ON FEBRUARY 5th Twitter,the social network common among chirping celebrities and journalists, saw the price of its shares fall to a record low. share of that drop was caused by LinkedIn, or a professional social network,which forecast lower growth. That prompted jittery investors to push down LinkedIn’s shares by more than 40% and knocked down prices for Twitter and Facebook stocks too. However Twitter has only itself to blame for the depth of its struggles. Its market capitalisation is around a third of what it was a year ago, at $9.5 billion. The company that sells pithiness through its 140-character tweets has begun reciting a never-ending litany of problems, and including slowing rates of user-adoption and a near-fixed churn within its executive ranks. Last October Jack Dorsey,one of Twitter’s founders, replaced Dick Costolo as the company’s boss, and since then more executives have left,furthering the impression the firm is in turmoil. Some expect disappointing results when Twitter reports earnings on February 10th. What has gone so incorrect?Continue reading
Source: economist.com