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Twitter Announces Sale of Company: Who Will Buy It?

September 25, 2016 By Amanda Blankenship 2 Comments

Social media site Twitter may finally be out of time. Many investors have been wary about Facebook’s stock because social media sites seem to be struggling to keep up with the latest-and-greatest apps. Although Facebook has been able to keep up, Twitter announced the sale of the company early last week.

The social media group is attempting to revamp growth and maintain independence (not be bought out by another social media). By the end of the week Google and cloud software company Salesforce were holding preliminary discussions about purchasing Twitter.

Twitter Announces Sale of Company

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, returned to the company 15 months ago to try and revamp the social media site. However, Dorsey has failed to come up with any new ideas to reach a wider audience.

In addition to not being able to generate any new ideas that will further the company, Twitter has also failed its advertisers. The company admitted after its last quarterly earnings that it was not providing enough value to its advertisers to justify its current pricing. “They are charging a premium but not delivering a premium,” says Jan Dawson, a tech analyst.

Jack Dorsey attempts to save Twitter

Dorsey has attempted to save his beloved social media site by changing what the company focuses on. There have been no changes made to Twitter’s core services, however, Dorsey has focused sharply on live video. Sites, like Facebook, have also introduced live video. Unless there is a large live event, however, Twitter has not seen any substantial growth from love video.

Because Dorsey has been unable to produce a quality plan to better the company and the site is no longer providing value to its advertisers Twitter’s shareholders decided to put the company up for sale. Google and Salesforce have begun preliminary discussions about buying the social media site. One question remains, however: Can anyone save Twitter?

Will Twitter Survive?

Of course this question has come up during early talks of buying and selling Twitter. It was inevitable. If the current management was unable to generate value for the company, who can?

Currently two companies, Salesforce and Google, have expressed interest in Twitter. The two potential buyers, however, plan to use the network in very different ways.

If Salesforce bought Twitter its main focus would be to expand the real-time information the social network can supply corporate marketers about millions of their consumers. Google’s interest in Twitter points in a different direction.

Google would be able to gain the most from the sale of the company immediately. Salesforce will have to wait a longer period of time before they see a return. Twitter would just be an add-on product for Google and data on the site’s 313 million active users would simply complement Google’s other products and services.

There is no guarantee that either party will purchase Twitter. The future of the social media site still remains uncertain. On Friday shares for the company surged when shareholders heard that the site was closer to being bought. Once the company has been acquired Twitter will likely see a fair amount of growth. The company closed the market Friday at 22.62.

Do you think Twitter will survive?

Photo: Esther Vargas

Reasons Kanye West Should Not Receive Help With His $53 Million Debt

February 16, 2016 By Amanda Blankenship 2 Comments

You may have been watching the Grammy’s last night and you may have even caught Kanye West’s call for help during the post-Grammy happenings. West, who is expecting his second child with Kim Kardashian, opened up about his debt and openly asked Mark Zuckerberg for a loan.

West sent out a tweet talking about his $53 million debt. Then, he tweeted at Mark Zuckerberg, asking him for $1 billion. He said that it would be an investment by Zuckerberg into “Kanye West ideas.”

Kanye, who has seemingly had a sense of entitlement in Hollywood for years, just straight out asked Mark Zuckerberg for $1 billion of his fortune that he has gained through his own invention, Facebook. There are a few reasons why Zuckerberg shouldn’t (and probably won’t) invest any money towards West.

You Shouldn’t Invest in an Individual

This is like putting all of your eggs in the same basket. When you’re talking investments, you should never put all of your money on one stock. The same goes for Zuckerberg and West. Single stocks (West) usually lure investors in with their game-changing ideas. Building any kind of portfolio on individuals (or individual stock) is way too costly, not to mention, if the individual fails so does your money.

What About Kim?

Kanye West himself has a net worth of $145 million. His wife, Kim Kardashian-West, is worth $88 million. How is he $53 million in debt? Not to mention the lavish lifestyle the live with the newest of clothes, their vacations and name brand everything. Of course, they have baby North West and child number two on the way, but their assets alone are worth far more than his seemingly puny $53 million debt.

He Tweeted Him

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of FACEBOOK, was tweeted being asked for money. There are a few things wrong with this (we’ll get to the actual tweets later). But, what a slap in the face! West didn’t even use Zuckerberg’s own website to give him a handout shoutout. What is that about?

The Tweets

His first tweet said, “I write this to you my brothers while still 53 million dollars in personal debt… Please pray we overcome… This is my true heart…” Then, he goes on to ask Zuckerberg for help. “Mark Zuckerberg invest 1 billion dollars into Kanye West ideas…after realizing he is the greatest living artist and greatest artist of all time.” Well, way to be humble and a jerk at the same time. How does someone ask for help and call himself the “greatest artist of all time” in the same conversation?

He Can’t Be In That Much Debt

When it boils down to it, West just probably isn’t in that much debt and if he was, he could pay it down if he really tried. He just released “The Life of Pablo,” his new album. There are no numbers on it yet, but West’s albums usually do pretty well. He’s also recently debuted another season in his fashion line. He also has a collaboration with Adidas that is worth about $10 million. Let’s not forget about his $20 million mansion either.

What do you think? Does West need a handout?

Photo: Flickr: Pieter-Jannick Dijkstra

Fastacash’s XOPO app will Allow Users to Transfer Funds via Social Media

November 17, 2015 By Amanda Blankenship 1 Comment

Social media has been used for sharing photos, following celebrities, keeping up with friends and even notifying everyone what you just ate for lunch. However, a financial technology start-up company is now saying that social media will also be able to be used to send money.

Fastacash

Fastacash, a Singapore-based company, believes that social media money transfers may be the key to making international money transfers faster and cheaper. The company, which is three years old, has launched a new app called XOPO. XOPO will allow its users to make payments via social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and WeChat. This will make it possible for people to transfer money across borders much faster and way cheaper than any app or service ever before.

The app will allow people to share money via more than one social network. “Everyone talks about the sharing economy but what people are not doing via these networks is sharing economics. They share videos and photos, but they are not sharing real economics such as money,” Vince Tallent, chairman and chief executive of Fastacash said.

“So we want to bring transaction capabilities to these communication networks. By making international transfers a social activity, not only are we disrupting how billions of dollars are moved across borders, for the first time people will be able to transact in the same way as they communicate, with no barriers and boundaries,” he said.

Currents apps allowing payment

Currently, Facebook allows peer-to-peer payments through Messenger. You may have seen the option to “send money” any time you mention a dollar sign in a message. Facebook’s payment service is free.

WeChat offers a payment option, but they charge a .01 percent fee for transfers over $3,141 a month between the app’s users.

Why XOPO is different

Although both of these apps have allowed transfers between users, XOPO will be the first app that allows its users to transfer funds across borders. Senders will simply need a debit card and a smart phone (or other smart device).

Once you’ve downloaded the app, it will allow you to transfer any amount of money through different social media channels that are connected to the device. XOPO will charge a flat fee of $4.52 for each transaction, no matter the size.

How do you receive the money?

Users will receive their money one of two ways. They can have the money directly put into their bank accounts or they can pick the money transfer up at Xpress Money. Xpress Money is a global money transfer service. The company has partnered with Fastacash to offer the new services through XOPO.

Is it secure?

“I use social media such as Facebook very often so the concept [sounds] convenient but I am not sure if I want to try because I am worried if my money can reach my family safely,” said J.M. Caspillo. Caspillo sends $425.31 a month home via a remittance center.

The question remaining is will XOPO be able to get rid of people’s fears and get them to start using this app? Fastacash believes so. It has partnered with some of the larger banks throughout the world to instill confidence in its future customers.

The app is not yet readily available in the United States, however, it is only a matter of time before it is. Currently, it has been being used since Oct. 28 in the United Kingdom where the app’s users have been able to send funds to India, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines. Chief executive Tallent said that it is “only a matter of time” before the technology will be seen in all parts of the world.

Twitter Plans to Monitor Your Mobile App Downloading Activity

November 27, 2014 By Julie Morse 3 Comments

Twitter plans to monitor mobile app downloads

Would you be willing to let Twitter know all the apps you download onto your mobile phone? Twitter recently disclosed its plan to monitor mobile app-downloading activity among its users. The social media company is trying to devise new marketing plans through collecting data on what other apps Twitter users are using. Twitter says their investigation will help them deliver strong and more “tailored content” to its users. That means they’ll be implementing adds, but also will be catering specific recommendations on who to follow based on relevant apps. While this all sounds a little creepy, Twitter says you have nothing to fear. The company doesn’t plan on monitoring your activity within these apps. It just wants to know what apps you’re downloading.

Twitter is certainly not the first social media outlet to collect outside data on users. Google and Facebook extrapolate data from its users in particular circumstances. For example, if a developer has integrated Facebook’s software, Facebook in turn might use the data to develop user experience information. However, Twitter’s new tactics are raising more privacy issues among users in comparison to how other social media networks track their users. Twitter’s data collection will start very soon. Users have the option to “opt out of interest-based ads,” or to turn on or off the “limit ad tracking” features. According to Twitter, if users decided to turn off either of these features, data will be wiped off of Twitter’s servers.

A recent Pew Research Center poll discovered that 80% of Americans who regularly use social media are worried about third parties and advertisers accessing personal data they share on these sites. By the same token, most users are willing to share a significant amount of personal information in exchange for using certain services for free.

Twitter has been using a variety of other methods to target ads at its users. These methods include knowing the users an individual follows, the specifics of their social network, how often they tweet, and how they participate in Twitter conversations. Ads are also curated based on the information in a person’s profile, their location, and their IP address.

Twitter believes aggregating people’s app-downloading activity will help them finely-tune their advertising strategies. Twitter has been struggling to increase its mobile revenue, and drawing data from users’ app-downloading activity is thought to give them information to better target ads dot their customers, and to successfully improve on their current mobile revenue.

(Photo courtesy of Karlis Dambrans)

TwitPic to Close Over Twitter Trademark Dispute

September 6, 2014 By Jeffrey Strain 5 Comments

TwitPic to close over trademark dispute with Twitter

TwitPic, once the dominant photo sharing resource for Twitter, is closing its doors on September 25, 2014, due to troubles with their trademark and Twitter. The announcement came on their blog and indicated they would put in place a system where users could download and save all the photos and videos they had uploaded to the service.

TwitPic founder Noah Everett says the closing is due demands from Twitter to cease its trademark application with a threat of losing access to Twitter’s API if they failed to do so. The Twitter API is the code which allows those using TwitPic to access their Twitter account to share the pictures and videos. If the API access were to be taken away, TwitPic wouldn’t be able to function.

Although Everett believes that TwitPic is in the right on the trademark dispute, the company simply doesn’t have the money to fight the issue through the court system. As he stated, “Unfortunately we do not have the resources to fend off a large company like Twitter to maintain our mark which we believe whole heartedly is rightfully ours. Therefore, we have decided to shut down TwitPic.”

TwitPic was one of the first sites which allowed users to share photos over Twitter, something which was in high demand over the social network in the early days. As Twitter grew, it added features including the ability to share photos within the main website. This move made TwitPic much less relevant and made it difficult for them to gain new users, but they still had a large number of users who remained.

Twitter, on its end, says they had no desire to put TwitPic out of business, only to protect their trademark. They indicated they were more than willing to let the service continue and keep their name as it had done so for many years without the trademark. As a spokesperson for Twitter said, “We’re sad to see TwitPic is shutting down. We encourage developers to build on top of the Twitter service, as TwitPic has done for years, and we made it clear that they could operate using the TwitPic name. Of course, we also have to protect our brand, and that includes trademarks tied to the brand.”

For those TwitPic users who don’t want to lose their photos and videos, they will need to download them back to their computer before the site closes for good on September 25.

(Photo courtesy of Rosaura Ochoa)

Unsatisfied Social Media Users Speak Out But Will Facebook Listen?

July 22, 2014 By Emma Harrison Clark Leave a Comment

Ask the question and most people will have an opinion on social media. The rise of Facebook and other networking platforms has changed the way we communicate forever, so it’s no surprise that we’re making ourselves vocal on the way they work.

Statistics show that in April this year, 1.28 billion people were using Facebook each month. A massive 757 million of these people are daily users, but a report this week from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) shows a large percentage of these daily users are more than unhappy with their experience.

Each year the ACSI reports on customer satisfaction across all industries, and the 2014 results for social media are not looking good. Companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and YouTube are rated at the bottom of the consumer satisfaction table when compared with other services, like airlines and Internet service providers.

When asked why they were so unsatisfied and frustrated, social media users said they were concerned about privacy, or were simply sick of all the advertising.

It’s worth noting that both Facebook and Twitter have recently made it possible for users to shop directly from their news-feeds, so online retailers have more access to consumer dollars. This may mean more advertising revenue for the social media giants, but it also means their audiences are being saturated with commercially driven posts and tweets. And if the ACSI report is correct, users are saying they don’t like it.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Despite the complaints, people are still using Facebook as much as we ever did and more and more people are looking for ways to boost your Instagram followers. In fact, a recent APAC report predicts another 4% in user numbers by 2015. But even if that subsides, there’s always another social media platform to fall back on.

In this case it’s Pinterest that’s reaching its stride, after steadily building in popularity for the last few years. Recent changes to the search functions have increased usability and Pinterest is now rating at the top of the social media satisfaction index.

But the biggest surprise of the ACSI report was the ranking of Google+. Once referred to as ‘the party with no people’ it may just be finding its second wind with a fourth place ranking.

Love them or hate them, social media platforms are here to stay. Whether you are looking at your followers in Instagram or likes on Facebook, social media is a huge part of everyday life. Their good users are becoming more vocal about what they want from these companies, but until user numbers start to significantly decline, social media companies are unlikely to make any changes to the increasingly commercial nature of their sites.

(Photo courtesy of Jay Cameron)