FLIPPING THE BIRD

Twitter, given up for dead, shows signs of life

Bruised by layoffs and a failed attempt to sell itself, Twitter finally delivered a glimmer of hope to Wall Street.

The struggling social network reported better-thanexpected quarterly sales and a narrower-than-expected loss as Chief Executive Jack Dorsey touted the newinitiatives that are attracting and keeping new users.

Those include the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to show users more relevant tweets faster and higher up in their Twitter “timelines” — a controversial move by Dorsey earlier this year to mimic Facebook’s “newsfeed.”

Dorsey likewise pledged that Twitter in the coming weeks will be unveiling “important steps to make Twitter safer for everyone” — a reference to cyberbullying that has dogged the site for years and scared away users.

“We’ve been making hundreds of small changes as quickly as we can,” Dorsey told analysts on a Thursday conference call. “We’re seeing more people wanting to use Twitter and use it more often.”

Dorsey, the 39-year-old Twitter co-founder and founding CEO— whoretook the reins of the company a year ago — has been blasted by critics for not moving quickly enough to jump-start the company’s stagnant user growth.

Most recently, that manifested itself in a chaotic attempt by Twitter to sell itself, in which Dorsey reportedly sparred with co-founder and board member Evan Williams over whether he should be given more time for his turnaround effort.

With prospective bidders like Walt Disney, Google and Salesforce reportedly taking a pass, Dorsey apparently won the duel by default.

“Our board is committed to maximizing long-term shareholder value,” Dorsey said on the call. “I don’t plan on commenting any further on this topic.”

Twitter said Thursday it will lay off 9 percent of its workforce, or about 350 jobs, mostly in its sales and marketing teams.

At the same time, however, Twitter said its monthly active users — or MAUs, a closely watched measure of performance — rose by 4 million, to 317 million, in the third quarter.

Daily active users grew even faster, at a 7 percent clip.

Execs said that it was changes to the way Twitter’s timeline functions — and not its recent initiatives to stream NFL games and the presidential debates — that are driving growth.

Shares rose 11 cents Friday, to $17.40.