More changes await Twitter users as service tries to grow

NEW YORK Twitter users are bound to see changes as the beleaguered service favoured by journalists, celebrities, politicians and cranks tries to broaden its appeal and attract advertisers.

That’s whether it gets a new owner or not.

On Thursday, Twitter announced one immediate change: It’s shutting down its once-pioneering video-sharing app Vine, which has been eclipsed by the likes of Snapchat and Instagram.

What else might be in the works? For now, think tons of small tweaks rather than a 180-degree turn. In a conference call discussing the San Francisco-company’s quarterly earnings, an analyst asked CEO Jack Dorsey if there were any plans for big, revolutionary product changes.

“We’ve been making hundreds of small changes as quickly as we can,” Dorsey’s responded, adding that users are showing that the “changes are working.”

For now, it’s looking like Twitter will stay an independent company, despite months of rumours to the contrary. But a new owner could still swoop in, and depending on who it is, could clean up Twitter and curb some of the nastiness that’s become synonymous with it. Or perhaps a new owner would just show more ads. Or let it languish while it mines the best of what Twitter now has into its existing products and services.

All of this is speculation, of course, and there might not even be a new owner. Twitter’s stock has plunged after rumoured bidders are, well, rumoured to be no longer interested. On Thursday, the company announced that it would cut 9 per cent of its workforce globally as its revenue growth slowed.

While its adjusted earnings beat Wall Street expectations, it reported a loss of almost $103 million before one-time charges and costs are removed.

A new parent — whether that’s Google (huh?), Salesforce (who?) or Disney (hmm...) — could inject fresh life into a 10-year-old company that’s never turned a profit and remains confounding to many people. Of course, none of these potential suitors have acknowledged interest in Twitter, let alone their plans for it. Even if Twitter stays independent, drastic changes to its service might just be what Twitter needs to be competitive with Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

How might it change?

TWITTER BECOMES MORE LIKE ITS NEW OWNER, IF THERE IS ONE

Facebook’s absorption of Instagram and WhatsApp in recent years could offer clues. Both services have kept separate identities, to an extent, and have experienced user growth. But slowly, they are acquiring Facebooklike features. For example, Instagram no longer presents feeds chronologically; they are now sorted much like Facebook’s news feed, using some secret formula known only to Facebook.

Though the change has turned off some early Instagram users, its user base has soared, to 500 million as of June. That’s nearly 200 million more than Twitter, even though Instagram is three years younger. As Instagram gets more users and a mainstream appeal, its content has diluted somewhat. But many of the street photographers, graffiti artists and tween mini-celebrities who made Instagram what it is are still there — maybe just harder to find.

STAYS THE SAME BUT WITH MORE ADS

Twitter has never turned a profit, and whoever buys it will need to fix this. That means boosting the user base, so advertisers would follow. That also could mean better targeting, so that ad rates go up.

Google, anyone? The search giant is the leader in online ads. Imagine what its might and muscle could do to Twitter’s ad business. YouTube hardly had any ads when Google bought it; now, ads are so prevalent that YouTube is able to charge $10 a month for an adfree version called Red.

Instagram has also inserted ads into users’ feeds of perfectly composed snapshots featuring everything from cappuccino foam to seafoam. It started out slowly with a carefully curated ad here and there, but today you’re not likely to avoid ads when opening the app.

THE LITTLE BIRD FALLS OUT OF THE NEST

Remember MySpace? It was — the — social network before Facebook came along. News Corp., the stodgy media conglomerate, bought it for $580 million in 2005. But users started falling off as MySpace failed to keep up with Facebook’s speedy innovations. After layoffs and failed relaunches, News Corp. sold the fallen giant for $35 million in 2011, and that was just about the end of it.

It’s not unthinkable that Twitter could suffer the same fate under a big media company.