Twitter should be focusing on its capabilities as a unique messaging platform, not trying to wring ad revenue from its 284 million users, according to a Tweetstorm last weekend by Fab and Hem CEO Jason Goldberg.
In a 44-tweet series, Twitter shareholder Goldberg said Twitter has lost its way, and tweetstorms are a symptom of its problems. “There should be awesome long form publishing tools for TWTR, and TWTR doesn’t need to build them,” Goldberg wrote. “But, no one builds apps for TWTR anymore. People and companies just tweet.”
Everything from new media startups to “The Interview” to the hit podcast “Serial” should be created, seen and heard on Twitter, he added.
Goldberg’s advice comes as Twitter finds itself without a clear path forward. The company’s stock is down 47 percent from this time last year, after launching its IPO in November 2013. Twitter also lost nearly a billion dollars between October 2013 and September 2014, Re/Code reported.
Goldberg has seen his own problems in nailing down a business model, first pivoting from a failing gay dating site called Fabulis to online flash-sales site Fab.com (worth $200 million), then again to omnichannel home-decor retailer Hem.
What should Twitter do? It should be “investing hundreds of millions to enable the first waves of TWTR apps to focus on scale before revenue” — and to prime the pump so venture capitalists will invest in new Twitter-app startups, Goldberg wrote. Or it should “latch onto a partner who is willing to support…a 10 year story (and take a near-term beating to kickstart it).”
His ultimate recommendation? Sell to Google, and become the next YouTube.
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