Pope Rules Twitter, But Will the Social Network Survive?

Last updated on: May 1, 2015 at 8:16 am by Kate O'Hare

Pope Rules Twitter, But Will the Social Network Survive? 2015-05-01T08:16:35-08:00 Kate O'Hare

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Since its launch in 2006, the social network Twitter has become a nearly indispensable part of the modern media landscape. Its simple notion of sharing 140-character messages has remained constant, but the influence of those little missives couldn’t have been predicted.

It’s become far more than a communication tool for ordinary users. It’s made and toppled careers; become a primary news source; set off firestorms of controversy; and chronicled events of all kinds, from births and deaths to the Oscars to revolutions.

It’s also offered an unprecedented platform for the New Evangelization.

A new study, cited in a story by Breitbart News, claims that Pope Francis whose @Pontifex account was launched by his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

PR firm Burson-Marsteller released its annual Twiplomacy report of Twitter accounts on Tuesday. The study analyzed the Twitter feeds of 669 leaders and heads of state from 166 different countries and declared Pope Francis to be the most influential of the bunch. Each of his tweets is retweeted an average of 9,929 times, or eight times more than the next runner-up: President Obama.

“Pope Francis @Pontifex is by far the most influential tweep with 9,929 retweets for every tweet he sends on his Spanish account and 7,527 retweets on average on his English account,” the Twiplomacy study announced.

But Twitter is in trouble. Two days ago, revenue figures for the First Quarter leaked, coming in about $20M short of projections, causing the stock to fall 18 percent in the final hours of trading on Tuesday.

In an irony, the leak came on Twitter itself, from financial-intelligence firm Selerity, Corp., with the numbers later confirmed by Twitter itself.

Twitter’s chief problem is one that’s all-too-common across new media — just because you create something that millions love and use doesn’t mean you can make enough money from it to pay the bills plus make a profit to keep investors happy.

One reason Twitter has become nearly ubiquitous is that signing up for it is free, and there’s no charge to use it — and that goes for all the news services, blogs and companies that mine it constantly for material and marketing information.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter hasn’t quite been able to make the ad-supported model work; and it’s not growing its users as fast as it would like, particularly on mobile platforms.

As outlined in a comprehensive piece today at Slate, Twitter is trying to rethink its revenue possibilities, but the outlook isn’t promising. Says author David Auerbach, a New-York-based software engineer:

Twitter will continue to rely on the immediacy, breadth, and prestige of its users to draw an audience, but this depends on the company’s ability to retain high-quality, high-profile users. As long as Twitter remains the Web’s default bulletin board for up-to-the-minute news, Twitter’s content will be irreplaceable, but if something better comes along (and it always does), an exodus of users will immediately damage it. The medium matters: YouTube’s videos are far “stickier” and long-living than 140-character tweets. Twitter discourse is evanescent, and the close relevance horizon will make it very easy for communities to pack up shop and move elsewhere, leaving little behind.

Twitter has recently partnered with the equally ubiquitous Google to increase ad revenue. CNBC investment commentator Jim Cramer has a solution of his own to the problem, for both Google and Twitter:

From a piece yesterday at CNBC.com:

Google should buy its partner Twitter. This is a logical sale in Cramer’s perspective, given the disastrous management team at Twitter that can’t seem to figure out how to monetize its own product.

The second step is for Google to buy the rights to every major sporting event that happens. Then it should stream those events on YouTube with instant commentary coming from Twitter. That will accommodate the lack of any social component missing on Google. Then it should charge a licensing fee to companies with employees who tweet and create some vicious commercial revenues.

Voila! Twitter and Google, theoretically two birds taken care of with one stone.

Especially for media types, the notion of a world without Twitter is nearly unimaginable. Whatever happens around the globe, many people see it first — and follow it moment by moment — on Twitter.

Time and time again, new-media companies set forth, held up by cash from investors, but with no clear idea exactly how they’re going to make money from their cool ideas.

As always, the answer lies in the Scriptures, in this case, Luke 4:28-30:

28Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?

29Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him

30and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’

Image: Banner of @Pontifex, on Twitter

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