(The Big Disrupt) Twitter: How Twitter unlocks the multi-billion dollar business it's sitting on

With the recent announcement of Twitter finally adding features such as super tweets and newsletters into their platform, our first reaction was “about time” then our second reaction was “this won’t work”.  As any long-term user or investor would tell you, Twitter is a great platform but it has been poorly run for a long time (that’s what happens when you let your CEO start a side hustle that’s larger and better managed than yours) and has only now made a serious attempt to monetize its platform and they’ve got already it wrong and it’s infuriating. 

One of best ways you know a great TV show will fall on its face is when the geniuses writing it don’t know their own show or what makes it valuable. Case in point, many were disappointed by the Game of Thrones terrible ending but for us, the writing was on the wall when it became clear, from at least season 4 onwards, the showrunners had no idea about the show they were writing. Jack Dorsey is smart and talented but we get the similar vibe about Twitter as its leadership seems aloof to what makes the platform valuable (SPOILER ALERT: it’s not tweets, we don’t care how much Dorsey’s first tweet went for). 

£2.5 million for this? Never has "who" mattered more than

"what" in the history of business

That aloofness has subjected Twitter to serious pressure from investors and competitors to establish a recurring revenue relationship with its users and to its credit has taken steps to with a new ecommerce feature which include newer formats and buy buttons and a new “super follows” feature that allows users to charge for content which is all well and good but Twitter are approaching its new changes wrongheaded as nobody values tweets, even good ones. 

There’s a number of reasons why these changes are unlikely to work but the number one reason why they won’t work is because they’re trying to move down the funnel (not the worst move. That would be entering the streaming wars with a pee shooter) instead of moving upstream. Twitter is highly aware that advertising is crappy business unless you’re Facebook or Google but it’s missing a trick by making changes to its format instead of its business model as the San Francsico based company are slowly (really  slowly) realizing that its users value its apps and tools more than tweets as most users would love an edit button (which twitter is planning to add) but we’d love a spellchecker and would pay for it (Twitter, please buy Grammarly before Microsoft or google does). Twitter already has string of great apps and if they created a suite of apps and tools and charged to access them, Twitter’s valuation and share price skyrockets. In one move, Twitter secures not only new subscription business but a highly lucrative vertical. 

Twitter can become a software giant and acquiring Grammarly is how it starts

In sum, Twitter’s future is (or at least should be) less Facebook and Google and more Adobe and/or Atlassian and the quicker it realizes it the better. To Twitter’s Investors, if you see the social media giant make another ill-fated horizontal acquisition (R.I.P. Periscope and Vine) or worse tries to move down the funnel with an ecommerce acquisition (Amazon. Need we say more?), exit your position, fast. 

Please comment and share below 

If you want to connect with us, check out the links below:

Cash App: £TCRAK

Suscribe: https://thecarnagereport.substack.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKiM5iZhTyZItg8SYxVTMsQ

Follow us: https://twitter.com/TCRblogspot

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tcrac19/

(The Big Disrupt) Google: Why Publishers need to concerned with Google's recent moves

Being a publisher is probably the hottest seat in the digital ad ecosystem and it's about to get hotter as Google goes on the warpath against "bad ads" recently outing 1,000 publishers, Forbes Magazine among them, about the quality of ads on their sites.  

Google weren't exactly resting on their laurels last year as the search ad giant went to town on "bad ads" with the Mountain View based company throwing out 1.7 billion ads out of its network. Google also kicked out 200 publishers out of their network suspected of providing "fake news".  

While it's great that Google taking a much tougher stance against the bad ads we hate the most such as pop ups and interstitial ads, the clear losers in this play are publishers who now may be publicly shamed, receive stern warnings via email or outright blocked out of Google's ad network if their ads don't meet standards Google themselves played a role in creating. 

Add to that, with Google planning to release their own ad blocking app in the near future, publishers may find themselves further under the grip of its "partners". This is also bad news for Ad blockers as publishers will almost certainly choose to follow Google's guidelines than pay ad blockers whitelist their ads who neither the reach or ecosystem Google has. What's more is that ad blockers are just as dependent as publishers on Google's ecosystem. When Google releases their new ad blocker, ad blockers are going to see a sharp downturn in users and revenue as Google will almost certainly use chrome, the world largest browser by market share to shut out its competition.  

The relationship between Google and publishers is complex yet remarkably one sided. let's remember that Publishers don't do business with Google because they want to, they do business with google to earn revenue they already lost in the open market. with Google and Facebook vacuuming most the growth in the digital ad marketplace, publishers have no choice but to deal with these companies or die a slow death. The downside of this scenario is obvious as publishers are increasingly relying on their competition for revenue which in turn gives Google and Facebook a lot of power, power neither is shy about exercising.      

Publishers are more than aware that Google's tougher stance will affect them more than most as publishers lose revenue as Google continue to purge ads on their platform in the name of better ads which will have the effect driving up ad rates due to less ad inventory which makes Google's drive to clean up its ecosystem look as cynical a power play as it gets. The effect of Google's recent changes has seen publishers report large drops in their CPC (cost per click) per ad rates since Google trialled their ad blocker last week. While publishers may see their CPC numbers return to normal in the next few days or weeks, it speaks to the lengths Google are willing to go to bring publishers to heel. 

In sum, what we're really seeing here isn't Google taking steps to deal with one of the biggest problem in the digital ad ecosystem but an expression of just how much power they have over it as they now can determine what constitutes a good ad and, by proxy, the inventory they display. What all this means is that Google is tightening its grip and publishers would do well not crumble in its grasp.