Social network, Twitter, has struggled to reinvent itself over the years. In February, the company announced quarterly user numbers that showed no growth, giving rise to fears that the platform has peaked. The company has taken some strange decisions over the years, such as deliberately obstructing developers building Twitter client applications only to reverse this a few years later. More recently, the company has changed how the Twitter stream works as more and more people use the service in a different way. In 2016, we find businesses using Twitter as a near-real time help and support service; users can provide feedback, ask questions and ask for help with particular issues via the Twitter account. Many businesses now have dedicated Twitter support accounts as well as the normal company account. In conjunction with the new ways people are using Twitter, the company is selling space in peoples’ timelines for advertisements.
Another area where Twitter has branched into, but is encountering competition, is video and live video streams. As networking technologies improve and get quicker, so more and more customers are wanting to access video on the go, either to view or broadcast. In January 2015, Twitter bought Periscope, a live streaming video service designed to broadcast the world from one users’ camera. Periscope is in part responsible for disrupting the traditional broadcasting market, as although the terms of use forbit a user from distributing copyrighter content (and can result in the suspension or banning of the offending account) it has proven difficult to police. The ease at which an event can be broadcast has led organisations to take legal action against Periscope in the form of takedown notices, whereas other businesses have reached agreements with the social video network to allow events to be broadcast.
In 2009, Twitter was blocked in China, but this has not stopped the business from selling the advertising space to Chinese companies. To this end, Twitter have announced the appointment of Kathy Chen as the Greater China Managing Director. Twitter’s Chief Executive, Jack Dorsey, welcomed Kathy to the Twitter family on Thursday. Kathy explained that her plans for Twitter in the China region include creating more value “for Chinese enterprises, creators, partners and developers.” She goes on to explain that she has many ways to connect Greater China with the rest of the world including posting a video in her Twitter stream.