Can Twitter survive falling shares and flagging users?

as soon as we phoned buddies. next we began texting them. Now we send a fb message because they preferred our Instagram photograph so we checked in with them on Snapchat.

however whenever friendships evolve technologically, one medium loses out. increasingly more, symptoms factor to that medium being Twitter.

The business enterprise is one of the maximum uncommon social networks, and probable one of the geekiest. requested what Twitter was in 2011, co-founder and now CEO Jack Dorsey stated, “We don’t have an answer, and that’s ok”.

however with best modest boom — eleven in step with cent — and its inventory plunging fifty five consistent with cent over the past yr, letting customers decide what to make of Twitter may additionally not be an option.

The enterprise will display its modern day earnings subsequent Wednesday, and Dorsey is beneath increasing strain to show Twitter has room to grow.

increase may trade the fundamental enjoy for Twitter users, but, doubtlessly abolishing the one hundred forty-person restrict, letting Twitter curate rapid-passing posts on customers’ behalf, and handing over extra ads.

within the identical week Twitter opened its Australian headquarters in Sydney’s CBD, should the microblogging web page locate itself not trending?

based in 2007, Twitter shall we its users proportion updates a hundred and forty characters at a time. They can also percentage images, motion pictures, internet hyperlinks and, thru its very own carrier Periscope, live video streaming.

It’s a completely unique arrangement that has seen Twitter deliver breaking information from both conventional and surprising sources.

occasions like the Boston marathon bombing, the aircraft landing in new york’s Hudson river, and the Arab Spring have became Twitter right into a bastion of citizen journalism.

And, while not breaking news, Twitter is able to making conversations approximately the state-of-the-art tv shows an worldwide revel in, turning in exceptional get admission to to movie star beefs (thanks, Kanye West), and sharing anecdotes that can cross country wide (who can forestall thinking about the fish-and-chip bomb thrown into a train and observed with the aid of a flock of birds?).

Twitter’s uncommon mix of storytelling and as-it-occurs sharing has earned it 322 million lively customers, and passionate superstar advocates. There are symptoms, but, that may not be enough.

Instagram overtook Twitter in the numbers game closing year, with four hundred million users. Snapchat is reportedly snapping at its heels, WeChat and WhatsApp now have masses of thousands and thousands greater lively users, and fb’s consumer base, at 1.44 billion and developing, doesn’t look like slowing down.

Twitter’s largest trouble is one among engagement. users ought to installed tough yards to be social on this social community. You should amass followers, and an exciting following. You have to reply to strangers to get the communication flowing, and keep up with what they are saying as more than 6000 tweets a second float through the community.

a few new Twitter users honestly discover it too hard. Of Twitter’s user base, forty four per cent have never tweeted, according to Twopcharts, preferring to look at the conversations unfold.

more than 280 million humans signed as much as the social community in 2013, but by means of February 2014 handiest 12.nine in line with cent were nevertheless actively the usage of the carrier, in keeping with Statista.

To arrest this decline, Twitter is introducing new functions. In October, the identical month Dorsey became appointed permanent CEO, Twitter launched Moments within the u.s..

It shows curated tweets and trending information in a committed tab, coming across new content material on behalf of customers. Dorsey calls it, “a real shift in our wondering”.

Twitter additionally changed favourites to likes in a exceptionally controversial pass, delivered streaming video from Periscope into the Twitter feed, and is permitting more advertising in its timeline, including ads in its Moments function, films, and links to shop for goods within Twitter.

Twitter Australia dealing with director Karen stocks acknowledges the adjustments are designed to make it less complicated for new users however received’t attraction to all people.

“We want to make the platform as easy as possible for humans to locate the content material we think they’re most interested by,” she says.

“You’ve were given specific sorts of reports and users. You’ve got individuals who actually need to dive in and curate and manage what they see themselves, and also you’ve were given other folks who are available and say display me the quality of what’s occurring on Twitter.

“And with things like Periscope and Moments, we will honestly do that for human beings to get rid of lots of the friction for them and they could simply revel in all the first-rate content material at the platform.”

An Australian model of Moments, she says, could be introduced later this 12 months.

however the largest trade appears yet to come back. Dorsey has all but confirmed Twitter will carry its defining one hundred forty-individual restriction on tweets, probably starting public posts up to 10,000 characters.

The characteristic should paintings by using best displaying one hundred forty characters of a tweet, however allowing customers to click a link to amplify it and examine extra.

it'd permit information retailers to deliver greater than a glimpse of testimonies, political speeches to be published on the network in full, and Kanye West’s angry rants summed up in just one missive.

but this will fundamentally exchange the network at a time when some of its friends are struggling.

FriendsReunited will officially near this month, app-based network Peach was declared “useless” 4 days after release, and the ad-unfastened facebook alternative Ello is now populated via the few.

In its favour, Twitter has extra potential, an awful lot greater cash, and masses of speculation about multibillion-greenback customers.

Rumours this week pointed to a deal spearheaded by using prolific Twitter person and project capitalist Marc Andreessen, but different favourites consist of Google whose own social network went quiet, fb that has shown interest in buying Twitter earlier than, and information Corp, publisher of this newspaper.

it is able to now not want a benefactor, however. With assets and reserves of $US3.5 billion, it could operate for the following 412 years at its cutting-edge fee with out further investment.

but if its investments in new features fail to attract new users and preserve them, they may be lonely, quiet years.