't need - or may benefit from not being - kept private. It's a shitty, badly designed, limited and terrible replacement for IRC.
What it isn't is a "microblog," no matter how much that may have been the original design, or how much some people want to think that label still applies.
There's plenty wrong with Twitter, but $deity man, please get plugged in enough to bitch about that actual problems with the service. Like that fact that it's predecessor (IRC) was far - far - better for the task than Twitter is today.
the holy grail of capitalism, one day everyone on the planet will have 4, 5 even 6 Twitter accounts! Come on, you can't expect indefinite growth. having a Twitter account isn't like selling someone a fridge with built in obsolescence, so after a few years they'll have to set up another one. Oh well...
"constant growth the holy grail of capitalism"
You are pretty much totally fucking off the mark.
"*Positive* growth" is the holy growth of humanity because it means that next year just might suck less than this one.
" Come on, you can't expect indefinite growth"
There sure is still lots of room.
Meanwhile, the Government-WallStreet mafia will try to make you believe as long as possibly that "growth" is an end in itself and that you better hurry and give them your votes and your increasingly worthless funny money lest you lose out on their next super-duper scheme of unadulterated goodness (which interestingly and increasingly often may include wars; no I don't get that either.)
...Meaningless GDP numbers which conveniently include everything that goes onto the national credit card (debt which we luckily "owe to ourselves", phew!) are analyzed and discussed ad infinitum.
..."Everyone shall have prizes" schemes like Obamacare, irrealistic promises for pensions and low, low retirement ages and wages in no relation to productivity are sold and put into law by master snake oil salesmen. Like we are really super rich and everything can be fixed by that final, small, additional tax increase. Which will only hit someone else, promise!
...Malinvestments are sustained and kept alive by money printing and bailouts. Keynesian Hail Marys are heard from the churchlike buildings of the central banks while the the futzed interest rate gives people the impression that "money is cheap now, so hurry".
...The rising stock market is touted as a sign of rude economic health as opposed to the consequence of the fact that all the money sloshing around does not go to productive enterprises that promote real growth (these are rare because establishing them needs time and quite a lot of the existing capital infrastructure has been dragooned into the production tree of warfare goods anyway) but into speculative venues kept alive by illusion of future profits.
This will result in enormous pain (and possibly a dictator or two) down the road but immediate riches to politicians, their cronies and assorted hanger-ons. Any problems then get lazily blamed on "capitalism" and taxfeeding ivory tower denizens like Picketty then get rich bestselling meaningless drivel.
The end of the road is now approaching fast and might well be there by the end of the year. Twitter is just another dying canary.
selling someone a fridge with built in obsolescence
Oh, the never-dying superfridge made of unobtanium which exists somewhere where people actually want to pay for it ... yet again. Carry on.
I just logged into it for the first time last weekend. Still haven't figured out quite what to use it for. It seems to me if there is anything relevant that I need to know, I can find it with a search engine. If it's newsworthy, it will show up in news. If I want to let someone know something, I send them an email.
I suppose it's useful for publicly shaming companies, so if I have some issue that needs attention, that may be one avenue to pursue.
Social network usage seems to be moving to mobile devices. I think utimately, this could be bad news for the likes of Facebook, Twitter, et al. Most people already have all of their contacts in their mobile device, so why would they need to add a social network layer on top of that? All they need is a simple way (a button or app) to send and share text messages, pictures, videos, etc. to one or more people in their address book.
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