I hope she has an infinite supply of lipstick because this pig will need it :|
Just saying it doesn't make it true. Twitter has a long way to go to regain advertiser confidence, and Blue is barely a footnote.
There should have been a migration path from legacy to new verified, but instead they just unverified everyone (including obviously government accounts that under the new rule should retain a grey check).
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35920114.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.
None of the boo vs. yay wars that plague this topic are interesting; it's really just "I feel boo" and "I feel yay". We're trying for something else here.
Yeah, that pretty much sums up twitter under Musk.
You, and others like you want to paint Twitter as some huge failure because you dislike Musk, and that's fine, but in reality the biggest advertisers have come back and with her at the helm even more will.
First of all, if you want to see some real crazy racist stuff go on LinkedIn or Facebook. People there are even worse than Twitter.
All advertising companies took a hit, and Twitter is actually almost profitable at this point, so if she improves things it WILL be profitable. As soon as he can start paying down that 12 billion loan things will get even better.
I would bet advertisers like Apple got a huge sweetheart deal. The majority of advertising I see is (by volume), crappy "As Seen On TV" type products fronted by MANY different accounts (I can't block them fast enough), accounts promoting whatever thought leader angle they are working (also insta-blocked), and finally large brands that Twitter probably would like a lot more of.
Even if I take as granted the advertiser problem is solved, it seems like Twitter has still been hurt by much more than having a controversial CEO:
1. Musk took on significant debt in order to buy a company already slightly losing money. Because of this, it's not good enough for advertisers to just "come back", they need to greatly increase their ad spend on twitter.
2. Twitter's attempt to find an alternative revenue source (the significant changes to Twitter Blue) seem to have largely failed.
3. The disaster with verification is driving away some of Twitter's most important posters that generated content on the website for free.
4. Twitter's reputation as an employer has plummetted and they are presumably not attracting anywhere near the amount of talent they previously did.
2.First of all you don't really know the numbers, it's a guess at best.
3. They are getting bohemoth players who are going to be running shows on Twitter now. This is a huge deal and wasn't even possible on old Twitter.
4. People are desperate for jobs in tech right now. Besides they haven't been struggling to hire, they've been mostly laying off people.
As they run a profit they will pay that debt down (or refinance if rates go lower).
They are launching a lot of new stuff and the future looks way brighter
Who are these posters you are referring to?
References?
This is the closest thing I could find and it doesn't really back up your assertion: https://www.reuters.com/technology/twitters-advertising-busi...
How is your gut feel more relevant than the technical analysis quoted by reuters?
You literally said:
> Twitter is actually almost profitable at this point
Should that be taken at face value? The man has repeatedly lied through his teeth, exaggerated, and misled the public for reason ranging from making money selling stock, inflating a meme coin's valuation because the mascot is the same breed of dog that he owns, hyping tech fantasies, up to petty rivalry.
I know that every business leader lies and or stretches truth, but his reputation for outright deception on all levels, especially when it comes to his businesses, is fairly established.
About as much as the word of any billionaire. The issue is we’ll only ever have his word, since Twitter is private, and being honest about financials when poor is bad for business.
I’m willing to believe it’s closer to the truth than not, though. For one cutting out ~5,700 employees, or around ~75% of your work force, is a massive cost reduction. According to Payscale[0] the average salary at Twitter was ~$117,000/yr. A quick calculation shows that annually he shaves off $666.9M (which is hilarious). Alongside decommissioning unneeded offices and removing all the completely unnecessary and expensive time-wasters I can imagine he’s at least saved $1B or more annually.
[0] - https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Twitter/Salary
Problem is he’s also loaded Twitter with significant debt to take it private. Estimated interest payments alone total to over $1.2b annually - so… we are actually losing an additional $200m annually even after firing 75% of the staff.
So 2.5 billion in expenses. In 2021 Twitter had Revenue of 5 Billion. So obviously they have lost a lot of revenue, as Elon himself has admitted. But between the cuts they are close to breakeven.
Now with a new CEO who is much more advertiser friendly they are going to get a lot more advertisers back. She will be the new face of the company. Then, likely they will start paying down that debt. Each time they do their burden will be less.
Tesla is the most profitable car company per car. Musk isn't going to have a problem making Twitter profitable, though he put himself behind the 8 ball.
As they say, at least it’s not rocket science. Except in this case apparently running a social media site is actually more difficult than rocket science.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-03/twitter-s...
This is a great listen to see both the intellectual might and capricious irrationality of Musk's leadership:
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/797/what-i-was-thinking-as-...
The ‘new features’ are basically irrelevant and much of it has been chaos or failure. The fact is there’s not much in terms of basic feature churn that’s going to make Twitter much better.
Brand Trust is incredibly hard to build easy to lose and incredibly hard to rebuild.
Musk is a stain on Twitter there is no avoiding it. He could have accomplished faster feature dev without losing half of revenue and also could have done a better job rolling out verified and blue. In fact most CEOs probably could have done that.
It’s a pretty big fail he needs to replace himself and go do something else.
Then I saw what he did to twitter, the way he stirred everybody up creating chaos for reasons that were quite explicitly personal motivations.
I used to follow a few people and topics I care about. I now get a lot of unrelated stuff I don't care about. The system is tuned so I have to see the outrage even if I don't care about it.
This is either intentional or non intentional (a bug). In either case it's a mistake that Mr. Musk bears direct responsibility for.
Why? What happened? Was it COVID that drove him mad? That he had to close the factories and offices and whatnot? Was he already like that but I wasn't aware because I don't care about celebrities unless they literally appear in my timeline even if I unsubscribe and mute them?
Because of this, Twitter is ridiculously partisan on my feed. I’ve limited my consumption of it to very small subject matters and will likely jump ship totally to BlueSky with some Mastodon thrown in. I know a lot of people in science who have completely abandoned Twitter.
We may be seeing a quiet struggle set up where the views of the advertising execs are so far out of line with mainstream beliefs that it becomes a material issue. There are a few isolated instances right now, so there isn't much to write about, but I'm seeing a trend where previously callous companies are now being somewhat active in rejecting large market opportunities. That is an unusual development that I never expected.
Given what Musk revealed with the Twitter files, there is even a chance it is being coordinated through the government using this "misinformation" engine they're developing.
Here's an example: Carlson is calling for an invasion of Canada. Think advertisers with business there don't see a potential risk with advertising on his show? They're one grassroots movement away from having to vouch they'll stop advertising on his show. Better to steer clear anyway.
From public response, which is natural risk rooted in public boycott, or from partisan media and org pressure campaigns?
That is the risk instead from relentless MSM pressure, with a not so subtle ultimate threat of media incited mob violence should the media's wishes be ignored for too long?
You might have had a point if the nature of such comments were restricted to Right Wing pundits like Carlson.
The fact is that Left Wing partisans are often at least as extreme, with the difference being that their media orgs work to massage their extremist statements into acceptable discourse.
Discourse that even much of the the Left Wing public increasingly rejects, and yet corporations continue to advertise with these media orgs.
Strictly because there is no threat from the media orgs themselves. It has nothing whatsoever to do with risk of public boycott.
And as we are now witnessing, the only effective boycott that we've seen in decades comes from the Right. There is no evidence that the Left has the organization to widely boycott anything with effectiveness.
You absolutely cannot in any semblance of seriousness say anything remotely equivalent of MSM or left wing media. There's plenty to critique but it's marginal compared to right-wing media. And Elon has aligned himself squarely with the propagandists.
During Covid - a lot of the commentary on MSNBC and CNN were statements along the lines of "those who refuse to get vaccinated should lose their living and be under effective house arrest". Those were definitely not said in jest. They were dead serious. What is your gut feel on multi-national corporations advertising on those cable tv shows? Do you think they quit advertising on those shows in protest? Should they have?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/01/tucker-carlson-invad...
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2023/02/03/t...
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-calls-for-us-to-i...
> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
> https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/01/tucker-carlson-invad...
> https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2023/02/03/t...
> https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-calls-for-us-to-i...
If you watch the video, it's clearly said in rhetorical jest. Some media outlets don't seem to understand this concept, which is why their hysterics are not taken seriously by many people.
"We are spending all this money to liberate Ukraine from the Russians, why are we not we spending all this money to liberate Canada from Trudeau?"
laughter
"I'm just talking myself into a frenzy here"
That said I am surprised some execs don’t go for him as being in their brand zone.
In fact, I suggest a lot of Tucker fans believe that, and that's partly what's wrong with them.
That said, Tucker does represents a bigger chunk of America than his naysayers would like to admit.
Importantly - it's not fair to say he 'represents' anything. He lies and spins, and says whatever will get him clicks. The SMS releases during the Fox trial very clearly highlighted that they have completely different perspective on-camera than off, and that they are obsessed with both advertiser revenue and throwing red meat to their audience, willing to say things that are completely at odds with reality, and even their own conscience, in order to garner ratings, which has the negative effect of spreading disinformation or lies, such as for example that the 'election was rigged or stolen' - a falsehood which about 1/3 of Americans have come to believe because supposedly legitimate sources such as POTUS and 'News' have been completely corrupted, liked a 3rd world country.
Tucker has morphed into a cross between ranting right wing antagonist, Rush Limbaugh, and Alex Jones - taking the 'Hard Alt' position on basically every issue. The difference is that classical right wing were ultra nationalist, Tucker is Alt Nationalist.
One of the most interesting revelations is the extent to which he embraces the ultra antagonist perspective, even for the smallest inane things - he was doing it behind the scenes, in meetings, with interns, almost like he was practising his shtick.
Note that Tucker didn't used to be like this, and that if you watch Russia One channel right now the main propagandists are uttering some truly fascist stuff on a daily basis (aka 'We should nuke Berlin', or about some government guy 'we should have shot him' etc.) - but almost all of them, less than 20 years ago, would have been considered 'strong reformer liberals'. Even Medvedev was the same - big time liberal reformer - now he's the Tucker of Russia.
It's fake, it's a game.
Finally, they are all playing characters, even Musk, even Linda, it's a matter of the degree to which the character is legit.
Not at all. Until his firing, Tucker Carlson was the most popular pundit in the history of cable news and it wasn't close. Delusion, in fact, is denial of that reality.
>and that's partly what's wrong with them.
And what's the other part?
Instead, consider the possibility that something is wrong with you.
>Importantly - it's not fair to say he 'represents' anything.
Sure it is. You're abusing the words "important" and "fair".
>He lies and spins, and says whatever will get him clicks.
That's your opinion. A massive swath of America would disagree.
>The SMS releases during the Fox trial very clearly highlighted that they have completely different perspective on-camera than off, and that they are obsessed with both advertiser revenue and throwing red meat to their audience, willing to say things that are completely at odds with reality, and even their own conscience, in order to garner ratings,
It is childish to think that any pundit is expressing their unvarnished thoughts.
Second, many people would take issue with the abuse of conjecture in your conclusions.
>which has the negative effect of spreading disinformation or lies,
The Left has zero moral platform from which to lecture anyone about disinformation / lies.
>such as for example that the 'election was rigged or stolen' - a falsehood
Your particular willful(?) naivete incorrectly informs you that the opinion of Americans has to have anything to do with what pundits say.
The reality is that what pundits say or do not say neither has to be the cause nor invalidation of the beliefs of Americans.
Especially in the case of the 2020 election.
In 2020 Americans watched the Left agitate for eight months of election-terrorism riots prior to the election, which resulted in dozens of murders and countless ruined lives. I was personally frightened for the lives of myself and my family.
While Americans, at the same time, watched the Left and their media pull all of the stops, to include destroying peoples lives and "third world" threats, to mandate repressive COVID measures (while still inciting and giving permission to protests that were often truly terrifying riots).
All to the end of people being terrorized, as well as unprecedented election procedure changes that were coupled with widespread anomalies that were bound to be under heavy public scrutiny.
And you wish to blame a lack of credibility in 2020 election integrity on a cable news pundit?
You're out of your mind so as to be completely detached from reality.
Or you are so desperate to memory-hole what actually happened to the United States in 2020, because you understand that the blame lies with the faction whose candidate now sits in the White House, that you can only desperately blame pundits like Carlson and hope that your noise is enough to drown out the past.
Carslon who has only reiterated what a vast portion of Americans saw and thought in 2020.
Like many people who actually or who are otherwise self-forced to willfully misunderstand the nature of Western politics, you think that a pundit like Tucker Carlson is popular because he informs (with lies, in your opinion). And therefore that he is responsible for public opinion, mistaken or not.
This is not true, leaving aside whether or not Carlson is truthful or not.
A pundit like Tucker Carlson is popular because he articulates what a wide swath of the Nation largely already knows to be true.
Especially in the case of the 2020 election, which followed four years of war-footing level propaganda insanity from our institutions against a sitting POTUS.
Distrust in the 2020 election has zero to do with Tucker Carlson. Anyone who is honest understands that and would articulate it.
The widespread lack of trust in the basic method of democracy has everything to do with the fact that, for four years, the Left's very powerful institutions treated the 2016 election, and then the run-up to the 2020 election, like this is not a democracy.
And did so in a very visibly corrupt and eventually in a terroristic manner.
>taking the 'Hard Alt' position on basically every issue. The difference is that classical right wing were ultra nationalist, Tucker is Alt Nationalist.
You lack total perspective on what constitutes the "center", after decades of a media and government assisted successful Leftward march to the extremes. You have no credibility in articulating what constitutes "Alt Right" when the DNC and its media does not inhabit the center Left.
I agree that it's a fake game. The Greeks articulated as much. It isn't a coincidence that Greece is held to be both the origin of democracy and theater.
However, you have adopted the portion of the theatric script that you were supposed to reject in this grand test.
Objectively speaking...
Up until it was canceled, Tucker Carlson was the most watched cable show in U.S. history outside of sports.
Maybe not popular for me, you, your friends, or HN. But by any reasonable measure, he was very popular.
Or to put it more boring, mathematical terms, the mode is not the same as the median. Even if somehow one in three people were huge fans of Carlson, that would still count as relatively niche - and strongly controversial - because that would be the 1/3 most hard right of the US population.
This definition would make eating pizza itself a niche thing, topping or otherwise. 33% of the population is mainstream and it isn't an option to claim otherwise. Less popular? Yes. Fringe? No. Fringe is something like Linux on the desktop at sub-1% of the market. It is not feasible to ignore or marginalise 1 person in 3.
I'm certainly impressed by the position that the most popular show is the fringe one. In theory it is possible, but practically that is a hard sell.
So do you want to cut your customers who like pineapple pizza or your customers who don't like pineapple pizza?
Or... Maybe neither and sell to everyone?
He was one of the most popular cable, non-sports shows (his show and The Five, also on Fox News, swapped to the top spot back and forth recently), but cable-specific shows other than sports are (individually) niche.
If it turns out that Carlson's popularity is so tenuous that the truth of the antecedent in the argument is doubtful, that's great. But the argument is completely bogus regardless.
Radio personalities in 1950 used to get 50 million listeners nightly.
In the 1970's almost everyone watched 'Walter Cronkite'
And as 'old timey' as it seems, 'Network TV' is still much bigger than Cable.
He's the king of a very, very wide field and it's still a narrow audience, and a much more narrow core.
Throw in the negative public bits and the toxic behind the scenes bits and that leaves out a lot of brands.
I can't really see any major brand buying in - not really even a beer or a truck, because there are other parts of the product line they have to protect.
Cars, drugs, consumer apparel, electronics, gas, retail, energy, entertainment, internet/mobile ... seriously which brand is going to go with him? Probably not even Under Armour.
And by the way, in the US advertisers have incredibly influence, and the 'Pillow Guy' who was a major advertiser pulled Tucker into saying things he wouldn't have otherwise said in terms of coverage - which is a serious credibility problem.
I think Tucker is going to be the new Rush Limbaugh - big audience, nice paycheque, influential, but not really mainstream.
https://www.mediamatters.org/murdoch-family/fox-news-wants-m...
Television advertising is a bit less than half the size of internet advertising.
Remember that while democrats are a slight majority (most of the time—right now they’re a slight minority by self-identification) only half of democrats identify as liberal. My mom votes democrat because she’s an immigrant—on race, gender, policing, sexuality, etc. issues she’d be somewhat to the right of Carlson.
Except - Cable News audiences are small, and 25-54 Cable News audience is a tiny fraction of that already small audience, not very representative of much.
'TV' is a minority of viewership: Streaming is now bigger than TV.
'TV News' is a small segment of TV and is mostly a 50+ type of program.
'Cable News' is a small tranche of news, compared to local/broadcast.
'25-54 Cable News' is a small tranche of Cable News.
'Wheel of Fortune' gets considerably more viewers than Tucker - that show is 'mainstream' and is going to reel in advertisers for obvious reasons.
He'll carve out a 'Ruch Limbaugh' type audience on Twitter. In 2005 everyone knew who Rush was, that didn't make him mainstream or appealing to advertisers. I should note that I'm doubtful many even remotely controversial Cable TV personalities are big with advertisers.
Also, maybe notable, is that 'empathy and inclusion' is not going to be generally harmful to ad buyers whereas 'concern and judgement' probably are. I'm not saying one of those ethos has moral superiority, rather, one is just an easier thing to ride a message on.
Look at LinkedIn: it's all 'happy happy happy, you can do it, go for it, that person is amazing' - there's hardly any criticism.
The way to seek even ground is for corporations to stop responding to media pressure, and for the press to abandon that role once society rejects it for them. Until then, the pendulum is going to swing too heavily in both directions.
Meanwhile hell drive the company and she can be the face