Compilation/Youya
With a flick of your fingers, Twitter I am already 15 years old. Fifteen years ago, Twitter was also called "microblogging". Today, it is obviously inappropriate to call her "microblog". This year alone, Twitter has made a series of rare big moves, not only reviving itself, but also making its future path clearer.
On March 13, 2006, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter today, and his team members were working on a project called "Odeo", which is Twitter today. Eight days later (March 21), the world's first "Twitter message" was born: inviting colleagues.
For 15 years, Twitter has looked very similar. But now, the company is ready to go beyond the traditional "Twitter" business and make a series of changes, which may greatly change the way people interact on its platform.
No longer a microblog
In the past year, Twitter has significantly expanded the way users communicate. First, the "Fleets" timed content function was introduced to challenge Instagram and Snap chat。 This is a function similar to "Story", which will disappear after 24 hours. In addition, Twitter has added voice tweets and started to try Spaces, a real-time audio chat function similar to Clubhouse.
More changes are underway: Twitter recently acquired the newsletters company Revenue. This means that Twitter will break the character limit and enter the long content market.
In addition, Twitter is still developing new functions for groups. More importantly, it also launched a series of new tools for creators who want to make money on the platform. The core product is "Super Follow", which is a paid function that allows users to pay subscription fees in exchange for exclusive content or priority access to creators.
It is also surprising how quickly Twitter has launched these new ideas. Over the years, Twitter has rarely introduced new features, so that "expanding role restrictions" and "replacing stars with hearts" are considered to be huge changes.
Internal and external factors make Twitter faster
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, said at a recent event: "A few years ago, we might need six months to a year to provide a function or a new product to users." Now, 15 years later, Twitter is eager to change people's view of its slow innovation.
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter For many years, Twitter has been studying how to improve the underlying technology, which does not necessarily affect the company's growth. Dorsey said in his recent "analyst day" speech: "Over the years, we have been trying to get rid of some obvious shortcomings. This is largely technical, and some are not prioritized correctly. In most cases, we have to take a difficult road, give priority to fewer initiatives, and rebuild from scratch, which has never been easy. "
Of course, there are also some external factors: a year ago, Twitter faced a serious problem, that is, whether it can withstand the financial impact of COVID-19. An aggressive investor also tried to drive Dorsey out of Twitter, partly because the company lacked innovation.
Alex Lieberman, CEO and founder of Morning Brew, a business newsletter company that provides news alerts to users in the form of e-mail every day, said: "People generally believe that Twitter has not innovated in the past few years." However, Lieberman also pointed out that Twitter's recent move into the audio field (i.e. Spaces), as well as some new monetization (cash flow) functions released, showed a new aspect of the company.
Lieberman said, "It feels like, 'Is this still Twitter as we know it', because we have never seen Twitter have such a high level of innovation."
Huge liquidity potential
Scott Galloway, professor of New York University Business School, believes that Twitter has a high influence and has attracted a large number of wealthy users, but the proportion of user subscription revenue in the company's revenue is low. This means that Twitter has great liquidity potential.
Galloway is based on two indicators, namely, 1) the influence of the company and the number of wealthy users it attracts; 2) The proportion of subscription services in revenue divides technology companies into four types.
Among them, Apple The company is in a favorable position. The price of its products and services is high, which also attracts users to buy, whether for use experience or other reasons. Obviously, the profits of such companies are very high.
Spotify, AT&T and other companies are in a secondary advantageous position. Their profitability is also good, but they do not have a particularly obvious competitive advantage and cannot provide users with a unique experience, so they are often trapped in a price war.
And like Facebook Although companies like YouTube and Instagram can also make enough profits, they need to obtain a large amount of user data, which may cause some problems, such as privacy and false information.
Twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest They have done well in some aspects and attracted a large number of consumers. But so far, these companies have not turned them into paying users to a large extent.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Twitter's average mDAU (the number of realizable daily active users) was 192 million, compared with 152 million in the same period of last year and 187 million in the previous quarter. Twitter predicts that by the fourth quarter of 2023, mDAU will reach at least 315 million. Compared with 152 million mDAU in the fourth quarter of 2019, the CAGR is about 20%.
In other words, the money is already on the desktop, but Twitter and other companies have not taken it away. In short, these companies do not control the market they occupy. Of course, when enterprises are ready to charge users, it is not a simple matter to keep the status of being worth paying, just like skipping rope while learning English.
In fact, many users are willing to pay for a better use experience, such as free advertising, better content, better privacy protection, etc.
Three realization methods
At present, Twitter is directly building a variety of liquidity channels on its platform. Ilya Brown, vice president of Twitter products, said: "Today, the challenge we face is that although many creators advertise on Twitter, it means that they have established followers on Twitter and try to make people pay attention to these contents. But basically, their current practice must lead users out of the platform."
Brown said that although it is not clear how these functions (the realization function being developed by Twitter) will work, our goal is to let the most creative and influential users stay on the platform and interact with their followers.
Brown described three potential ways for Twitter users to make money on the platform: newsletters, exclusive content and tips.
1. Subscriptions and newsletters:
In January this year, Twitter announced the acquisition of the Dutch newsletter publishing company Revenue, aiming to expand its business scope and provide more functions for authors who publish works on Twitter. Twitter said at the time that it wanted to make it easier for authors to connect with their readers. Soon after, Twitter added a shortcut to Revenue.
In addition, Twitter plans to integrate newsletters more deeply. Brown said that Twitter can directly provide subscription content on its platform, rather than using Twitter to "solicit traffic" for newsletters. Currently, Twitter is using Revenue to integrate newsletters into its services.
Revenue's service allows people to manage the publication and subscription of newsletters. Twitter said it would cancel some service fees of Revenue to encourage more people to create newsletters. Instead, Twitter will take 5% of subscription revenue from Revenue.
Analysts said that part of the attraction of Revenue to Twitter is that it can help Twitter expand its business beyond advertising, and also provide some popular users on Twitter with a way to make money from fans.
2. Exclusive content:
This is where "Super Follow" can be used. But Brown said it was more subtle than just "paying for tweets". On the contrary, if you pay to become a "super follower", you will be able to access the content of the creator.
"There may be some exclusive content that people want to visit in advance or exclusively," Brown said. "Imagine that if you are a photographer, journalist or something like that, you want to publish content on Twitter and get paid for it."
The creator can also provide other benefits for "super followers", which may be tweets, audio spaces or direct messages that can only be seen by subscription. Kayvon Beykour, the product leader of Twitter, explained in his speech on "analyst day": "We really regard it as a layer of fabric, which can connect all the existing functions on Twitter with the new functions we may add in the future."
3. Tip:
Twitter didn't specify how Tipping would work. But Twitter has said it plans to "explore" this feature. Moreover, there are already signs that Twitter may be trying to integrate payment applications such as Venmo, Cash App or Zelle into its products, allowing users to tip creators directly.
Brown said that the built-in tip will be consistent with the way some users currently use Twitter. For example, we often see people post a "viral" emoticon or joke after a tweet and leave a link to their Cash App or Venmo. In the future, these applications may be directly integrated into Twitter's products to make it more seamless.
Brown said: "If users have something that can spread quickly, people will really like it. In this case, will you reward them with some form of tip or other ways? You are not forced to do this, but to see the content, and then say 'thank you'."
In addition, Twitter has recently confirmed that it is testing the "Twitter Undo" function. Analysts said that only paying users are expected to enjoy the function, although Twitter has not yet made this clear. In fact, as early as last July, Twitter began to investigate whether consumers were willing to pay for some special features, such as the "Cancel Sending" option.
Behind the scenes stories of new products
1、Twitter Spaces：
Recently, the voice chat application Clubhouse has become the favorite of social users, and Twitter Spaces is the direct competitor of Clubhouse. Spaces is currently in the testing stage. Twitter said in the middle of this month that it planned to launch the Spaces function to global users in April.
As for Spaces, Kayvon Beykour, Twitter's product leader, said that Twitter has developed the functions of Spaces for a long time, and its internal code is "Kaleidoscope".
Bekkur said that when Twitter decided to turn off the real-time short video service Periscope, some aspects of Periscope were worth preserving from the perspective of use cases. This is why Spaces is called the "kaleidoscope". It is like a prism, the future form of expression, and the embodiment of Periscope.
Bekkur acknowledged that the rapid popularity of Clubhouse has accelerated the development of Spaces. Bekkur said, "Everything the Clubhouse team has done is excellent. Every five years or so, someone will find some new use cases or mechanisms to change the way people communicate on the digital platform. Clubhouse is the pioneer of the form of audio dialogue. I think these things are not unique to a certain platform.
2、Super Follow：
Bekkur said that Super Follow is a feature that Twitter is developing and has not yet officially launched. It will allow creators, influential people, and anyone with a Twitter account to be subscribed to by a large number of their fans. Therefore, we can not only follow their tweets, but also "super follow" them to get their specific content.
Bekkur said that the development background of Super Follow is: over the years, people have established followers on Twitter, but they have to use other tools and services other than Twitter to get direct support from fans (paid subscriptions) and provide exclusive content to subscribers.
In contrast, the platforms of Patrion and OnlyFans have already supported such capabilities. Fundamentally, it is to help creators make money, establish a new relationship, and communicate with their fans "back and forth".
Bekkur said, "I think that creating such a mechanism within Twitter is a huge opportunity for both the founder and Twitter. If you have the ability to attract 'super followers', you can use Revenue to publish newsletters to fans, use Spaces to interact with subscribers, and support DM (private messages) limited to subscribers , and subscriber only tweets. "
3. Other functions:
On the "analyst day", Twitter also shared some other new functions under development, including
Micro community, security mode, Birdwatch, etc.
"Micro community" allows users to create, discover and join micro communities, such as user communities concerned with social justice. Bekkur said that Twitter will begin public testing of this feature later this year. This function is part of Twitter's efforts to make it easier for users to connect with their topics and interests to promote user growth.
"Safe Mode" will automatically detect when users start to receive negative interactions from others. According to the screenshots shown by Twitter, users can activate the security mode to limit the participation of accounts that abuse or send spam to them. Bekkur said, "Twitter cannot or should not be the censor of all conversations. Not only is it difficult to measure, but also in many cases, it is important for Twitter users to create and implement their own social norms and etiquette."
"Birdwatch" can combat the spread of false information on social networks with the help of users. Bekkur said: "Birdwatch is a highly extensible model similar to Wikipedia. An open community of contributors can collectively decide when to add a background introduction to Twitter and what the background introduction should say.
Expect future performance of Twitter
Through this series of products and services, Twitter predicts that the company's total revenue will at least double in 2023, from 3.7 billion dollars in 2020 to 7.5 billion dollars or more.
One thing seems certain: Twitter wants to reinvent itself. Jack Dorsey, CEO of the company, said, "Why don't we start with 'why people don't trust us'? This can be summed up in three criticisms: we act slowly, we don't have the spirit of innovation, and we are not trusted."
These new features will enhance the attractiveness of Twitter to users. As a result, more people will join Twitter, thus promoting user growth. At the same time, monetization is also a trend. Under the premise of slow user growth, paid services can not only attract creators, but also promote Twitter's profit growth.
Investors seem to be impressed with Twitter's new plans and goals. After the release of this series of news, Twitter's share price rose in response, and is expected to continue to grow in the future. This shows that Twitter may be able to successfully achieve its set goals, and its future performance is worth looking forward to.
