Twitter’s growth remains flat as profit falls

San Francisco, July 27: This week brought a stark reminder of what can happen to internet businessesthatareovertakenby rivals:Yahoo,aniconicwebcompany that lost out to Facebook andGoogle,agreedtosellitscore internet operations to Verizon for a fraction of its peak value.

It’s a description that is also applicable to Twitter.

The social media company’s peers — Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger — are now the stars, growing rapidly and performing well. Snapchat, the disappearing photo start-up, is loved by the cool kids. And LinkedIn, the strait-laced socalled professional network, was part of an enormous deal when Microsoft agreed to buy it last month for $26.2 billion.

Not so for Twitter. For months, the San Franciscobased company has been grappling with worsening advertisinggrowthandanemicaudience growth. It risks losing out on top talent and deals to other bigger, stronger companies. NYT

JACK DORSEY