Twitter s shareholders didn t only have questions, but also a few pointers for the social media company on Wednesday.
Hours before Twitter executives answered questions at its annual shareholders meeting, Twitter investor Chris Sacca from Lowercase Capital posted a 8,500-word essay outlining what is working and not working for the tech firm.
Twitter is hard to use, lonely and scary with some users feeling obligated to post on the microblogging site while struggling to figure out what to say. At the same time, the company has failed to attract new users, certain advertising dollars have fallen short and Wall Street s confidence in Twitter is down, he wrote.
It s hard to blame Wall Street or the press. Twitter has failed to tell its own story, Sacca wrote.
In April, the company released lower-than-expected earnings from January to March, sending its stock plummeting by about 18 percent and putting Twitter CEO Dick Costolo back in the hot seat.
Sacca offered plenty of tips to improve the microblogging service such as separating tweets into different topics, location and popularity in a different tab or app, introducing a button to save tweets and offering suggestions to users about what to tweet about.
Hours later, shareholders including the Rev. Jesse Jackson came to an annual meeting with some questions for Twitter executives. One shareholder also came with his wish list, pointing out that there were still editors, analysts and even a PayPal founder on the site that haven t had their accounts verified.
Of course, we always welcome ideas about the product. People write us about them. They post about them on blogs and call us about them…, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said during the meeting. We prioritize those against the list of other stuff that we need to do.
Twitter executives also answered a few questions, touching on different topics including diversity, the environment, data and more.
Diversity: Jackson kicked off the question and answer part of the shareholders meeting, noting that in Silicon Valley there aren t enough blacks or Latinos in the board rooms, senior management roles and in the workforce. It s time to think big, he told Twitter. Costolo gave a rundown of what the company has done to make their workforce more diverse including recruiting from historically black colleges, helping girls learn how to code, expanding their engineering internships to younger students and analyzing salary and promotion data within the firm. Twitter also plans to release the company s diversity data this year, he said.
Acquisitions: Referencing the closing of Radio Shack, a shareholder from North Carolina mentioned that technology is so fast-paced that you can be run over while you re going to the bathroom. So what has Twitter been doing to stay competitive? Costolo said that the company has been aggressive in pursuing companies that are developing exciting new products, which included the live-streaming app Periscope. They wanted to remain independent and we made a very aggressive successful offer to acquire the company because we felt it was going to literally change the future of communication and broadcasting, he said.
Environment and political spending: Vijaya Gadde, Twitter s general counsel, said that the company looks for ways to make their data centers more energy efficient and is looking at releasing a sustainability report. Responding to a question about if Twitter spends money on lobbying politicians, she replied that the company has one registered lobbyist in Washington D.C. and a political action committee.
Data: Twitter has a lot of data so it works with the Library of Congress and universities, allowing them to access the information for free to conduct research, Costolo said. For example, one college is looking at if they can identify the spread of flu epidemic based on what people are saying on Twitter.
Photo Credit: Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group
